Hasta La Gadget!

If you are a Netflix subscriber, you probably noticed that the streaming video service had a number of holiday films and cartoons among its options for viewing. If your Christmas Eve and Christmas Day plans involved sitting down in front of the TV and streaming some of those holiday movies, odds are you were disappointed. Netflix had a significant outage on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day that took the streaming service off-line.

The problem wasn’t on Netflix’s end; rather the problem had to do with Amazon Web Services Elastic Load Balancing service in the US-East data center. The problem with Amazon service led to Netflix and streaming service Heroku being off-line Christmas Eve and the outage continued into the next day. Interestingly, Amazon’s own video streaming service Amazon Prime Instant Video was apparently unaffected in most locations.

The outage reportedly began at 1:50 PM Pacific Standard Time. There are some scattered reports of outages for Amazon’s own video streaming services well. Netflix reported that streaming service was back up to normal streaming levels at 8:45 AM Pacific Standard Time on Christmas Day.

This isn’t the first time that an Amazon Web Services-related outage has struck companies using the US-East data center. Apparently, that data center is often chosen because it’s one of the first to get new features that Amazon rolls out. Interestingly that data center is Amazon’s oldest and largest and it’s one of the least expensive that Amazon offers making it very popular.

[via Gigaom]

Netflix outage on Christmas Eve blamed on Amazon Web Services problems is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s time to join the Spotify music discovery revolution for their software experience with your own Collection – their own suggestions, your own content. This update has the Spotify user experience expanded not just in the amount of music that’s on the web for you to see easily, but creates a unique experience for you, the music user. The first place this all takes place in your Spotify “Collections”, made on-the-go by Spotify for you.

Based on your interests you’ll be finding a set of squares (as you see above and below) that show information about the music you’re about to discover as well as brief previews of the tunes. With the buttons here in the Web App (also new today) you’ll be able to press down to listen, this interrupting the music you’ve been listening to up until this point. After you let go, your track continues.

“Spotify is great when you know what music you want to listen to, but not so great when you don’t … We’re adding tens of thousands of new songs every single day, a new artists is competing not only with new songs, but the entire history of music.” – Daniel Ek

This Collections (not all that different from your own Collection) shows all the artists you follow, tracks they’ve got, and tracks that are related to them. This doesn’t just mean that if you’ve got a collection full of Metal you’ll only get Metal music, but that you’ll get a selection of tracks that relate. If your best buddy from Slayer also likes Michael Jackson, you may very well be having a peek at that in your Collections.

Reviews from Pitchfork and information from other sites connected to Spotify are all integrated here in one way or another – this is just one of several giant moves Spotify has made this week in bringing their platform into the future. Have a peek at the timeline below for more information straight from the source!

Spotify Collections revolutionizes their music discovery platform is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Spotify has passed the one million US paying subscribers point, marking its roughly one-year anniversary with a milestone making it, the company claims, the biggest subscription music service in the US. The company now has over 5m paying customers worldwide, CEO Daniel Ek says, doubling its paid userbase in the space of a year.

In fact, there are 20m active users – including paid and ad-supported – across seventeen markets. Playlist use has also taken off, with more than one billion playlists created; over 4.7m of those playlists are apparently called “Love.”

Payments to artists, meanwhile, have also snowballed. In fact, Ek claims, royalty payments have more than doubled in the space of the past nine months, with more than half a billion dollars now paid out over Spotify’s lifespan.

As for the old fear that users might cherry-pick individual tracks and contribute to the long-discussed “death of the album”, Ek says that listeners actually are more likely to listen to the whole album. 80-percent of the company’s catalog has been streamed, he says.

Spotify: 1m US paid subscribers, 5m paid worldwide is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sonos has updated its controller apps for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, adding the ability to stream music stored on the iOS devices directly to the multi-room wireless audio system. The new update, which popped up in the App Store today, treats local storage on the phone or tablet just as it does your traditional music collection and online sources such as Spotify, taking on Apple’s own AirPlay system in the process.

Tracks stored on the iPhone or iPad can be added to a Spotify playlist, along with content from multiple other sources. However, there’s no way to pipe audio from other iOS apps through a Sonos system; that means you can listen to music on YouTube through Sonos from your phone, nor have game soundtracks play back via your bigger speakers.

Sonos is yet to add the functionality to its Android client, either, though that was given a mild update today with no new features. The company’s Mac and PC clients also lack the streaming support, though we’d be surprised if all of these were left out in the cold for long. It’s worth noting that the iPhone app is still to be updated for the iPhone 5′s 4-inch display.

Apple’s AirPlay system has similar features to Sonos, and works with third-party speakers such as Libratone’s Zipp. What’s been missing so far has been a way to pipe AirPlay into a Sonos system; so far, the advice has been to plug an AirPort Express into the aux-in input found on a PLAY:5 speaker.

You’ll need iOS 6 in order to use the new Sonos functionality, and of course a Sonos system and an iOS device. You can find the updated iPhone/iPod touch app here [iTunes link] and the updated iPad app here.

Sonos adds AirPlay-style streaming from iPhone and iPad music is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

UK broadcaster the BBC has launched Connected Red Button, further blending web TV with live broadcasting, and kicking things off with an appearance on Virgin Media TiVo boxes. The new service redresses existing BBC internet TV features like iPlayer, BBC News, Sport, Weather, and other content including local, into a new interface suited for big-screen browsing, and in a curated fashion which the BBC claims will cut down on choice-overload.

Catch-up TV will be included, with shows from all of the BBC channels, and there will be behind-the-scenes content from sports and other events. The BBC already offers “Red Button” services via traditional broadcast, including news, weather, and other content, but by using internet streaming rather than the broadcast signal, the amount of data on offer can increase considerably.

Initially, 1.2m Virgin Media TiVo boxes will be compatible with the new Connected Red Button services, though the BBC says that will be extended to other internet-connected TVs “over the coming months.” We’d expect to see web-enabled set-top boxes from Freeview, YouView, Freesat, and others join in the fun in time.

According to the BBC Internet blog, meanwhile, phones and tablets could eventually be integrated, with the hint of second-screen style content shown on both big-screen and mobile device. There’s also the possibility of retroactive updates for existing web-capable AV kit to get Connected Red Button service.

“Throughout 2012 the BBC has also been engaging with a number of TV manufacturers and platform operators regarding our connected TV application plans and the related technical specifications and certification requirements” Matt Coulson, executive product manager for Red Button says. “We’ll be rolling out Connected Red Button to a range of connected TV devices during 2013 and in many cases 2012 TVs will also be upgraded to Connected Red Button.”

You’ll need to have a Virgin TiVo box in the UK in order to try the Connected Red Button service out today.

BBC Connected Red Button blurs line between TV and web content is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.