Netflix CEO Reed Hastings lashed out against cable provider Comcast via his Facebook page on Sunday. The subject: Net neutrality and data caps.
Hastings accused Comcast of offering preferential treatment to its own content with its Xbox 360 Xfinity app.
“As he explained on his Facebook page, his complaint is that when Comcast subscribers watch Netflix, Hulu, or HBO Go on their Xbox consoles, it counts against their monthly data limits,” reports CNET. “However, subscribers who use Xfinity don’t have their limits dinged, suggesting that Comcast is giving its service preferential treatment to keep subscribers on the service rather than straying over to Netflix.”
Hastings claims that Comcast’s policy of exempting the app from data caps while enforcing the policy for rival providers violates the spirit of Net neutrality.
“Comcast no longer following Net neutrality principles. Comcast should apply caps equally, or not at all,” he wrote via Facebook. “The same device, the same IP address, the same Wi-Fi, the same Internet connection, but totally different cap treatment. In what way is this neutral?”
In the two years it’s been up and running, streaming music service Spotify has accumulated $96 million in losses. However, CEO and founder Daniel Ek says the company is focusing on sales to turn that around.
“We know we are making money on each new user we get, whether it’s a free user or paying. Therefore, all user growth [is] positive for us,” Ek said, adding that he expects to see $800 million in revenue this year.
The big hits for the company came in expanding its reach to new markets, which requires extensive capital investment in local music rights.
Although Ek said the company is now in a position to operate without additional capital, Spotify could be accepting investments amounting to $4 billion.
“We utilize the principle that if an investor can add strategic value and the valuation is good, we are interested,” he said.
After a failed attempt with Facebook Deals, the social network is planning to take another stab at the social shopping market, which is currently dominated by Groupon and Livingsocial.
Through Facebook Offers, local businesses will be able to reach out to their customers by providing freebies and promotions directly in their news feed.
“The offers are free to create, though Facebook says that each will only reach a limited number of people. This is obviously a way for the social network to maintain interest in its regular ads, though it’s an interesting strategy that could see more smaller businesses investing in wider advertising campaigns,” The Verge reports.
The service is not yet available on a wide scale. “Facebook rolled out Offers in beta to a handful of clients in the U.S. after announcing it at fMC in February,” announced the social network. “Facebook is continuing to roll out the beta to a limited amount of businesses in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Turkey, but it’s not a global roll out. It’s not yet available to additional U.S. businesses.”
BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield offers some speculation on Apple’s rumored TV offering, suggesting the tech giant should not aim to completely reinvent television, but instead work with DirecTV or DISH to launch a product with access to live TV feeds.
“Apple’s only solution to the problem would be to either take an existing service and completely reinvent its UI, or create a whole new offering to compete with Comcast & Co,” GigaOM reports.
Steve Jobs had reportedly approached networks to discuss a-la-carte type programing, but the networks turned him down in fear of losing their lucrative deals by unbundling.
“The company could try again, Greenfield argues, but this time offer to carry the whole bundle — and even charge customers more, not less, if it succeeded at making the bundle look sexier. Think integrating an iCloud DVR, piping live TV to your iPad, and so forth,” the article states.
Greenfield suggests partnering with DirecTV or DISH to take advantage of their national reach, and “once those guys rake in the big money, the cable boys will come to their senses and eagerly partner with Apple as well,” the article suggests.
D-Link has launched its new $48 MovieNite video streaming player. The streaming-only player is designed for aspiring cord-cutters, as an affordable alternative to Roku set-top boxes.
MovieNite is being offered exclusively through Walmart with a $5.99 free movie credit from VUDU.
The player features 1080p video and access to services including VUDU, Netflix, Pandora and YouTube. D-Link has also released iPhone and Android apps for controlling the player.
“The closest match to video playback specs in Roku’s lineup of products is the $79.99 Roku 2 XD, but Roku players offer access to wider variety of services such as Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, HBO GO and several sports subscriptions packages,” reports Digital Trends.
Since Walmart owns VUDU, it seems unlikely that the player will expand its offerings to include competitors such as Amazon Instant Video.
