Hasta La Gadget!

This week Twitter made more than just a tiny mistake in banning one of their more famous members in an effort to keep him quiet on speaking out against NBC’s coverage of the London Olympics. This fellow was (and is) Guy Adams, a journalist who writes for the BBC, and his supposed crime was pointing out the email of NBC’s Olympics president, saying that he was responsible for the Olympics being broadcast with a time delay so that they might reach prime-time audiences across the USA. Adams alleges that NBC didn’t see this tweet until Twitter informed NBC of it, and once NBC complained, Twitter banned him – Twitter disagrees.

Twitter thus far has released a statement on the situation saying, “it was company policy not to comment on individual users” for privacy reasons. However, it had said it did “not actively monitor users’ accounts”. This may satisfy those wondering whether the company will be admitting to monitoring Adams, though it does not speak to the fact that they may simply have been watching the most popular topics. As Adams’ tweet was re-tweeted many thousands and thousands of times, Twitter very well may have caught wind of it and blocked his account without NBC being involved at all.

UPDATE: Twitter General Counsel, Alex Macgillivray, has made a rather long apology and explanation for the events that went on over the past few days. Have a peek at a bit of it here:

“That said, we want to apologize for the part of this story that we did mess up. The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation, as has now been reported publicly. Our Trust and Safety team did not know that part of the story and acted on the report as they would any other.

As I stated earlier, we do not proactively report or remove content on behalf of other users no matter who they are. This behavior is not acceptable and undermines the trust our users have in us. We should not and cannot be in the business of proactively monitoring and flagging content, no matter who the user is — whether a business partner, celebrity or friend. As of earlier today, the account has been unsuspended, and we will actively work to ensure this does not happen again.” – Macgillivray

But as Adams now says, Twitter has emailed him saying, “we have just received an update from the complainant retracting their original request…” This seems to shed a bit more light on the situation – that Twitter officials don’t want the company to seem at fault for pushing Adams out. NBC Sports also released a statement right after Adams had been initially blocked, saying:

“We filed a complaint with Twitter because a user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives. According to Twitter, this is a violation of their privacy policy. Twitter alone levies discipline.” – NBC Sports

Of course those well in the know on how to use a search engine would have been able to find this “personal email” as NBC Sports alleges was not public. Adams spoke up between here and there saying that the email was indeed available on the NBC Sports webpage and could be found by “anyone in possession of 30 seconds of free time and access to Google”.

And now it’s all right, yes? We shall see as Adams account has indeed been re-activated and the talk of what he might do from here continues. What do you think – do you think Twitter was in the wrong for banning Adams, or are they in the wrong for allowing him to come back? And perhaps better yet, was it reasonable for NBC Sports to make a request for Adams to have been banned, or did they make the wrong move?

Special note: NBC and Twitter are kind of, sort of, partnered for coverage of the Olympics this year – this could possibly factor into the situation.

[via BBC]

Twitter backtracks on Olympic NBC tweeter: Account reactivated [Update: Twitter reponds] is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

London 2012 Olympics
If TV broadcast tape delay and streaming restricted to pay-TV subscribers isn’t entirely ruining your experience, the first week of the 2012 Games has started off with a bang. There’s plenty of sporting action to go around and the world records have already started falling. Live coverage is early in the day for US time zones, while NBC is keeping some of the more anticipated events off TV and only online until its prime time airing later.

For viewers we have a few tips, like using Google to search Olympics + [sport] to get a minute by minute schedule of the events in your local time so you don’t miss ’em on the live stream. Also, check your cable or satellite provider, most have expanded options to help you catch all the sports, while Cox and DirecTV are doing the multiview thing, Comcast has added Olympics specifics filters to its remote apps, and Time Warner Cable has added more channels to its streaming iPad app.
(All week, NBC channels and online)

Total Recall (Mind-Bending Edition)
The Paul Verhoeven / Arnold Schwarzenegger classic is back on Blu-ray and should be better looking this time around. So, why opt for this one instead of a ticket to the remake this weekend? Beyond the obvious reasons, it’s also cheaper, currently listed at $7.99 on Amazon.
($7.99 on Amazon)

NFL Preseason
It’s finally time for football again, and while it’s just preseason action, we’ll be ready to see the Saints take on the Cardinals Sunday night from Canton Ohio. Also worth checking out, the HOF induction ceremony Saturday night as DB Jack Butler, C Dermontti Dawson, DE Chris Doleman, DT Cortez Kennedy, RB Curtis Martin and T Willie Roaf take their place among the other all-time greats.
(August 5th, NFL Network, 8PM)

Continue reading Must See HDTV (July 31st – August 5th)

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Must See HDTV (July 31st – August 5th) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Jul 2012 19:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter and NBC are working on partnership for the Olympics that will see a dedicated Olympics hub set up on twitter. The Olympics have is a partnership between twitter and NBCUniversal and is expected to be announced officially today. The partnership will serve as one of the first times that twitter has been a narrator of sorts for a live event.

Twitter workers will spend huge amounts of time over the duration of the Olympic Games taking millions of tweets from athletes, their families, fans, and NBC television personalities and putting them all on the twitter Olympics hub. Twitter hopes that its Olympics effort will help push into more sustainable business according to the Wall Street Journal. Twitter is seeking a larger audience in an effort to gain profitability, and it’s using the Olympics and the huge buzz around the games to do this.

The Olympics will attract millions of users from all around the world and twitter hopes that its unique content directly from athletes and other people associated with the games will help lure new users to set up an account. Twitter wants the Olympics to come to be a place where new users can sample what twitter is about. There is no money changing hands according to NBC as part of the twitter partnership, but NBC will help advertise the hub. Twitter actually went out and pitched athletes and national sports associations to use the service and the company has sought out advertisers specifically for the Olympics hub. The Olympic Games could turn out to be a big payday for twitter.

[via WSJ]

Twitter and NBC tie up for Olympics hub is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Breaking up is hard to do, and it took Microsoft and NBC a few more days to hammer out all the details and make it official. NBC is buying the software maker’s half of the MSNBC website for a reporter $300 million, which will be renamed NBC News — a change which has already taken place if you try to hit up the old site. Its HQ will also move across from Microsoft’s hub in Redmond to New York. Following the split, Microsoft is apparently readying its own news service for launch later this year, aiming to hire around the same number of people that were put to work on the previous site — and looking to improve on its recent online fortunes.

Filed under: Internet

It’s official: Comcast buys out Microsoft’s share of MSNBC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Jul 2012 06:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NBC mentioned it would deliver two complementary mobile apps for its extensive London Olympics coverage and now they have arrived. Available for Android phones and tablets as well as the iPhone and iPad, they’re built on Adobe technology to deliver the information and live streaming video, as well as handle the TV Everywhere authentication with the cable providers that’s necessary to view all of the content. The NBC Olympics Live Companion is specifically designed to operate as a second screen for users to pull up stats and extra info on while they watch TV, and the NBC Olympics Live Extra app delivers video of every event streaming live to users wherever they are. It supports multiple camera angles, social features like the Facebook tie-ins NBC announced yesterday and users can even switch between the two apps at will.

Check after the break for a quick video preview of some of the technology at work, and if you’re planning to tune into the games, hit NBC’s Olympics site now to sign in and authenticate so once the Opening Ceremony kicks off, all you’ll have to do is press play.

Continue reading NBC’s 2012 London Olympics second screen and streaming apps for Android and iOS launch today

Filed under: Home Entertainment

NBC’s 2012 London Olympics second screen and streaming apps for Android and iOS launch today originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jul 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Live Extra, NBCOlympics.com, Adobe  | Email this | Comments