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Weekly News Roundup (17 May 2015)

Sunday, May 17th, 2015

A nicely rounded WNR this week, with a little bit of everything included, from copyright stuff, to gaming, to 4K Blu-ray. Also a shout out to our new contributor Nick Harris (here he is on Twitter) – Nick will be helping me write a couple of news stories on Digital Digest and Streambly. Welcome to the team Nick!

I’m still looking for more contributors to help me find and write news stories. If you like the topics covered by this WNR and have an interest in writing (no experience needed), please contact me (use the admin/Sean email address).

Alright, the news stuff.

HBO Now – not quite good enough, or cheap enough, for many

While the first four episodes of the new Game of Thrones season has thus far avoided the unwanted distinction of breaking new piracy records, episode five, the first one that wasn’t leaked before the season even began, unfortunately could not escape the inevitable.

While most of the blame will go to the no good thieving pirates, especially now that HBO has given in and made available their standalone HBO Now product, HBO themselves are not without blame for this ongoing piracy crisis. The HBO Now app, based on ratings and reviews on the Apple App Store, is far from perfect and HBO’s poor track record with streaming goes back to even before HBO Now was launched. Those that used HBO Go, the company’s cable-account tied streaming service, will be familiar with the usual Game of Thrones rush, where HBO’s infrastructures fails to handle the demand of thousands of users all trying to stream the latest episode. On this front at least, HBO’s product falls short when compared to competitors like Netflix and Amazon.

And then there’s the price of HBO Now – $15 per month is very decent compared to the previous cable-tied arrangement, but it’s not when compared to the likes of Netflix. Considering that almost all users are there just to watch Game of Thrones, $15 a month for mainly just one show doesn’t sound like the greatest value.

So if HBO is serious about fighting piracy, then there are many other things they can do before playing the blame game.

Not living in a part of the world that HBO considers worthy of their presence, I’m not quite sure if their PC player uses HTML5. If they do already, or if they will eventually move in that direction (most likely), then the news that Firefox 38 now supports HTML5 DRM will be bittersweet news for subscribers of HBO Now that uses Firefox. This is because the latest version of Firefox has finally and reluctantly added Encrypted Media Extension (EME) support, which enables HTML5 playback of protected content from providers like Netflix, but also now means the open source browser now includes closed source DRM,

I say reluctantly because there’s a lot of complications involved with adding closed source “black box” code into an open source project like Firefox, even outside of licensing issues. Security, for example, is harder to verify if nobody can check the code for unintended bugs or intended spying. Firefox, for their part, has made a big effort to calm users of these fears, by providing a sandboxed environment for the EME, and also providing an EME-free version of Firefox for those that are concerned-bordering-on-paranoid (users can also disable or uninstall EME support in the standard version).

But without adding EME support, it would leave Firefox lacking in the compliance department when it comes to HTML5 support, not to mention eventually failing to support popular apps like Netflix. And that was a direction that even one of the major supporters of open source, Mozilla, wasn’t willing to make.

Ultra HD Blu-ray specs are done, complete with new logo

Ultra HD Blu-ray discs and players this week moves a step closer to (commercial) reality, with the Blu-ray Disc Association announcing that the specifications are now completed. There weren’t any surprises in the finalized specs, so it’s mostly just confirmation of things we already know. Things like 66GB dual layer and 100GB triple layer discs capable of supporting resolutions up to 3840×2160 at 60fps. There’s also goodies for those looking to update their TV sets to one of those fancy ones that supports things like 10-bit color and High Dynamic Range, as UHD Blu-ray will support these too.

On the audio front, support for one or both of Dolby Atmos and DTS:X “object-based sound formats” will be there too, as is a new version of UltraViolet that allows one disc purchase to unlock playback and streaming on a wide variety of digital-only devices – something to keep discs relevant in the age of digital.

And oh, there’s also a new logo.

I have to say that there’s something I don’t really like about the marketing for Ultra HD Blu-ray. I can’t help but feel that people are being led to believe UHD Blu-ray is just a small upgrade on the Blu-ray format, much like how Blu-ray 3D was promoted. But looking at it, UHD Blu-ray has a new disc format (that’s not compatible on older players) with new video and audio codecs, and will require a new TV to take full advantage of the improvements. The changes here are just as big as when DVDs made way for Blu-ray!

