Hasta La Gadget!

Time Warner Cable and CBS have been negotiating over a retrans deal for quite some time, and after several extensions talks broke down tonight. TWC’s static replacement page for the networks even suggests Aereo as a replacement, an interesting endorsement considering the online service’s legal entanglements. According to a statement from Time Warner Cable, this means it’s dropping CBS in regions including New York City, Dallas and Los Angeles. Nationally, Time Warner Cable subscribers will do without Showtime, The Movie Channel, Flix and Smithsonian Channel. As CBS’ website helpfully points out, if it goes one this means subscribers will also miss college and pro football, MLB, PGA Tour and US Open events, shows like Under the Dome, CSI and more. Of course, Time Warner Cable’s site points to options like the CBS.com website. We’ll see who holds out, and for how long — check after the break for a list of affected channels and areas.

Update: According to Time Warner Cable, at the request of CBS it has stopped removing the channels, so if you’ve been seeing a replacement screen your programs may be back very soon. Both sides indicate negotiations are ongoing, we’ll let you know if there are any updates.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: KeepCBS.com, TWCConversations, CNBC (Twitter)

Many people have been cutting their cable thanks to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Instant Video, but the reason many people are still glued to their cable subscription is that live sports are hard to find on anything other than cable, but that may change slightly, as cable providers are looking into cutting sports from their lineup in order to provide lower monthly cable bills.

You may have experienced your cable bill rising ever so slightly recently, and it’s a running joke that our cable bills keep getting more and more expensive, but that actually has mostly to do with sports programming. The fees that cable operators pay to offer sports networks have risen a whopping 113% over the last 10 years or so.

In 2012, cable providers paid regional sports networks an average of $2.47 per subscriber to carry their channels as part of their digital basic programming, which is up from $1.12 in 2002. This means that you’re paying almost $2.50 every month for a sports channel that you may or may not be using (fees for ESPN and ESPN2 was a combined $5.71 in 2012), and the odds are, you aren’t watching sports.

TV ratings company Nielsen found that only a measely 4% of households watch sports on average, but in order to offer an attractive lineup of channels to consumers, cable providers are still having to pay these fees that are being passed along to the consumer. However, cable providers are considering cutting down on sports networks in order to offer lower monthly bills for customers. Both AT&T and DirecTV have already begun doing this.

However, this could spell bad news for sports fans, as the cheapest cable plan may no longer consist of favorite sports channels, leaving these people to upgrade to a higher-tier plan and pay more money to get the sports channel they want. Of course, we talked in the past about how great of an idea it would be to have an a la carte option for channels, but we don’t see that happening anytime soon, if ever.

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal

Cable companies may lower bills by getting rid of sports is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Microsoft has just announced a major deal that means Time Warner Cable subscribers with an Xbox Live Gold membership will be able to watch more than 300 live TV channels direct from their Xbox 360 this summer.

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Crying because your DVR’s hard drive can’t hold an entire season of Antiques Roadshow? If you’re a Comcast subscriber, there may be hope on the horizon. At The Cable Show in Washington, D.C., Comcast announced its next Xfinity-branded cloud solution: the X2 set-top box. Available later this year, the X2 will eschew hard drive saves in favor of storing recorded programs online. Additionally, both the forthcoming X2 and soon-to-be updated X1 are said to provide greater interface customization, smarter personalized recommendations, additional web content and enhanced multiplatform integration. If this news tickles your fancy, you can find more screenshots at the source link below or read the press release after the break.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: Comcast

When your smartphone is running out of power, you will be able to steal some power from your friend’s smartphone if you have JTT’s “Rescue cable for micro USB”.

Both ends of the cable have micro USB terminals. You can use it by setting the bigger side to a smartphone that will feed power and setting the smaller side to the other smartphone running out of power.

It’s also possible to use it between a smartphone and tablet.

Price: ¥980
Compatible with: Android OS 4.0 or later micro USB built-in device
Weight: Approx. 16g