Hasta La Gadget!

Rumors of Amazon either purchasing Netflix or launching a competing option have been circling and now one of our readers says he’s seeing an unlimited video streaming section to complement the current Amazon VOD options. That’s a nice bonus for the $79/year package that currently adds a few free shipping bonuses and it would be cheaper on a yearly basis than Netflix’s Watch Instantly ($95.88.) As seen above and in the gallery, it consists of “unlimited, commercial-free, instant streaming of 5,000 movies and TV shows” with selections that mirror the Watch Instantly catalog closely. Resolution is apparently limited to a “pretty solid” 480p SD, but there’s no word on audio or subtitle options. We’ll wait to hear if anyone else is seeing a similar page before assuming a wide rollout, but it certainly appears that there could finally be a viable competitor to the Netflix juggernaut.

[Thanks, Pavel]

Amazon rolling out Netflix-like video streaming for Prime subscribers? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 15:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re still waiting to see just what the fallout for Hulu is going to be from the recent Comcast acquisition of NBC, and while many have feared that the cable company would try to kneecap Hulu to protect its market, a Wall Street Journal article has us wondering if maybe things could go a rather different way. The article, coming hot on the heels of Netflix posting promising Q4 results, suggests that Hulu management is considering transforming the purely on-demand service into more of a traditional cable network, offering “live” TV content in addition to the current archive of episodes. That could certainly give Comcast new life.

Meanwhile, NBC, Disney, and News Corp., three companies that recently teamed up to speak out against FCC stipulations to the Comcast buyout, are apparently at odds regarding how much of what Hulu offers should be available to non-subscribers. There’s talk that Disney may pull some ABC content and News Corp. may pull some Fox content from Hulu’s free offerings, offering it instead on Netflix and other premium competitors. It all sounds a bit speculative at this point but, with cable subscriptions declining for the first time in years and online content viewership skyrocketing, it’s obvious that some changes are afoot.

Hulu looking to become more like cable, at risk of losing some ABC and Fox content? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 08:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netflix just released its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2010 and of no surprise to anyone who was paying attention last year it did quite well by passing 20 million subscribers, more than double its base at the start of 2009. However, per Biggie’s Law mo money = mo problems, and it took the opportunity to respond, surprisingly sharply, to potential threats from its Hollywood content providers and the ISPs its Watch Instantly service streams over. News of note going into 2011? A huge focus on personalization including new integration with Facebook and a mention that Apple TV has already surpassed the iPad in viewing hours. It also showed off the one-click Netflix button on an unspecified (looks like Toshiba to us) remote and compared the “consternation” over its success to the rise of Fox as a broadcast network two decades ago. We’ll hop on the earnings call in a few minutes for more details, check after the break for more of the details.

Continue reading Netflix passes 20 million subscribers; focuses on ISP disputes, HBO, Facebook in Q4 results

Netflix passes 20 million subscribers; focuses on ISP disputes, HBO, Facebook in Q4 results originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on November 29, 2010 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

Kinect Hack Used to Play Super Mario
Mario fans will enjoy seeing this video demonstration of the classic Super Mario Bros. being played with a Microsoft Kinect that is hooked up to a PC.

WikiLeak Cables Provides Info on Google Hacking Incident
About a quarter-million diplomatic cables were leaked, and in it was some details pointing to China’s Politburo as the initiator for hacking some notable Google accounts.

Black Friday Spending Up 9% From Last Year
According to ComScore the spending on Black Friday in the United States this year hit $648 million, which is up from $595 million last year.

Windows Phone 7 “Jailbreak” Released
The first jailbreak for Windows Phone 7 devices has been released, and has opened up the platform to customizations and hacks that are otherwise not allowed.

2 Million Beatles Songs Sold in a Week
The first week that the Beatles were available on iTunes resulted in over 2 million songs being downloaded and over 450k albums.

Microsoft Hires OpenStreetMap Founder
Steve Coast, the founder of OpenStreetMap, has joined Microsoft as the Principal Architect for Bing Mobile. He will be used to develop better mapping experiences, and will also engage open data projects.

Mozilla Thunderbird 3.3 Alpha 1 Released
This pre-release version of Thunderbird incorporates a new Addon Manager in addition to over 190 fixes.