But it just doesn’t feel big enough of an update, and maybe that’s intentional. Nobody really wants a brand new disc format to contend with, not when everything is digital-only these days, and I think the BDA knows this. The emphasis here has been on continuity, on how UHD Blu-ray players will still play all your current Blu-ray discs, and that things haven’t changed all that much (even though they have, in major ways). And it’s also why the familiar Blu-ray logo is still part of the new logo, even though no existing Blu-ray player will be able to do anything with these new UHD discs.

A win for the Xbox One finally

I didn’t see that one coming. The Xbox One has managed to beat the PS4 in April US sales, the first time the Microsoft flagship console has managed to beat Sony’s juggernaut outside of the holiday sales period. The Xbox One’s permanent price cut and good value bundles seems to be turning the tide, although it’s not easy to say whether this is the beginning of a new trend, or just a temporary blip for the PS4.

Microsoft was expectedly happy with the result, citing that Xbox One sales were 63% up compared to the same month last year.

Overall hardware sales are still down, about 4% compared to this time last year, largely due to Xbox 360 and PS3 sales dropping off a cliff.

On the games front, the PS4 did manage to beat the Xbox One, with several of the top selling titles, including Mortal Kombat X, all selling better on the PS4. The two major FPS titles in the top 10, the latest incarnations of Battlefield and Call of Duty, both did better on the Xbox One than on the PS4 though.

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And here we are at the end of another WNR. Hope you enjoyed this issue. See you next week!

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, Gaming, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, NPD Analysis, PS3, PS4, Video Technology, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (17 May 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (3 May 2015)

Sunday, May 3rd, 2015

All of this week’s WNR, and most of this week’s news stories, were written on my new Surface Pro 3. It’s proving to be more than an adequate desktop and laptop replacement (with the tablet mode the least used of the three available modes, for me). All of the teething problems have more to do with the switch to Windows 8.1 (coming from Windows 7), than the actual SP3 hardware. And with the SSD (vs RAID 1 HDDs), faster CPU (i7-4650U vs Core 2 Duo E8600) and more RAM (8GB vs 4GB), it’s also a lot faster too (not to mention super quiet). I’ll keep you all update if I run into any serious issues with the transition.

Onto the news …

The only worthwhile thing the MPAA has produced has now been blocked for usage by anyone outside of the U.S.

File it under the “yep, this will help make things better” category, the MPAA’s much publicized website that helps you find legal content (because obviously people only pirate because they don’t know about Netflix and iTunes) has now been blocked from being used by anyone outside of the United States.

WhereToWatch.com now displays a familiar “This content is not available in your region” message if you happen to not live in a part of the world that Hollywood and major rightsholders don’t feel is important enough (ie. anywhere outside of the U.S.). Those that can remember reading about the WhereToWatch.com story last year in the WNR will remember that, in a rare moment, I actually praised the MPAA for providing something that’s actually useful for once. It took them a while, but the MPAA eventually went back to form, and in an not-at-all ironic move (that was sarcasm, btw), has managed to highlight just why many people pirate.

By locking up the content people want, and forcing them to get it via a method that lines rightsholders pockets, as opposed to serving consumer needs, it’s no wonder people choose to go down the piracy route. Not only is piracy free, it’s also often easier and more timely than the Hollywood approved ways to watch. The other alternative is to use geo-dodging services, VPNs and smart DNS solutions, to access U.S. services – and WhereToWatch.com was an useful tool to help you find where things were available. The MPAA has now locked up the site, and although users can use geo-dodging services to gain access back the site, leaked emails from Sony shows the MPAA is also going after VPN and smart DNS providers (see last week’s WNR for more information).

Speaking of the leak, Sony is apparently going after any website that is reporting on the contents of the leaked emails. Sony says the leaked emails is considered stolen data, and “respectable” media outlets shouldn’t cross this moral border. This hasn’t stopped quite respectable media outlets from reporting on the emails, like the New York Times’ Eric Lipton, who just won a Pulitzer for his report on the influence of lobbyists, a report that used information obtained from the leaked emails. And of course, less than respectable media outlets such as this one has no problem reporting on it, and ignoring Sony’s toothless threats.

