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Samsung-acquired Boxee will shut down its Cloudee video sharing service, the company has confirmed to users, giving them until the end of the month to download any content remaining. Cloudee, which launched publicly in late 2012, was Boxee’s take on semi-private video sharing; however, GigaOm reports, Boxee now says the company can’t see a place […]

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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If you were wondering if Samsung actually did acquire Boxee in all its glory, wonder no more: confirmation is at hand. In a email note sent to the press this afternoon, Samsung has made it clear that they have indeed moved in on Boxee and will be bringing their technology and innovations in for their own connected device suite.

Here in a note from Samsung, the company lets it be known that they’ve “acquired key talent and assets from Boxee” and will be bringing them onboard asap. It’s not immediately clear what this means for the remaining Boxee software and hardware on the market today. Likely they’ll be supported through their remaining warantee-based lifetime then left for dead.

“Samsung has acquired key talent and assets from Boxee. This will help us continue to improve the overall user experience across our connected devices.” – Samsung

According to the Wall Street Journal, an inside source suggests that Samsung will be moving forward with Boxee’s cloud storage features specifically and will be aiming to improve the Boxee user interface and retrofit it to their own device lineup. Though Boxee has not yet left an official comment as such, we’re expecting confirmation from them as well – soon!

Boxee acquired by Samsung, confirmed and solid is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Though the acquisition rumors from half a month ago hadn’t turned up any solid announcements as such, today’s report has Samsung picking up the Web-TV organization Boxee in full. According to Israel-based The Marker, Samsung has picked up the digital video startup for a cool $30 million, complete with 40 workers in tow.

This acqisition would have Samsung continue to employ 40 workers from the group – and it’s not clear at the moment whether this represents the full set of employees from Boxee or not, mind you. Samsung is expected to use Boxee technology in their own future TV sets and set-top boxes while it appears that the Boxee Box itself may turn to dust.

Having originally been established as a software in 2007 with several rounds of investment leading up to a total of $28.5 million, creators Avner Ronen, Idan Cohen, Tom Rock, Roy Vulcan, and Gideon Kazin turned in 2010 to a bit of hardware called the Boxee Box in collaboration with the accessory and peripheral company D-Link.

Fast forward to 2012 and the Boxee dongle comes forth as Live TV, ringing in at $49 and bringing on web content in a tiny package. Boxee found itself the subject of scrutiny from cable groups and the company aimed for Cloud DVR services – now with not quite as solid a future ahead of them, it would seem that Samsung as picked a key moment to bring a pocketbook full of cash.

But remember – as with all tips and suggestions without comment from either company involved in an acquisition, we’ll need to wait for confirmation before we can say Samsung is bringing on Boxee’s next generation. Hang around and see what becomes of it!

VIA: Business Insider

Samsung tipped to acquire Boxee in their hour of need is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Israeli and NYC-based streaming media and entertainment startup Boxee has been acquired by South Korean electronics giant Samsung, we’ve been told by reliable sources. The Tel Aviv-based startup launched its latest hardware device late last, the Boxee Cloud DVR, which was rebranded from the Boxee TV to emphasize its focus on streaming over-the-air broadcast HD channels, and recording the content grabbed from those transmissions. Samsung is a maker of lots of connected devices, including smart TVs, so it’s a logical purchase for them in terms of extending the reach of their media ecosystem.

The purchase has been reported by a number of Israeli outlets, including The Marker as well as The Calcalist, and both have conflicting reports of the price for the deal. The Marker reports it at $30 million, which is just over its current funding total according to the most recent count. We’ve heard from a very good source with connections close to the company that the deal is indeed done, and they also say the price is around $30 million. Our own attempts to contact Boxee directly, including emails to CEO Avner Ronen, were met with responses that the company “couldn’t comment at this time.”

Reports of a purchase at or under $30 million are not good given Boxee’s hardware focus and current funding total of $26.5 million, but the deal apparently brings the entire Boxee team of around 45 people to work under Samsung’s roof. Still, Boxee had secured paying customers, but building a sustainable business based on streaming hardware after starting out as a provider of media center software may have been more resource intensive.

Right now, Boxee’s hardware is made by D-Link, which helped it launch both the first generation Boxee Box and now also the Cloud DVR. Presumably Samsung would want to refocus the team on its own hardware, but we’ve yet to hear any more details about plans for either existing or future Boxee products under the deal.

Boxee’s Cloud DVR originally debuted as the Boxee TV back in October as a $99 Walmart exclusive, and charged $10 per month for the DVR function, which was initially  limited to a few key markets at launch, with staged rollout continuing in 2013 and intended to blanket the most of the U.S. by end of year. The company has also since issues updates that bring new features including 3D content for the Vudu service and DLNA streaming, indicating a continued commitment to this generation of hardware. Its decision to drop software updates for the older Boxee Box, announced late last year, was met with disappointment from users however.

Should Boxee become an integrated part of Samsung TVs (which would certainly benefit from onboard, limitless cloud-based DVR storage), the fate of the standalone Boxee line would definitely be called into question in terms of ongoing support. Still, the potential in terms of what Boxee’s experience could provide Samsung in terms of not only built-in Smart TV capabilities, but also set-top devices that can stream media from its Android phones as well as provide cloud DVR functionality is exciting.

Update: Samsung has now also confirmed the acquisition to the New York Times, saying it has “acquired key talent and assets from Boxee” in a statement. Boxee has also now officially confirmed the acquisition to TechCrunch.