HBO Go finally comes to Android tablets

(Credit: HBO)

HBO has updated its streaming-video application to support a wide range of Android-basedtablets.

The update, which landed in the Google Play marketplace yesterday, now allows HBO customers to stream the company's programming on tablets running Android versions up to 4.04 (Ice Cream Sandwich). In addition, HBO Go's latest version includes some new performance enhancements and bug fixes.

A report cropped up in May that HBO would update its streaming application to work with tablets. At that time, the company allowed Android-based smartphone users to access the program, but tablet owners were out of luck. Last month, HBO Go made its way to Amazon's Kindle Fire, seeming to indicate that further support was on its way.

The latest HBO Go version is available now to Android tablet owners. The app is available for free.

(courtesy:cnet.com)

Steve Jobs Lost Interview up for rental on iTunes

(Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)

Those of you eager to watch "Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview" can now rent it via iTunes for $3.99.

The 70-minute Q&A with Jobs was conducted by Robert Cringely for his 1996 PBS documentary "Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires." Only ten minutes of the original conversation were used for the documentary. But Cringely was able to able to get the rest of it from director Paul Sen, who had made a VHS copy of it that he kept in his garage.

"Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview" made its debut across Landmark theatres last November but seems to have remained under wraps since then, at least until now.

Cringely spoke with Jobs just after he was kicked out of Apple and trying to run NeXT Computer and Pixar, obviously a difficult and challenging time in his life. So the typical Jobsian humor and crabbiness are apparently on display.

As such, Cringely commented about the documentary's move to iTunes but said that Apple isn't promoting it as the company reportedly sees it as too controversial.

"My little film about Steve Jobs has finally made it to iTunes (YouTube as well!) as a $3.99 rental, but you wouldn't know it," wrote Cringely on his blog site. "Deeming the film 'too controversial,' Apple has it on the site but they aren't promoting it and won't. The topic is 'too sensitive,' you see. It isn't even listed in the iTunes new releases. You have to search for it. But it's there."

Cringely insists that there's nothing "controversial"or "insensitive" about the interview, calling it "a different look at an interesting guy." He also believes Apple's attitude about the film says more about the company than about the documentary itself.

"This is the most valuable company on earth and when you get that big all news you don't absolutely control [what] is assumed to be bad news," he added. Even Jobs' widow, Laurene Jobs, has a Blu-ray copy of the film sent to her by Cringely at the request of one of her friends.

Apple may not be promoting the film. But those of you curious about all the alleged controversy can now pony up the $3.99 to see for yourself.

(courtesy:cnet.com)

Eastern US storm hobbles Netflix and Instagram

Netflix, Instagram and Pinterest are using Twitter and Facebook to update subscribers after violent storms across the eastern U.S. caused server outages for hours.

Netflix and Pinterest restored service by Saturday afternoon.

Instagram used its Facebook fan page to communicate with users of its photo-sharing service. It posted a message on Saturday morning that blamed the electrical storm for the outage and explained that its engineers were working to restore service.

Still, many Instagram's users were searching for answers. "Instagram" was the top search term onGoogle on Saturday, according to Google Trends.

Netflix, Pinterest and Instagram are customers of Amazon Inc.'s web services division. The unit provides web services and data storage facilities that are commonly used for "cloud computing".

Amazon spokeswoman Kay Kinton told The Associated Press in an email that the storm cut power to some of company's operations. Service has been restored for most customers, Kinton said.

Netflix, a video streaming service, said on Twitter that subscribers should reconnect if they still experienced problems.

The online scrapbook service Pinterest says employees are working to fix remaining issues that may affect performance.

The Friday evening storms knocked out power for millions of people.

(courtesy:news.yahoo.com)

Microsoft's liaison with PC makers leaves position

Steven Guggenheimer earlier this month at the launch of Vizio's first-ever line of personal computer products.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

The man who oversees Microsoft's relationship with makers of Windows PCs is leaving that position, Bloomberg reports.

Steven Guggenheimer, who led Microsoft's Original Equipment Manufacturer unit for four years, will take a sabbatical before heading back to the company to assume a new, unspecified role. He'll be replaced as OEM head by Nick Parker, hitherto the head of marketing for the OEM unit, Bloomberg reported.

The move comes as Microsoft has been ruffling the feathers of some PC makers with its plans to release its own Windows-based tablet, the Surface. But, according to Bloomberg, Microsoft says the Guggenheimer change had been in the works for a while.

"As a result of long term planning, Steven Guggenheimer will move on from his current role as CVP of the OEM Division effective July 1, to coincide with the start of Microsoft's fiscal year," Bloomberg quotes a Microsoft rep as saying in a statement. "He is taking on a new senior leadership role at the company, and further details will be provided when finalized."

(courtesy:cnet.com)

ITC delays ruling on U.S. ban of Xbox

It looks like the Xbox won't be banned from the U.S. just yet.

The U.S. International Trade Commission is putting off a ruling on whether sales of the gaming console should be prohibited in the states owing to infringement of patents held by Google and its Motorola Mobility unit, Reuters reports.