Australian government set to give Hollywood the right to censor anti-copyright speech. Photo Credit: IsaacMao @ Flickr, CC

The leaked emails also revealed that much of the pressure to change Australia’s copyright laws are coming via Hollywood. Unfortunately, out super unpopular conservative pro big business government only has one agenda, and that’s to give Hollywood exactly what they want. So no surprises that the proposed changes as part of the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2015, could go as far as outlaw the right to even say things or have opinions that Hollywood does not approve of.

The current language in the bill allows rightsholders to petition the court to block websites owned or operated by anyone who “demonstrates a disregard for copyright generally”. It essentially places a ban on any online speech that put outs an alternative view on copyright, a view that Hollywood and the MPAA does not approve of.

Of course, it won’t actually get to that point. No court in Australia will grant any such block merely based on expressed anti-copyright views, but what could happen is that sites that discuss ripping or geo-dodging or provides instructions and help on anything that Hollywood deems to “facilitate the infringement of copyright” could be blocked. And with no clear definition on what “facilitate the infringement of copyright” means, anything from VPNs to file hosting companies can get censored here in Australia. The language in the bill is so vague (and I definitely think that it’s intentional) that blocked sites are simply referred to as “online location”, which could either mean the blocking of a single webpage, a website, or the blocking of an entire server serving thousands of unrelated sites just because of one “bad” site on the server.

A wide ranging coalition of tech firms, like Google, and consumer rights groups, like Australia’s CHOICE and the EFF, have all criticized the bill in its current form. Google, in their submission, said that the whole premise of these changes relies upon the proven failed concept of content blocking, which not only has questionable efficacy, but could also have unintended consequences such as the blocking of legitimate content.

4K Ultra HD TVs starting to grab some market share

4K TVs are beginning to get into people’s homes, with 11% of LCD TV shipments in March belonging to Ultra HD TV sets. I wandered around the shops the other day, and it definitely looks like 4K TVs are no longer the product you only see at trade shows or in rich people’s homes. There are quite a lot of “affordable” 4K TVs at the moment, perhaps not all capable of delivering the best 4K quality, but it’s certainly more accessible to the average consumer than 4K content at the moment (despite Netflix’s best efforts). Ultra HD Blu-ray players and movies coming out later this year, so the relative content drought (and the expected double, triple … nonuple, or whatever the count is, dipping begins) should be over soon.

More bad news for the Wii U. Whereas the last Call of Duty: Black Ops game, Black Ops II, debuted on the Wii U, the next one, imaginatively titled Black Ops III, will not be coming to the platform at all. To add insult to injury, Treyarch studio specifically dissed the Wii U as not being a current generation console, when giving out their reason for the decision to skip releasing on the console.

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Hope you enjoyed/found interesting/were terrified of the implications from this week’s news stories. More for you next week, so until then …

Posted in Computer Buying Tips, Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (3 May 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (15 March 2015)

Sunday, March 15th, 2015

Happy Birthday to me! Yesterday was my birthday, and so today, I’m already 0.00273972602 into my new age. Actually, it’s 0.00273224044 years older because 2016 is a leap year I believe. Nerd!

Quite a bit to get through this week, so let’s get started.

Yes, this is exactly the same as downloading The Walking Dead. Can’t you tell?

Counterfeit drugs that could harm your health or even cause death is the exact same thing as downloading Game of Thrones, according to the U.S. trade office. The USTR wants domain registrars to start cracking down and seizing domain names, all without due process. The USTR even went as far as listing domain registrar Tucows in its “notorious market” list for failing to shut down domain names after receiving information that these domain names were being used to offer content and products that infringe copyright or trademarks. Except these “notifications” have no legal merit or basis, and somehow Tucows is just supposed to take the word of whomever sent these notices and suspend the domain names. I wonder how easy it would be to have mpaa.com suspended, I’m sure they infringe on somebody’s rights if you look closely enough.

