Crowdsourced music videos of live performances are becoming more and more popular as concert-goers increasingly record shows with their smartphones or cameras. One Neil Young fan named Tom Adams went so far as to piece together multiple recordings of the same performance captured from different angles by other fans in attendance. On top of the video, he added a single audio recording of the concert to create one cohesive video. Continue reading Music Fans Recording Live Performances: Harmless or Illegal?

What if every radio station was searchable and you could look up a song you wanted to listen to, pick one of the stations it was currently playing on, and listen? Radio Search Engine, a new venture by entrepreneur Michael Robertson, allows just that. The site indexes around 40,000 radio stations in real-time and allows users to tune in from the Web. Currently in beta mode, Radio Search Engine essentially turns thousands of radio stations into a searchable music jukebox. Continue reading New Search Engine Gets Its Streaming Music from Live Radio

BitTorrent’s new file-syncing technology, BitTorrent Sync, can synchronize files between computers and mobile devices without copying data to a cloud server. The company is hoping that, in light of the National Security Agency’s controversial harvesting of information stored in data centers, people will be attracted to the new technology. The only way the NSA could gather this data would be by going directly to the source where the information is stored. Continue reading BitTorrent Sync Transfers Data Without Help From the Cloud

Video processing company Folded Space announced its deep color content encoding (DCE) and decoding algorithms, which are now available for new HD and Ultra HD displays. The algorithms allow these newest displays to show off more vibrant colors captured by HDR cameras. DCE is a much more efficient process than other similar methods that use a lot of bandwidth, and Folded Space intends to license the encoding algorithm to software partners. Continue reading Folded Space Unveils Deep Color Content Encoding for UHD

During a talk at the Variety Studio at the Sundance Film Festival, director/producer/actor Mark Duplass offered some straightforward advice to peers and young filmmakers navigating the world of distribution. He stressed the importance of making films available on Netflix, saying the release of his first movie on the streaming media service “made his career.” Duplass, who has debuted nearly 10 films at Sundance, was there to premiere his new project, “The One I Love.” Continue reading Mark Duplass Offers Advice to New Filmmakers: Get on Netflix

Following a 3 percent drop in market value, Verizon has hinted at plans to get competitive in pricing, which customers will likely appreciate, but investors might not. The telco lost about $4 billion of its value, and some say it’s directly related to the competition among telcos to be the most aggressively priced. T-Mobile has been most notably aggressive in its pricing strategies, attracting new customers and possibly forcing Verizon to lower its fees as well. Continue reading Verizon Will Likely Respond to T-Mobile’s Aggressive Prices

Around 1,000 new domain names are about to be added to the Internet, and as a result, on February 4th, anyone will be able to scoop up new Web addresses using these domains. The common standard domain names are the .com, .org and .net suffixes. But the number of generic top-level domain names (or gTLDs) will soon expand to include names like .coffee, .soy, .dot and .lol, among many others. This major shift could resemble the online real estate market of the dot-com boom era. Continue reading New Domain Names: Get Ready for the Dot-Everything Boom

A number of companies are making moves toward launching Internet TV services that would be available on any mobile device and allow for easier navigation and recording in the cloud, among other features. Sony claims to be close to testing a cloud-based TV service, while Verizon has purchased an Internet TV service developed by Intel. Meanwhile, Amazon is said to be working on a set-top box for delivering streaming video, and Apple is approaching content companies to pitch its own solution. Continue reading Some Companies Moving Toward Offering Internet TV Services

As Netflix and similar online streaming services gain in popularity, premium channels like HBO and Showtime are seeing a decline in paying viewers. A new report from researcher NPD Group reveals that the number of household subscribers to pay TV channels has dropped by 6 percent over the past two years, while streaming subscription services have increased by 4 percent. Many see this change as part of the migration from the expensive bundled options of cable. Continue reading Are Premium Channels Losing Customers to Streaming Sites?

Amazon has acquired a patent for what it calls “anticipatory shipping,” a method the company may use to deliver packages to customers before they’ve even purchased the products. The idea is to predict which products customers want or need and eliminate the usual wait time that occurs between hitting “buy” online and receiving the package in person. The other possible effect of anticipatory shipping, if put into place, is that it might discourage consumers from going to brick-and-mortar stores. Continue reading Amazon Intends to Read Your Mind with Anticipatory Shipping

President Barack Obama spoke about the National Security Agency last week at the Department of Justice in Washington. The President touched on allowing technology companies to disclose information to the public about the kinds of data the government requests from them. However, he did not address issues such as secret government taps on data centers located overseas and encryption standards, two issues of particular interest to technology and phone companies. Continue reading Tech Companies Hopeful for Change in NSA Disclosure Policy

Satoru Iwata, president of Nintendo, says the company is experiencing its biggest loss in revenue in the last 12 years. The forecasted annual loss of 25 billion yen (or $240 million) was a surprise, and the video game manufacturer is considering a new business model because of the low demand for its Wii U. Nintendo’s previous estimation of profit was closer to 55 billion yen. But the altered forecast for Wii U sales was cut from 9 million to 2.8 million units. Continue reading Nintendo Exec Predicts Significant Loss as Wii Sales Struggle

We saw a number of compelling wearable solutions at CES this month. Now Google has a new project in the health realm of wearables, a smart contact lens for diabetics to help monitor their glucose levels. The lens measures those levels with tears, using a tiny wireless chip and glucose sensor embedded in the lens. Prototypes can generate readings every second, and Google is even looking into inserting LED lights that could alert contact lens wearers to glucose levels that are either too high or too low. Continue reading Google Working on Contact Lens to Monitor Glucose Levels

Of the 140-plus films in this year’s Sundance Film Festival, 26 of them were crowdfunded through Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Zach Braff’s “Wish I Was Here” was one such film, which raised funds from more than 47,000 fans to make up part of its $5 million budget. Some question what kind of impact crowdsourcing might have on sales and distribution, but many filmmakers insist it’s a great way to raise awareness and interest in their productions. Continue reading Increasing Number of Sundance Films are Being Crowdfunded

Sprint, the third largest carrier in the U.S., may take over its smaller rival, T-Mobile. Sprint has received proposals from at least two banks on how to finance the acquisition. T-Mobile’s market value is reportedly around $26 billion, but the deal would likely cost $50 billion total, with approximately $20 billion going toward paying off T-Mobile’s debt. The potential takeover comes at a little more than a year from an expected government auction of wireless airwaves. Continue reading Sprint Could Acquire T-Mobile to Better Compete with Rivals