Tag: netflix

GNC-2012-01-27 #737 Shame on Hawaii Legislature!

Posted by geeknews at 12:44 AM on January 27, 2012

Going to be implementing some Studio upgrades in the next couple of weeks should be fun. I go after a couple of my state legislatures pretty hard tonight on two idiotic bills that they introduced. Also hope I was not to punchy on the last show notes. I am feeling much better by the way and although the voice is not a 100% I feel a 100% better.

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Two Hawaii Legislatures have lost their minds!
Investigating Google New Privacy Policy?
North Korea + Cell Phone = War Criminal!
FBI wants to index Social Sites!
Google Privacy Policy and Business / Gov’t!
Google the Drug Dealer.
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Apple TV 1.4 Million more units sold.
Netflix + 800 Devices = Wow
Happy B-Day Firefox.
Spectrum Wars.
Symantech Warning.
Traffic Spike on File Lockers.
1 In Jail – 2 on Bail.
FBI Sued?
Twitter Censors!
Mackie iPad Mixer.
Super Wi-Fi!
Google Earth Update!
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Data Storage at Google!
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Space Water.
Progress Departs ISS.
Our Home!
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My kind of Charger.
Press Freedom Ranking.
Railroad Crossing Controls Safe.
Xbox 720 Rumors.
Polish ACTA Protest.
Xbox Gold Discount.
UK Signs ACTA.
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Tags: ACTA, Apple TV, Crime, hacking, Law, Mobile, netflix, p2p, Podcast, Twitter, wi-fi, xbox

Posted in Podcast

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Android Causing WiFi Router Lockups

Posted by tomwiles at 12:38 AM on January 3, 2012

I’ve had an Android phone for about a year and a half (the HTC Evo from Sprint) but primarily because of battery use issues I’ve never used it on my home WiFi network.

In the interim, a few months ago I purchased a Barnes & Noble Nook Color, which runs a custom version of Android. I’ve also experimented with dual-booting the Nook with CyanogenMod 7, an open-source version of Android. When I dual-boot into CyanogenMod 7 and connect to my Apple Airport Extreme router, the router will loose Internet connectivity after only a few minutes, requiring me to cycle the router’s power off and back on to restore connectivity.

Now that I’ve been able to install the authorized version of Netflix onto the Nook after Barnes and Noble’s latest Nook OS update, I tried running Netflix on the Nook on my home network. After watching video for 15 or more minutes, my Apple router loses Internet connectivity.

My youngest brother has a newer HTC Android phone, and after he connected to my local WiFi network almost immediately the Apple router lost connectivity. It happened so frequently at one point that I was beginning to think the router was dying.

However, after futher experimentation I’ve determined that if I don’t connect any Android devices to my WiFi, the router seems to work as flawlessly as ever.

Time to check Mr. Google. Using the Google-suggested search term “android crashes router” (the term pops up immediately after I start typing “android cras “ so I know plenty of other people are looking for a solution) 4,730,000 results come up. After reading through a number of posts by people experiencing the same issue, I have yet to come up with a definitive answer. What is it about a variety of versions of Android connecting to WiFi that is causing many different brands of routers to lose Internet connectivity? The problem is by no means an Apple Router/Android WiFi incompatibility – it therefore seems more likely an issue with Android itself, or at least certain Android builds.

The suggested fixes range from people suggesting that they try to update their router’s firmware to trying to confine the router to Wireless “G” only.

Ironically my HTC Evo phone can also be used as a WiFi hotspot. I can connect any Android device to the Evo’s WiFi hotspot feature and transfer all the data I want without issue. In other words, Android cannot cause my Android phone’s hotspot feature to lose Internet connectivity.

It would be logical to assume that this problem is an Android software issue. The problem seems inconsistent, most probably because of the patchwork-quilt variety of Android hardware and custom OS builds.

So far, the problem hasn’t even seemed to be officially acknowledged as an issue. I suspect that bad Android battery life has prevented a lot of people from trying to connect their Android phones to their home networks via WiFi, so mass numbers of people likely haven’t experienced the potential WiFi router crashing problem.

Of the people that do connect their phones to home WiFi routers, some people never have a problem, while others are constantly plagued by it.

Android crashing WiFi routers is enough to cause me to veer away from future Android devices, unless and until the problem is solved. Phase one of the chaos of the Windows desktop has spread to smartphones.