The worst part is that the USTR continues to use the same shtick, or rather, it continues to parrot the same line of argument of linking “rat poison filled” counterfeit drugs to movie downloads, both of which are technically copyright or trademark infringement. Show me how you can download rat poison filled counterfeit drugs from The Pirate Bay, and I’ll totally support your plan to allow private companies to suspend any domain name they want just because they want to.

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Here’s an innovative way to cut down on movie piracy – stop releasing movies! That’s the latest plan from India’s Tamil Film Producer’s Council, which hopes that movie pirates will go out of business if there are no new movies to release. That may very well happen, but what’s stop new movie pirates from starting again once the release of new movies restart? Maybe they haven’t thought this through enough …

Australian pirates have moved beyond having to actually pay for pirated discs and whatnot, preferring to download freely (both as in freedom and in price). The industry-led push to toughen anti-piracy measures here in Australia has certainly had a major positive impact – for VPN providers! Australians are flocking to VPN services in order to escape anti-piracy monitors. Well at least somebody well be benefiting financially from these anti-piracy measures – it won’t be the rights holders, that’s for sure!

In this week’s Digital Video/HD news section, we have two new ways to stream movies and TV shows, and one new way which is blocked for Comcast customers.

HBO Now is coming in April, but will you cancel your cable subscription if you sign up?

Starting with the official announcement that HBO’s standalone over-the-top streaming product will now be known as HBO Now, and will be available from April for $14.99 per month. Most of this is not news (other than the April release date), but slightly disappointing will be the fact that for the first three month at least, HBO Now will only be available on Apple devices, no doubt due to “business decisions” made at the highest level (more on these kind of “business decisions” later).

With no international expansion plans for the service yet, it will be interesting to see how hard/easy it would be for people overseas to get access to the service. The VPN/smart DNS thing might not be where the problem is, neither will be getting the app on Apple devices (it’s easy to create a U.S. iTunes account) as it’s the payment method that could get tricky. HBO could easily do a Netflix and allow overseas credit cards without looking too closely (funny how so many people live in the 90210 ZIP code), but they could also be harsh and only accept valid US credit cards. Time will tell.

Even harsher is the fact that PS4 owners using Comcast won’t be able to stream HBO Go despite the release of the app on the game console, due to “business decisions” made by Comcast. Apparently, Comcast and Sony have yet to come to an agreement on the issue, which leaves PS4 HBO subscribers out in the cold. If you ever want a real world example of how the Internet could be ruined by the lack of Net Neutrality, this is it – ISPs having the power to deny you access to something just because they haven’t been paid.

So while HBO Go isn’t available on the latest PS4 consoles, how about Netflix coming to an oldie, but goodie, gaming console? If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to watch Netflix on the NES, wonder no more. Just plug the NES cartridge in, select the episode of House of Cards you’d like to watch, and off you go in all of its 8-bit glory (and don’t let the fact that due to the NES obviously not have Internet access, that everything you see in this video was just a rigged demo, ruin the fun for you). HBO should have a Hack Day as well to make a hack that doesn’t let mass media corporations from telling you how and where you can watch your shows!

Everyone Love Streaming. Well not everyone, but certainly enough people to TV networks start to get worried

Regardless of how you watch Netflix or HBO, one thing is for certain – everyone’s watching it! A new survey from Nielsen shows that 4 in 10 U.S. households are already subscribing to some for of subscription VOD, with 36% of all American households currently using Netflix.

35% of households with broadband still haven’t started using services like Netflix, so there’s definitely room to grow for the likes of Amazon and Hulu Plus, both of which lag behind Netflix in terms of market share (13% and 6.5% respectively). Plus there’s also the quarter of all American homes that do not yet have broadband.

What there is less room to grow is the amount of TV households watch per day, which (although having dropped slightly) is currently at 4 hours and 51 minutes. I don’t think I can manage to squeeze 4 hours and 51 minutes of free time every day from my already fairly lax schedule, so I don’t know how people are doing it!

February NPD results are in, and we’ll discuss it in more detail next week. Suffice to say, it’s business as usual which means the PS4 was on top yet again.

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One year older, one year wiser? Um, probably not. I’d be happy to just be able to maintain my current level of intelligence for as long as possible, and no, that was not my birthday wish. See you next week (when I’ll be +0.0263157895 years older).