“If the user also owns mydlink-enabled network cameras, the feeds from those cameras can be viewed through the MovieNite player as well,” adds the post. “For instance, a user could pause a movie playing on Netflix to launch the mydlink application and view an outdoor camera feed when someone knocks on the front door.”
At its pre-NAB event, Sony showed its NEX-FS700 cinema camera, a new 2K camera capable of shooting 4K with a firmware upgrade expected to ship sometime this year.
The 4K-ready camera comes with a Sony E-mount for interchangeable lenses and can record at 960fps.
“There’s also a trio of ND filters on board — 1/64ND, 1/16ND and 1/4ND — along with some impressive slow-motion capabilities, ranging from 120 to 240 frames-per-second in 1080p, going all the way up to 960fps if you’re willing to sacrifice full-HD resolution,” reports Engadget.
“The body itself looks very similar to its predecessor, the NEX-FS100, and is lightweight enough for comfortable handheld shooting,” according to the post.
The NEX-FS700 will be available in June and cost under $10,000.
The report includes a 1-minute video from Las Vegas with Sony senior VP Alec Shapiro.
At Canon’s pre-NAB event in Las Vegas, the company debuted its first EOS camera developed primarily as a video camera rather than a still camera that also shoots video.
The camera will shoot 4096 x 2160 24fps Motion JPEG. Recording modes include 8-bit, 4:2:2, 24fps capture to a CF card — or 8-bit, 4:2:2 clips in an uncompressed format over HDMI. It also includes a headphone jack for audio monitoring.
“Like the 1D series bodies that bear similar monikers and appearances, including the yet-to-ship EOS- 1D X, the C model is a very capable still shooter, offering the same core functionality of the $6,800 X. It also brings 4K capture to the table, however, prompting Canon to price the camera far above its less-abled counterpart,” reports Engadget.
“At $15,000, we don’t expect to see red C logos popping up in many a photojournalist’s gear bag, but for deep-pocketed professionals with a need to capture 4K clips, this may be a worthwhile acquisition,” suggests the report.
Dolby and Philips are proposing a new 3D HD format dubbed “Dolby 3D,” which will be demoed this week at NAB in Las Vegas.
The format is “aimed at delivering full HD 3D content to enabled devices, including glasses-free displays,” writes Carolyn Giardina for The Hollywood Reporter.
“We believe that Dolby 3D can help drive the adoption of 3D — creating a comfortable, customizable, truly enjoyable glasses-free 3D viewing experience while enhancing 3D display performance,” said Dolby’s Ramzi Haidamus, executive vice president, sales and marketing.
“The Dolby 3D format would effectively be used for encoding/decoding, transmission and rendering to 3D-ready displays and mobile devices. Dolby and Philips have started to engage standards bodies and have an eye toward licensing the technology,” writes Giardina.
Upgrading from the bulky head-up display (HUD) equipment currently used by the U.S. military, the Pentagon has ordered contact lenses that provide an augmented reality display system with expanded field of vision.
“The system, called iOptik and developed by Innovega, allows the wearer to focus on a HUD at the same time as the surrounding environment by projecting an image onto different sections of the lens,” reports The Verge. “HUD information goes through to the center of the pupil, and light from the wearer’s peripheral vision is filtered out to avoid interference.”
Innovega CEO Steve Willey said eventually the lenses could be used for consumer applications like 3D movies, gaming or augmented reality like Google’s recently-released Project Glass.
The post features a 3-minute video interview with Innovega CTO Randall Sprague.
Last week, ETCentric reported that the U.S. Department of Justice was pursuing Apple and five publishers on charges of e-book price fixing.
Apple is denying any wrong-doing, as are three of the publishers.
“Apple says that it did not collude to fix the price of e-books — it simply helped break Amazon’s ‘monopolistic’ stranglehold on the publishing industry, while also offering a superior product to consumers,” reports Digital Trends.
Publishers Macmillan and Penguin are opting to fight the suit in court, while the remaining three (Hachette, HarperCollins, and Simon & Schuster) have agreed to settle out of court.
“The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true,” said Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr. “The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from e-books that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.”
