Hasta La Gadget!

The BBC’s iPlayer has become too successful. It either needs to calm down or be put on a more level playing field with on demand services from the other big UK broadcasters — and it’s going to be the latter. Youview — which has nothing whatsoever in common with YouTube except its name and the fact that it also does video — is a PVR set-top box that uses both an aerial and a web connection to allow catch-up viewing, and we’ve just heard it’ll arrive in UK stores towards the end of this month. It’ll bring together programs from the BBC (which also contributed £10 million of license fee cash), ITV, Channel 4, Five, and Sky, using infrastructure from BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva, and it’ll target millions of British viewers who want a “seamless” mix of live and archived telly without being tied to a subscription — and who don’t yet depend on a Smart TV, games console or other converged device.

Update: Youview front man Lord Alan Sugar told us that the box is Humax-built and will cost £299. He also added that there’ll be adverts within commercial programs, but not plastered over the EPG or interface itself.

Youview TV platform and set-top box coming to UK stores this month (update: priced at £299) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Jul 2012 04:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google unveiled its media-streaming glowing orb to many oohs and ahhs, followed by head-scratches. The thing looks cool. And it sounds good, both in concept and fidelity. But two major questions remain: Who is it for, and how well does it work? More »

What to do on this Friday night? If your answer to that age old question was “Netflix,” then you likely received a bit of a rude shock this evening upon discovery that the company’s video streaming service is currently out-of-whack. If you’re wondering why that is, it appears to be tied to some of Amazon’s EC2 servers in Virgina losing power due to the bad weather there. As VentureBeat notes, it’s a problem which is also affecting sites like Instagram and Pinterest at the moment. For its part, Netflix has acknowledged the issue via its Twitter account, to which it states, “We’re aware that some members are experiencing issues streaming movies and TV shows. We’re working to resolve the problem.” So, there you have it. Now the only question that remains is whether you’ll break out one of those red envelopes, fire up Hulu Plus or venture out to the theater to satiate your movie desires.

Update: @Netflix just tweeted that everyone should be back up, or will be shortly. The Amazon AWS dashboard indicates it’s recovering as of 3:13AM, so all should be ready for your tilt-shifted Saturday brunch pics and subsequent dream board updates.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Don’t worry, you’re not the only one: Netflix is currently down, admins hard at work (Update: back up) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Jun 2012 00:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Softbank Japan’s third mobile operator and the company that brought the all mighty iPhone to Japanese people, is now offering a nice piece of hardware with the SB-TV03-WFRC. Announced at 19,800 and designed by Pixela, the SB-TV03-WFRC is a unique Digital TV Tuner function, Ethernet, WiFi and SI-EPG that is not only capable to record TV on an external drive or the SB-HD01-ORST/WH a 500GB external HDD designed for this TV tuner, but also capable to stream TV Shows and Recorded media to your …

Xbox Music is coming to Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, that much we know. We also know that the Zune brand is dead. But whether the new service will be a simple rebadge or an entirely new beast remains a mystery. Bloomberg has it on good authority, however, that that Xbox Music will more than just a new face. Microsoft is allegedly combining all the most successful elements of its competitors — streaming, online storage, and offline syncing — into a product that will put iTunes, Spotify and Google Play squarely in its crosshairs. The company is allegedly in talks with the record labels to secure the necessary rights for a monthly subscription service and a market for purchasing tracks. It will also take a page from Google Music and allow customers to upload their own collections. If Microsoft can pull off a such a comprehensive service others in the field better watch out — few companies have the reach or budget of Redmond.

Xbox Music said to rival Spotify and iTunes, Microsoft to make a mark in music originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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