Hasta La Gadget!

By now you must have heard of Edward Snowden, the former CIA technical analyst who leaked a treasure trove of top secret documents detailing the various electronic spying programs of the National Security Agency. Documents named major U.S. internet companies like Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and Google, though all of them denied any involvement with the agency’s clandestine programs. Regardless of that, Snowden’s actions have brought the NSA’s secret operations to the limelight, and there are conflicting public opinions about that. A recent study from the Pew Research Center reveals that majority of the young Americans believe that Snowden has actually served public interest by leaking all of those documents.

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Young Americans Believe Edward Snowden Served Public Interest original content from Ubergizmo.

President Obama recently announced that there would changes made to the NSA. Some of these changes included the way data was collected, and also how they would stop spying on their allies, just to name a few. It sounded like a good compromise, but it seems that not everyone agrees or was satisfied with the changes that were made, and Microsoft is one of the companies that aren’t too happy about it, as outlined on their blog by their General Counsel & Executive Vice President of Legal & Corporate Affairs, Brad Smith.

According to Smith, he believes that more work needs to be done and stated that they will continue working with the current administration and Congress to make reforms that are consistent with their principles as outlined in December last year when the leaders of major tech companies met up with Obama to discuss the issues. “We appreciate the steps the President announced, which represent positive progress on key issues including privacy protections for non-U.S. citizens. There is more work to do to define some of the details and additional steps that are needed, so we’ll continue to work with both the administration and Congress to advocate for reforms consistent with the principles our industry outlined in December.”

Microsoft Not Satisfied With NSA Reforms, Will Keep Working To Make More Changes original content from Ubergizmo.

It was reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier this morning that Amazon approached a minimum of three large media conglomerates, being on the lookout for rights to distribute their TV channels online, similar to the ones that are currently available via cable and satellite. All of that has been debunked, however, thanks to word from the proverbial horse’s mouth – Amazon spokesman Drew Herdener. Herdener emailed USA TODAY and mentioned, “We continue to build selection for Prime Instant Video and create original shows at Amazon Studios, but we are not planning to license television channels or offer a pay-TV service.”

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Amazon Debunks Rumors Of Live TV Service original content from Ubergizmo.

A couple of years ago, Amazon broke into the video market by offering Amazon Instant Video, a pretty awesome feature for Amazon Prime subscribers who basically got a ton of content for free. Well it looks like that isn’t where Amazon’s plans end, but begin, because according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, they claim that Amazon is currently working on offering a live TV service that would basically stream over the internet. As it stands, the project is reportedly in its early stages and that Amazon has apparently approached three major media companies to begin working on a licensing deal that would allow them to broadcast content from these companies.

Assuming that this is true and Amazon’s service does launch, it would put them in competition with the likes of cable and satellite television providers. Amazon is not the first company to show interest in such a service as Sony has announced something similar this year at CES, and Apple too has been rumored to be interested in a similar service as well, especially with its rumored iTV hardware. In fact it was recently that Intel announced that they would be selling their internet TV service to Verizon partly due to the fact that they were unable to negotiate content from content providers, which ultimately made it difficult to launch such a service. In any case we’re not sure if Amazon will be much more successful, but until then take it with a grain of salt.

Update – Amazon has since debunked the rumors.

Amazon Rumored To Be Working On Live TV Service [Update] original content from Ubergizmo.

It was first rumored back in October 2013 that Verizon might be interested in acquiring Intel’s internet TV service which failed to take off. While it was rumored that the service might have other suitors as well, Verizon’s name came up repeatedly. Both companies were said to be in direct talks, and it was rumored last month that an announcement was possible within the week. Though the expected time-frame has not quite been met, but Verizon has formally announced that it is going to purchase Intel Media, the division behind its internet TV service. (more…)

Verizon To Purchase Intel’s Internet TV Service original content from Ubergizmo.