In late May, an ITC judge recommended the ban, based on his ruling that the Xbox infringes patents regarding wireless Net connectivity, video compression, and other technologies. The ITC had been expected to release a decision on the proposed ban in August but has instead sent the case back to the judge for reconsideration.

Microsoft has argued that the patents in question are standard-essential -- or so called frand -- patents and that the company therefore has a right to the technology they cover as long as it pays licensing fees. Frand patents cover technologies an industry has agreed to accept as standards, provided the patent holders in turn agree to license them at reasonable rates.

Following the recommendation of the Xbox ban, the Federal Trade Commission wrote a letter to the ITC saying such a ban could cause "substantial harm" to consumers, competition, and innovation, and that companies should be limited in their ability to block competitors' imports based on frand patents.

Yesterday, news emerged that the FTC had launched an investigation into whether Google and its Motorola Mobility unit have been playing by the frand rules. And in April, the European Commission opened a similar investigation of Motorola.

Reuters reports that the ITC judge's reconsideration of the Xbox case will probably take months.

Related lawsuits against Microsoft by Motorola in federal courts in Wisconsin and Florida are stayed pending an ITC decision, Reuters noted.

(courtesy:cnet.com)

Facebook e-mail mess: Address books altered; e-mail lost

An alarming number of people are reporting that the new e-mail address Facebook forced on users this week is changing their address books while intercepting and losing unknown amounts of e-mail.

Facebook users say contacts' e-mail addresses on phones and personal devices have been altered without their consent -- and their e-mail communication is being redirected elsewhere, and lost.

One very angry user is Adobe employee Rachel Luxemburg.

On her personal blog she writes,

 Today, a co-worker discovered that his contact info for me had been silently updated to overwrite my work e-mail address with my Facebook e-mail address. He discovered this only after sending work e-mails to the wrong address.

And even worse, the e-mails are not actually in my Facebook messages. I checked.

They've vanished into the ether.

For all I know, I could be missing a lot more e-mails from friends, colleagues, or family members, and never even know it.

As Luxemburg explains, this disaster is happening despite the fact that, like many others, she rushed to replace the @Facebook e-mail with their correct e-mail address once they'd found out about Facebook's change.

When Facebook forced its hundreds of millions of users into an @facebook account, commenters across the Internet talked about alterations that had begun in their contacts and address books outside Facebook -- valid e-mail addresses were being changed for @Facebook without people's awareness or consent on their phones and computers.








(courtesy:cnet.com)

Startup courts Millennials with social, crowdsourced news site

An image from the Instagram gallery on #waywire's Facebook page. Way Millennial.

A startup with seed money from the likes of Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, Lady Gaga manager Troy Carter, and Oprah Winfrey hopes to create a successful mashup of a professional and crowdsourced news network, a social-media site like Twitter, and a video hub like YouTube.

"There are practical solutions to [create] more jobs, lower crime, [provide] better education," #waywire co-founder and Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker told TechCrunch. "If more people could find their voice and be part of the national dialogue, we could solve these problems."

#waywire, which plans to officially announce its $1.75 million of seed funding Monday, will feature original, issues-focused video segments, including, on launch, a three-times-a-day newscast of no longer than 5 minutes, Variety reports. That content will be augmented by videotaped responses shot and posted by the site's readers.

The idea is to get Millennials involved in public affairs through the participatory digital outlets they've grown up with and provide an alternative to old-school presentation of news.

An image from #waywire's Profile Pictures gallery on Facebook.

Booker told Fast Company that Millennials "want to see news and information coming...from trusted news sources" but they also want to see "opinions, ideas, and values that other people have about" those news stories.

Booker is the tech savvy mayor who made some entertainment news headlines a couple of years back for publicly chastising Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, a proudly over-the-top cast member of MTV's "Jersey Shore" reality show, when she posted to Twitter that she was stuck in Newark traffic. Booker replied to "Snooki" in another public tweet and asked where in town she was so that he could have her ticketed for texting while driving, citing the city's need for revenue.

Booker also apparently made a strong impression on Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, who donated $100 million to the public school system in Newark.

In addition to posting their own video responses, #waywire users will be able to share #waywire content and responses on their social networks, and there will be a badge and reward system that lets people become part of a team of curators that decide what content gets highlighted on the site, TechCrunch reports.

#waywire's other founders, according to All Things Digital, are Nathan Richardson (also the CEO), who's been president of Gilt City, CEO of ContextNext Media, head of Dow Jones online, and general manager of Yahoo Finance; and Sarah Ross, from Katalyst Media, TechCrunch, and Yahoo.

#waywire plans to launch a beta version of its site later this summer, and is presently accepting members for the current private beta. Variety reports that the site will launch without ads but that advertising will play a role once the site pulls in enough users. The trade paper also said the newsroom is in a temporary space in Manhattan, with fewer than 10 employees at the moment, and that #waywire wouldn't say how large a staff it plans to have down the road.

Here's a promotional video for #waywire, which gives an idea of the audience it's going after:

(courtesy:cnet.com)