“It’s worth noting that Apple’s pricing policy with books and apps differs from the setup it has with the music industry,” adds AllThingsD in a related report. “In that relationship, Apple pays the music labels a wholesale price for their digital assets, and then sets the retail price itself.”
Magazine publishers — Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corporation and Time Inc. — have created a package deal of 27 magazines for your tablet that costs $10 a month.
The package includes popular publications such as Better Homes and Gardens, Condé Nast Traveler, Esquire, Fortune, Glamour, People, Real Simple, TIME, Vanity Fair, Coastal Living, Cooking Light and Southern Living.
For $5 more a month, or $180 a year in total, you can also get Entertainment Weekly, People, Sports Illustrated and The New Yorker. The number of magazines are expected to double or triple by year end.
The package app is available now only on Android 7- and 10-inch tablets that run 3.0 or 4.0 versions of Android. An iPad app is being submitted to Apple for review in a few weeks. Rather than to download and save all magazines, you can select up to 12 magazines to save.
Interestingly, the package is not cheap if you consider you could subscribe individually to the few magazines you really want for less. Moreover, the app does not include a global search feature, something you would expect to find, and the UI can vary by magazine which can be confusing. Still, it’s nice to have all the magazines you want in one place.
Canon will preview its EOS-1D C, a digital SLR camera with 4K support, at the NAB show in Las Vegas next week. The camera is priced at $15,000.
“The company is also developing new cameras for its Cinema EOS system — launched last November targeting motion picture production — including a 4K-capable Cinema EOS C500 for use with EF-mount lenses, and Cinema EOS C500 PL for use with PL-mount lenses,” Carolyn Giardina writes for The Hollywood Reporter.
“Currently expected to cost around $30,000, these Cinema EOS cameras would be capable of recording 4K resolution with 10-bit uncompressed ‘Raw’ output with no de-Bayering, according to Canon.”
“These Cinema EOS cameras will offer a new Super 35mm-equivalent approximately 8.85-megapixel CMOS sensor,” adds Giardina. “A prototype of the C500 camera will be at NAB.”
Canon will also unveil new prototype lenses for EF and PL mounts at the show.
According to Leichtman Research Group, 38 percent of U.S. households have at least one television set connected to the Internet via a game console, Blu-ray player, set-top box or other device.
Last year, 30 percent of households had Internet-connected TVs, while the figure was 24 percent two years ago.
Netflix subscribers represent more than one-third of that base, streaming videos through a connected device at least once a week, suggests the survey.
“Leichtman Research drilled down further into Netflix’s role in the media landscape. The firm found that half of Netflix subscribers are ‘satisfied’ with the online streaming service,” reports MediaPost. “There is some countervailing evidence that Netflix contributes to cord-cutting, as just 7 percent are ‘likely’ to switch from their multichannel provider in the next six months versus 12 percent of non-Netflix homes.”
For those interested in knowing more about what kind of information Facebook has stored about its users, the social network is expanding its Download Your Information service to include more than just photos, posts and messages.
Users choosing to download their information will also have access to stored IP addresses, previous names used, friend requests made and even more to come.
Facebook is rumored “to collect 84 different categories of information about you (85 if you count all those Instagram photos it just bought),” reports Engadget.
“In a posting on its privacy blog, Facebook said the expanded archive feature would be introduced gradually to its 845 million monthly active users. It goes beyond the first archive made available in 2010, which has been criticized as incomplete by privacy advocates and regulators in Europe,” explains The New York Times in a related article.
The RIAA, National Music Publishers Association and Digital Media Association have reached an agreement regarding royalty rates for digital music services and emerging media.
“Some of the new rates address music bundled with other goods, such as Internet-service plans, cellphones and vinyl records, which are sometimes sold with codes that allow downloading of MP3 versions of the music,” reports the Wall Street Journal.
The proposal would call for the creation of new guidelines for five new types of services, including online locker offerings such as Amazon’s Cloud Drive and Apple’s iTune Match.
Rates were previously established for three types of delivery: physical sales, digital downloads, and on-demand music services.
Expanding the number of categories “reflects our mission to make it easier for digital music services to launch cutting-edge business models and streamline the licensing process,” said Cary Sherman, who heads the RIAA.