Opera 11 Beta Introduces Tab Stacking
Opera has gotten it right with their “tab stacking” implementation. To keep your tabs organized you can drag and drop tabs onto each other, and that will effectively create a group of them.

iOS 4.2 Available with Free Find My iPhone
The newest iteration of iOS includes AirPrint, AirPlay, multitasking/folders on the iPad, and free Find My iPhone service.

Over 600k Galaxy Tabs Sold in a Month
Samsung has sold more than 600k of their 7-inch tablet devices in the first month of availability, and is now in over 30 countries.

Netflix Starts Offering Streaming-only Plan
Netflix plans now start at $7.99 for a streaming-only plan, and the existing 1 DVD plan has been raised a dollar to $9.99.

Autonomous Audio Climbs Pikes Peak in 27-minutes
A specially-equipped Audi TTS went over 12 miles on Pikes Peak without a driver at the wheel. Video clips are available from the drive.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Make the Mac OS X Clock Show a Drop-Down Calendar
This free Mac app will display a calendar anytime you click on the clock that is located in the Menubar.

Quickly Fixing Typos in the Terminal
Using a caret trick you can easily replace text you mistakenly type in any terminal window.

ThickButtons Keyboard for Android Phones
ThickButtons is a free Android app that will try to predict the word you’re typing, and makes the letters you’re likely to type next a bit bigger.

Drag and Drop Uploads in Google Docs
Google Docs users can now leverage HTML5 technologies to drag-and-drop documents as an alternative way to uploading them.

7-Zip Can Now Decompress EXE, FLV, and More
The newest version of 7-Zip makes it possible to decompress even more file formats than you previously could.

Batch Encoding Videos with Handbrake
BatchEncoder is a free utility that makes it easy to encode videos in batch using Handbrake.

Give Focused Windows More Priority
TopWinPrio can be used to give any application you currently have focused higher priority than other processes on your system.

How to Install Evernote 4 in Ubuntu Using Wine
This guide walks you through installing the Windows version of Evernote in Ubuntu.

Get an Additional 768MB in Dropbox
You can get another 768MB of space on Dropbox by hooking up your Dropbox account to social sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Restrict Apps to One Running Instance
With SingleInstance you can restrict specific executables to only allow one instance at a time, which is useful if you find yourself constantly opening up multiple copies of the same program.

–Downloads–

• 7-Zip 9.20 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• AIM 7.5.4.11 ^{Beta 1} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• CCleaner 3.01.1327 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• CDBurnerXP 4.3.8.2474 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Evernote 4.0.2.3162 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• FeedDemon 4.0.0.11 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• FileZilla 3.3.5.1 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• GOM Player 2.1.28.5039 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• OpenOffice.org 3.3.0 ^{RC 6} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Opera 11.0.1111 ^{Beta 1} [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Pidgin 2.7.6 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Process Explorer 14.01 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• Screenshot Captor 2.89.01 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• TagScanner 5.1.594 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• UltraVNC 1.0.9.4 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• uTorrent 2.2.1.23274 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
• VMware Player 3.1.3 [Homepage] [Mirror]
• WinPatrol 19.3.2010.5 [Homepage] [Mirror]

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Related Posts:

OpenStreetMap: The Wikipedia of MapsHow to Save a DVD to Your ComputerBulk Convert Videos for Nearly Any Mobile DevicewinLAME: Another Free Audio ConverterBulk Convert Videos

Boxee is here at CES showing off two unreleased products to eager Boxee fans and novices alike. We were sufficiently bummed when both Netflix and Vudu were delayed for the box, but we can report that they’re definitely getting close to primetime. The Vudu app we saw was incredibly polished, quick, and had nice video quality even on the overcongested and questionable internet connection. It actually does a network test the first time you launch the app, but after that you can manually select to watch each program in either SD or HD. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to see the Netflix app in action because “Netflix would not be happy with us” according to Boxee chief and Engadget Show alum Avner Ronen. (It wasn’t even loaded on the demo box — we promise we looked). Head past the break for deets on the iPad app, as well as shots of it in action.

Continue reading Boxee’s unreleased Vudu and iPad apps (hands-on)

Boxee’s unreleased Vudu and iPad apps (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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