Home Theater

Google will reportedly soon jump into the consumer electronics market with a “home entertainment device,” according to the Wall Street Journal. The fabled device will first work as a wireless music streaming unit, but could later be updated for other purposes. Currently, Google does not make any electronics of its own. Of course, the Internet giant will soon own Motorola Mobility, which would put Google firmly in the cell… Read More

According to a recent article at Public Knowledge, cables companies are pushing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider a rule regarding the encryption of the basic cable tier. During the early nineties, a rule was adopted by the FCC to make sure cable companies kept a portion of the broadcast stations completely unencrypted. Commonly known as “basic cable” by the public, these stations can be accessed without the… Read More

Amazon is continuing its quest to corner a piece of the content streaming market with its new Viacom partnership. The new deal will offer Amazon Prime members the ability to instantly access TV shows from MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, TV Land, Spike, VH1, BET, CMT, and Logo. Netflix and Hulu are feeling a little pressure from Amazon. By wrapping the amount of content it does into its Amazon Prime service, it’s marketing itself to a wider… Read More

Buzz surrounding Apple’s iTV has not let up in recent months, and as time wears on, more details are beginning to emerge. On Tuesday, The Globe and Mail revealed that the product may already be in the hands of Canadian cable stations, and will feature remote-less capabilities, exhibiting functionalities similar to Siri and Microsoft’s Kinect. After Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography revealed that the late Apple founder had finally… Read More

Telecommunications giant Verizon has announced it is teaming up with Coinstar's Redbox DVD kiosk service to launch a new Internet-based streaming video service in the second half of the year. The move highlights the increasing importance of streaming video operations in the mainstream media marketplace, and at first glance a team-up between Verizon and Redbox would seem to have a lot going for it: both are widely recognized brands with… Read More

The Apple iTV has become something of a controversy: while its existence has yet to be confirmed and Tim Cook wrote off the Apple TV as a “hobby” in the company’s latest earnings call, pundits and fanboys have joyfully been debating its hypothetical impact. But now some hints [via The Verge] about the product have come from a fairly unlikely source. A recent Best Buy customer interest survey teased something that sounds a lot like what we’ve… Read More

With cable subscriptions beginning to decline, everyone wants in on streaming. Though it's late to the game, Verizon is teaming with Redbox (owned by Coinstar) to create a Netflix hybrid service that would offer Redbox DVDs and streaming movies over a Verizon video subscription service. The new service should launch (or be unveiled) later this year (second half of 2012).  According to Verizon, the new service will give users “the… Read More

As announced by the Los Angeles Times earlier today, Coinstar's popular Redbox brand has made a decision to ignore Warner Brothers recently announced 56-day plan that would restrict when a consumer has access to renting a new release on DVD or Blu-ray through the popular red kiosks.    Company officials at Redbox have decided to purchase all new Warner Brothers releases in bulk through retailers like Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart, but at a… Read More

Sony has announced that former PlayStation chief Kazuo Hirai will be taking over as both president and CEO of Japanese electronics giant Sony, replacing former CBS executive Howard Stringer as of April 1. Although few industry watchers are surprised to see Hirai advance to the top position at Sony, he is doing so at a time when the once-unstoppable company is facing major challenges and dwindling prospects in almost all of its core markets,… Read More

As expected, Sony Corp. has replace Sir. Howard Stringer as president and chief executive officer with Executive Deputy President Kazuo Hirai, who was named head of the company's consolidated consumer products division last March. Stringer will remain Sony's chairman until June, when he will become chairman of the company's board of directors. Hirai will officially take over as CEO April 1. The top-level changing of the guard… Read More

Much ado has been made about the fabled Apple iTV. Last spring we heard that the company was planning a cloud-based TV service, and that rumor received new legs when Walter Isaacson’s posthumous Steve Jobs autobiography was released. In the book, Jobs discussed that the television – and the living room – was the next domain Apple would conquer. “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,” he told Isaacson.… Read More