Welcome to the new Windows fractal – it’s name is Android.

Tags: Android, barnes & noble, crashes, crashing, CyanogenMod 7, fractal, google, netflix, Nook, sprint, wifi, Windows

Posted in Android, Apple, Barnes & Noble, HTC, Netflix, Operating Systems, Windows

13 Comments

Dexter, Game of Thrones Part of Top 10 Most Pirated TV Shows in 2011

Posted by Jeffrey Powers at 8:50 AM on December 24, 2011

Dexter

The group over at TorrentFreak.com have come up with the top ten pirated shows this last year. They collected information from many Torrent Trackers to come up with this list. This list is US only.

Dexter, the show about a serial murderer who kills bad guys topped this years most downloaded list at 3.6 million downloads. Game of Thrones was second, and CBS’s “Big Bang Theory” hit third.

Terra Nova is the surprise – 8th place at 1.9 million. This is a show that is on the verge of cancellation by Fox. So does a number like this mean there is still hope for this show?

Some good news is these numbers are declining. Web streaming sites like Hulu give people a chance to see their shows on their schedule. In return, they don’t have to search for the latest episode.

Game of Thrones

However, shows like Dexter and True Blood – which are on premium channels Showtime and HBO – don’t show up on Hulu. A season of these episodes might take 2 years before they land on Netflix streaming. You can buy seasons at the conclusion through sites like Amazon, and rent shortly through Blockbuster or Netflix DVD.

Five network TV shows ended up on the list – Big Bang Theory, House, How I Met Your Mother, Glee, and Terra Nova. TorrenkFreak deduces these are mostly downloads for people who are overseas and do not have access to Hulu.

Tags: big bang theory, Blockbuster, dexter, game of thrones, glee, HBO, how i met your mother, Hulu, netflix, Showtime, terra nova, true blood

Posted in TV

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GNC-2011-12-12 #728 Biggest Goof of the Year!

Posted by geeknews at 1:27 AM on December 13, 2011

All good intentions have a serious consequence when executed incorrectly. You will get a nice chuckle out of my goof up this weekend.. This show has some interesting topics that should make us all sit back and say hmmm..

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Tags: amazon, cloud, Crime, netflix, p2p, Patent Troll, Podcast, Public Domain, Set Top Boxes, Software, space, verizon

Posted in Podcast

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On The Net, Less Can Offer More

Posted by tomwiles at 9:59 PM on December 5, 2011

For some time now I’ve been using an iOS/Android app called “Heytell” to communicate with a number of friends and relatives. Heytell’s appeal is that it offers reliable asynchronous voice messages that are quick and easy to send to people when you don’t want to invest the time in a phone conversation. Heytell’s success as an app is that it offers something that’s less than a phone call but does it very well indeed.

Text messaging is successful and popular because it offers the opportunity to send quick and easy messages directly to the cell phones of others if you don’t want to invest the time or effort into writing a full-fledged email. Text messaging’s success is that it offers something that’s less than an email but does it very well indeed.

For some time now, I’ve been experimenting with various set-top boxes, including the Western Digital WDTV as well as built-in apps in a couple of different brands of Blu-Ray players, the software version of Boxee, an Apple TV, and even a Mac Mini connected to my HDTV. All of them had their strengths, however, it still felt as if something was somehow wrong or missing from each one of those experiences and user interfaces.

Over the weekend I bought a Roku 2 XS. The Roku is by far the best set-top box experience I’ve ever had. Roku has got it right. They’ve currently got well over 100 apps to chose from, with many more constantly being added. Roku has a tremendous amount of content provided by those third-party apps, and content drives success. Content is king and always will be.

It hit me what the appeal of a box such as Roku is with its third-party apps. These streaming apps, such as Crackle, Netflix, etc. are something less than a full-fledged cable or broadcast TV network. They can have lots of highly-specialized content to choose from, such as Netflix, or such a small amount of highly-specialized content that it’s only updated once a week. Big traditional cable and broadcast networks provide only one program at a time that the viewer has to make an appointment to watch. Roku video streaming apps provide specialized content that in many cases could never make it on a traditional broadcast network because the audience would be too small. That same specialized content begins to have tremendous appeal in a Roku app venue where it’s something less than a full-fledged network environment, yet delivered very well indeed.

