Hasta La Gadget!

Competition is a good thing in any market. The more businesses you have working for the consumer’s dollar, it tends to lead to better prices and service. Google announced not long ago that it would be rolling out its Google Fiber Internet service in Austin, Texas.

The announcement from Google has existing Internet providers within Austin scrambling to try and keep customers on their service.

For starters, Internet provider Time Warner Cable has announced that it will be offering all of its subscribers free access to Wi-Fi hotspots within the city. Time Warner says that its existing customers with standard cable packages or above can now get free access to the citywide Wi-Fi network that the company is building.

Time Warner went so far as to specifically point out Google Fiber as the reason it is speeding up the deployment of its Wi-Fi network. Still, I suspect that Time Warner will be unable to compete on pure performance and a lot of its customers will still defect to Google Fiber when it’s available.

[via Gigaom]

Time Warner has just announced that it will be separating itself from Time Inc. The decision was made by its board of directors who felt that this separation is the best decision for both companies. Time Warner will cut away from the magazine business and focus all of its efforts on building its juggernaut media network comprised of a huge amount of popular TV stations as well as its movie ventures.

Time Inc., on the other hand, will be operating as a publicly traded company. It will focus all of its efforts on its publications, including very popular magazines like In Style, People, Marie Claire, Sports Illustrated, Time (of course), Entertainment Weekly, and a whole bunch of others. Time Inc. will continue to do fine on its own. It’s publications are read by half of the United States’s adult population, as well as millions of other readers all around the world.

As of right now, Time Inc.’s current CEO, Laura Lang, will continue to stay on with the company while this separation process is still taking place. Eventually, however, she will find a new CEO to replace her. She is searching for someone who is “a different kind of CEO”. Time Warner’s CEO and Chairman, Jeff Bawkes, stated, “She has been a great partner who has given Time Inc. forward momentum to make this transition possible.”

Time Warner is hoping to close this deal by the end of the year. It still has to be approved by the SEC and afterwards, the terms must be finalized by Time Warner’s board of directors. Both of the companies together formed one of the biggest, fully-fledged media companies around, so it’s a bit depressing to seem them break apart. However, they both have enough pull to survive. With Time Inc.’s huge selection of magazines and Time Warner’s TV stations like TBS, TNT, CWTV, HBO (Game of Thrones!), CNN and more, both have all of the assets they need to thrive without each other.

[via Business Wire]

Time Warner cuts itself off from Time Inc. is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

5 internet service providers, including AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and Cablevision launched their “Six Strikes” anti-piracy program this Monday. The program is the latest attempt for ISPs to stop its users from pirating software and media illegally. At the launch of the piracy program, the ISPs kept quiet about the consequences that would ensue if the users reached their 5th or 6th warning, but now they’ve explained their punishments.

AT&T’s methods will focus more on educating its users about online piracy in order to deter them from it. If a user reaches their 5th or 6th warning, AT&T will “demand they take an extra step to review materials on an online portal that will educate them on distribution of copyrighted content online.” Users will have to review the materials before they are able to access other websites. AT&T has said that they will not throttle its users data speeds.

Verizon, however, will throttle its users data speeds. Customers who reach their 5th or 6th warning will have to watch instructional videos about downloading copyright material legally at first, and if they still proceed to pirate, they will have their data speeds reduced to dial-up speeds. The throttle will last 2-3 days. The users will be warned 2 weeks in advance before their speeds are throttled, just in case there is something wrong on Verizon’s side and the users want to dispute the warnings. To appeal the warnings, users will have to pay a $35 fee, which will be returned if the user is granted the appeal.

Comcast, like AT&T, will not cap its users data speeds. If they reach their 5th/6th warning, they will receive constant in-browser alerts about their piracy, and in order to stop the alerts, they will have to call Comcast Security Assurance, who will then lecture them on copyright methods and how to download legal content. Like AT&T, Comcast’s goal is to inform its customers.

Time Warner Cable will not throttle its users data speeds either, but users will receive a lock on their internet browsers if they reach the 5th/6th alert. In order to remove the lock, like Comcast, users will have to contact customer service where they will receive a lecture on copyright methods and legal alternatives to downloading media.

Cablevision didn’t chime in with their consequences, but it seems that Verizon will be the only company that will throttle its users’ data speeds. With Cablevision, you’ll probably receive a lecture as well. So far none of the companies plan on terminating their contracts with their users due to piracy. These details of the consequences for violating the “six strikes” program does make the program seem less intense, compared to when we really didn’t know what they had planned. What do you think of the ISPs’ anti-piracy program?

[via Mashable]

ISPs consequences for abusing Six Strikes program revealed is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Nowadays, you can watch streaming video through a number of ways that include accessing a service’s application on a video game console, a SmartTV or simply by visiting the service’s website on your computer. Because of that, we probably have become somewhat jaded at the fact that nearly everything around us can serve as online video streamers and when a particular product doesn’t offer those experiences, we tend to scoff at them. With that said, Apple TV may be joining the 2011s as they might be getting HBO Go added to its set-top boxes.

According to anonymous sources who spoke to Bloomberg, Apple may be in negotiations with Time Warner in order to bring the HBO Go app to Apple TV some time later this year. Why it has taken Apple this long to strike a deal with Time Warner is beyond us as HBO Go has been available across a number of platforms ever since it was made available back in February 2010.

HBO Go debuted on other Apple platforms such as iOS devices and iTunes last year, which makes this apparent deal even more confusing as we would think if Apple already had the HBO Go app available on those other Apple platforms, then why not just say “Oh, yea – and Apple TV, too.”

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