Not to be left out from the copycat networks making shows about Silicon Valley, Amazon Studios is producing a half-hour comedy series called Betas. It’s centered around four nerds ” and their quest for nerd fame as they attempt to crack the ultimate code.” One of these shows has to be good, right? More »
Amazon just announced that it is adding its X-Ray feature to TV shows. The feature already worked with movies thanks to data from IMDb, but the company will now use this very same data for other video content. The entire Kindle Fire family will receive the feature and the Amazon Instant Video app on Wii U will get is as well.
As a reminder, X-Ray allows you to discover more about the content you are reading or watching. It first appeared with books — it shows you the different characters, where they appear in the book and how they are related to the story. Then Amazon added X-Ray to movies back in September 2012. In that case, watchers can instantly know the name of an actor in a scene. IMDb is owned by Amazon, allowing the Kindle team to tap into a very comprehensive movie database. As IMDb provides data for TV shows as well, adding TV shows to X-Ray was just a matter of time.
The idea is to make the video experience unique on Amazon’s devices, making people want to buy those tablets or download those Amazon apps and stay in the Amazon ecosystem. It’s been known that Amazon doesn’t make much profit from selling hardware. Instead, it wants people to use the Kindle Fire tablets to buy content.
Of course, the X-Ray feature only works with videos you buy or rent from Amazon Instant Video or videos from the Amazon Prime collection. X-Ray could be one of those little features that make you choose to watch a movie or TV show on Amazon over Netflix or iTunes.
In addition to providing the X-Ray feature to Kindle Fire users, the feature will make its way to Amazon Instant Video’s Wii U app. This fact shows that what matters for Amazon is that people consume content from Amazon, even if it’s not on an Amazon-branded device. X-Ray for movies and TV shows may eventually come to Android and iOS as X-Ray for books is already available in many Kindle apps.
X-Ray is more important than you may think at first. If the experience is not compelling enough, customers will neglect their tablets and Amazon won’t make any money from those users. That’s why Amazon cut the price of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ as well from $299 to $269 for the base model. It’s still the best way to tap into Amazon’s ecosystem. Amazon now wants to get the best tablet they can make in everyone’s hand so that people can start reading and watching content — Amazon’s content.
Amazon has announced an extension of the content licensing deal that it previously had with CBS. As a result, more shows are being added for Amazon Prime Instant subscribers to watch. New titles include Undercover Boss, Star Trek, Everybody Loves Raymond, America’s Next Top Model, The L Word and United States of Tara – in no particular order. (more…)
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Hulu, for all its good intentions and fairly solid stream quality, kind of sucks. It doesn’t have enough TV shows, it doesn’t have enough episodes, you still have to watch commercials even when you pay for Hulu Plus but worst of all, sometimes those commercials you’re forced to sit through are about future episodes of the freaking TV show you’re watching. Basically, if you watch Hulu, it’s like being chained down to a chair for Spoiler Russian Roulette. More »
History would kindly tell us that this isn’t the very first deal Netflix and Warner Bros. have struck in past months — and, well, chances are it won’t be the last one either. Earlier today, the streaming giant announced it had reached a new exclusive agreement with the California-based studio which will bring a hefty amount of new content to subscribers in Canada. Starting January of next year, Netflix streamers in the Great White North can start watching TV shows such as The Vampire Diaries, Fringe and Pretty Little Liars, as well as films like The Hangover Part II, Horrible Bosses and even the critically-acclaimed blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises — although these movies will come “for a limited period following their pay television window.” There’s still some time before the deal bears fruit, so perhaps the next few weeks could be used to start clearing that overloaded Instant Queue of yours.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Netflix
We had a bit of a laugh with Google’s Kevin Bacon calculator. Not everyone needs to tie their searches to the star of Footloose, though, which is partly why Google is pushing out an update to its Knowledge Graph that explains how searches turn up related items. The effort is starting with actors, celebrities and their links to any movies and TV shows they’ve starred in. Looking for Orson Welles and mousing over Rita Hayworth’s portrait reminds us that the two luminaries were married for years, for example. We won’t know when the more intelligent searches will expand, but at least we won’t be quite so confused if the animated Transformers movie appears next to Citizen Kane.
Filed under: Internet
Google Knowledge Graph explains related content, finds the six degrees with less Bacon originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Oct 2012 01:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Shazam doesn’t want to let GetGlue control all our couch potato time — it just rolled out an upgrade to its TV component that lets the mobile app provide social sharing, soundtrack and trivia details for nearly any TV show in the US, not just those deemed worthy of special attention. The app mirrors the program it’s looking at — we’ll see stats instead of IMDb if we’re watching hockey, for example. Whether or not attention is locked on the bigger screen in the living room, Shazam’s little screen is making Facebook more a centerpiece of the experience. Media mavens can comment on friends’ tagging habits and post their own tags to their Facebook timelines for all to see. The wider universe of TV shows should be available today, although we’ll have to wait for an update in the “coming weeks” to broadcast our tastes in media with the rest of the world.
Continue reading Shazam now rides shotgun with any TV show in the US, gets cozier with Facebook
Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Software, HD
Shazam now rides shotgun with any TV show in the US, gets cozier with Facebook originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Sep 2012 12:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
I don’t know how I’ve lasted this long on the Internet without deciding to sell my credit card’s soul to either Amazon or iTunes for movie watching and tv show buying purposes but I think it’s come to the point where I should pick one and move on with it. So which should I choose? More »
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