On the Internet, less really can be more.

Tags: 2, Crackle, netflix, OTT, Roku, Settop Box, WDTV, Western Digital, XS

Posted in Apple, Boxee, IPTV, Netflix, OTT, ROKU, Streaming

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Hulu Not For Sale

Posted by susabelle at 8:08 PM on October 13, 2011

The owners of Hulu announced today that they are no longer for sale, after shopping themselves around since June. Maybe with Netflix’s sudden unsettled condition, it occurred to them that maybe they could make a few more dollars on their venture.

I am not a huge user of Hulu, but my teenage daughter is. She watches all her favorite cable and network shows there when she misses them on regular broadcast, or when someone accidentally erases something she’s saved from the DVR. Unlike others in the geek-o-sphere, we are not ready to cut the cord on our satellite yet. But having choices like Hulu means that we have some flexibility in how we watch some of our favorites.

I went and tooled around on Hulu tonight for a bit, to see what was there to watch. The American Experience series from PBS is available for free viewing, as is one of my guilty pleasures, Storage Wars from A&E. Much of what I found was cable-based, as most network shows end up on the networks’ own websites. Hulu is good for getting links directly out to shows that they don’t carry directly.

Most shows won’t play unless your ad-blockers are turned off, and they all include ads. Most ads are only a minute or less, and happen only a couple times during the episode you may be watching. That’s what you get for free. If you want to pay $8 a month, you get access to more shows, many of them current or newest releases including movies, plus the ability to watch them on any device from a smart phone to a tablet to an Internet-enabled television or set-top box.

From what I can tell, if you’re looking for things that have appeared on television, Hulu is where you want to go for content. If you’re looking for new releases, they are pretty much a black hole of nothing. But still, for those that don’t want to pay Netflix’s inflated prices for content, Hulu may be a reasonable alternative.

I intend to spend a little more time poking around seeing what is there.

Tags: Hulu, netflix, streaming, video

Posted in Information

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$49 Roku Might Be the Golden Ticket for Cord Cutters

Posted by Jeffrey Powers at 8:17 AM on October 11, 2011

Roku LT

This morning, Roku announced a $49 model of their popular Over the Top TV solution. The Roku LT is a very slimmed down version of the box. It does up to 720p video (which most content providers are creating content for), and while you cannot play Angry Birds or have a USB and Ethernet port (it’s a WiFi device, too) like the $99 model, it does have all the other functionality of this popular internet appliance.

Roku has been growing, adding many new channels including EPiX, which has been convincing people to cut the cord, as GigaOM discusses. Roku also added HBO Go – which is a On Demand service offered by HBO. You still need to order a cable package to get the OTT channel.

There are other great channels on Roku that do not require a cable connection, such as the TechPodcasts channel and Blubrry. You also have the Netflix, HuluPlus, Revision3, KoldKast, Glenn Beck, NHL, Fox News and many other channels.

The LT also undercuts the Apple TV by $50. Roku was already the lowest priced box, with a $59 and $79 version of the box. But this new magic price point turns the OTT box into a “great gift”. With the holidays fast approaching, this might be the hot item.

So with this news, will you finally be purchasing a Roku? Let us know!

Tags: Apple TV, blubrry, channel, epix, gift, gigaom, glenn beck, Hulu, internet tv, lt, netflix, OTT, revision3, Roku, techpodcasts

Posted in ROKU

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Thrusters on Reverse! Full Speed Back!

Posted by susabelle at 9:24 AM on October 10, 2011

Netflix apparently woke up from its stupor and stepped back from the plan to spin off its DVD-rental service into a separate unit called Qwikster. Universally panned by critics and users, the attempt to separate the businesses seemed like a terrible, terrible mistake.

Fortunately for Netflix users, it was a mistake and Netflix has been smart enough to reverse course and listen to the wants of its users. There are other companies I wish would do the same (facebook and Google, I’m looking at you!). Of course, it is really too late for users like me, who already left Netflix when prices increased by 60% or so. I was never a fan of their streaming service, since it never had what I wanted as a stream option. I could get very old things on streaming, including some old television shows, but what I wanted to stream were recent releases most of the time. Or at least, releases from the last ten years or so. I thought the idea of streaming was wonderful, since I could use streaming on my laptop when I was stuck in a hotel room in a random town for an evening. But nothing I ever wanted to see was available through their streaming service.

As for their rentals, We had pretty much watched everything there was to watch that we wanted to watch. At some point, we realized that we were not getting new rentals very often (maybe once or twice a month) and that wasn’t worth what I was paying. It certainly wasn’t going to be worth what I was going to be paying once the price went up. There was a time when movies were coming and going from our mailbox like that flap was a revolving door. But towards the end, when I canceled our service, we just weren’t using the service all that much. That time was past.

And overall, streaming was never really a huge draw for me to begin with, as we have no device with our television that will allow streaming to happen. We don’t game, so there’s no XBox, and we don’t have OTT boxes either. It’s not how we, as a family, operate. And I’m sure we’re not alone.

I’m still happy to see that Netflix knows when it has made a mistake, and is willing to change direction. And if they’d drop their prices back, we might just subscribe again. For now, it will be RedBox and whatever we can pick up from our pretty up-to-date local library. And there’s always MegaVideo, which my teenager uses to watch almost everything.

Tags: Mega Video, netflix, Qwikster, redbox, streaming

Posted in Streaming

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Netflix Kills Qwikster, DVD by Mail Still Netflix. Suffers $200 Dollar a Share Loss.

Posted by Jeffrey Powers at 9:21 AM on October 10, 2011

Maybe it was the weird spelling, the fact it was too close to Qwikstar (the Amway rebrand) or the twitter is owned by the Pot Smoking Elmo. Nonetheless, Netflix announced today they will not be seperating the company into two. Netflix DVD rental will still be $8 (with an additional $8 for streaming).

How Netflix Screwed themselves in the last 3 Months.

In July, Netflix came to the realization their service was not priced efficiently for the company to make a profit. Therefore, they announced by Sept 1st, they would be changing price plans.

The service separated the streaming from the DVD rental. For $8, you could get one DVD at a time. Add another $8 and you could get Netflix streaming. It was a move that happened too fast, so people lashed back.

Last month, Netflix’ CEO Reed Hastings outlined plans to separate the DVD by mail business and give it’s own name – Qwikster. People started speculating Netflix was planning to sell the DVD mail side and focus more on streaming. Within 14 days, Netflix saw a major decline of customers (Some calling the idea “Qwikstupid”) .

Netflix stock dropped almost $100 a share from Septembers’ announcement, and over $200 a share from July. Netflix lost millions of dollars in the last 90 days with these changes. Needless to say, this is not a great business plan.

What Netflix Needs to Do to Recoup this Large Deficit.

First of all, it would be a VERY GOOD idea to offer at least 1 free month to current customers (although 3 months would be better). After all, these are the people that stuck through it all. Next – cut the service price for DVD rental and streaming. Meet in the middle – $12 a month for 1 DVD at a time and streaming.

Reed Hastings also needs to put together a very big public apology. I don’t think it’s time for him to pass the CEO reigns just yet, but maybe Netflix needs to shake up the board a bit. This was a horrible idea that was ultimately agreed upon by the directors.

Will You Go Back to Netflix?

This is the biggest question. After all these bad decisions, would you choose to go back to Netflix? They do have the most coverage in streaming options, being on most Over the top TV solutions and game consoles. Still, loosing 1/3 of their operating share makes you wonder if they can ever get back to the $300 / share peak they enjoyed back in July.

I personally use the Netflix streaming service – I abandoned DVD rentals simply because they sat on the coffee table for weeks at a time. With new additions in AMC’s Walking Dead and Discovery’s Mythbusters to streaming, I have a month’s worth of shows to watch. Tron Legacy also showed up this month, which gives me more of what I really crave – top movies that are only a year old.

Tags: amway, Boxee, DVD, elmo, game console, netflix, OTT, PS3, Qwikster, qwixstar, reed hastings, rental, Roku, streaming, xbox

Posted in Information

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GNC-2011-09-26 #708 The Facebook Menace

Posted by geeknews at 1:11 AM on September 27, 2011

I talk about the Gaf in show 707, and then spend some time on my soapbox talking about Facebook and the implications of recent revelations. I talk very seriously about the ramifications of allowing Facebook to track your every move and how it could impact your life, relationships with a spouse and ruin your reputation.

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