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, Gaming, News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (15 March 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (8 March 2015)

Sunday, March 8th, 2015

Welcome to another edition of the WNR. We have quite a bit to go through today, everything from a Chinese ’50 Shade of Grey’ to Blu-ray malware. It’s nice to have news stories to write about.

No time to waste, so let’s get started.

50 Shades of Grey – Chinese Style!

Those not wanting to give money to anyone involved with the ’50 Shades of Grey’ phenomenon (book of film), or those that are simply too embarrassed to go see it at the cinema will have been waiting for a good quality pirated version of the film. The morality of illegal downloading aside, the news that a very good quality HD version of the film ripped straight from a legal streaming outlet who had early access to the film will have been received as a piece of very good news indeed. But there’s a catch – this newly uploaded version is the PG-13, censored, airline version of the film, or to be more precisely, the Chinese government approved version of the film.

In other words, it’s the version with all the “good” bits removed, nudity, sex scenes or pretty much the only reason you’d ever even consider watching a film like this. If there’s one Chinese censor approved film this year that you have to watch, this film is not it.

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The sleazy world of political lobbying has been revealed by Google’s lawsuit against the state Attorney General of Mississippi Jim Hood. Hood started an investigation last year to discover whether Google is guilty of helping to distribute copyrighted content, but it was later revealed (ironically via the hacked Sony emails) that the MPAA was the one pulling all the strings, even going as far as creating an astroturf group (the Digital Citizens Alliance) and helping Hood draft letters that the AG was signing and sending to Google. All of this was an attempt by the MPAA to bring back SOPA.

Going back to AG Hood’s original claims, while there is no doubt that you can find pirated content via Google, but you can also find pretty much everything else on Google (um, that’s what a search engine does). It’s like making Yellow Pages responsible for all the actions of every company listed in the phone book.

Google promptly sued Hood to stop his investigation, and this week, a Federal court judged granted a temporary injunction against the investigation. While this is definitely a victory (judges don’t tend to grant temporary injunctions, and may even throw out the case altogether, if there’s nothing backing Google’s claims), it’s only a minor one as this TR only issued to ensures the “status quo”, as the judge puts it. A full trial will still be needed to determine whether Attorney General Hood and his MPAA buddies will get to blame Google for everything that’s wrong with the world today.

The Big cinema chains, AMC, Regal, Cinemark and Carmike, are starting to get increasingly worried about the death of the release window, especially now that Netflix is getting into the movie releasing business in a very serious way this year. Netflix has several first-run movies planned for simultaneous theatrical and streaming release set for this year, including the sequel to ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’. The chains, worried that their monopoly on movies released during the typical 90-day release window, are boycotting any film that does not have this exclusive window.

Movie cinema chains have Netflix in their sights

The latest release to get banned is ‘Beasts of No Nation’, starring The Wire’s Idris Elba and directed by True Detective’s Cary Fukunaga, a drama following the tale of a child soldier in Africa. Netflix purchased the rights to the film and will be making it a streaming exclusive when it is released later in the year, but has been seeking a theatrical release for the film that many considers an Oscar contender. With the big cinema chains all boycotting the film, it will be up to the smaller independent chains to pick up the slack, with around 250 screens set to show the film (a drop in the ocean compared to the number of screens owned by the big chains – Regal, the biggest chain, has more than 7,300 screens alone in North America).

So instead of giving viewers the choice between legal streaming and the full theatrical experience, the big chains appear willing to use their market power to maintain their precious release window, not realising that they’d still have to “compete” with another form of free digital movie viewing – piracy.

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A warning for those that download Blu-ray ISOs to burn their own discs, you could be burning a disc that launches malware on any computer, or selected Blu-ray hardware disc players, that plays it. Security consultants have found a vulnerability that allows malicious code to be launched via a Blu-ray movie’s BD-J interactive content. The most obvious attack vector is though the PC based Blu-ray player software PowerDVD, where a flaw in the software allows BD-j applets to run outside of the normal sandboxed environment and access the OS and file systems. Those with hardware Blu-ray players are not immune either, as a second vulnerability allows root access to Blu-ray players when the malicious code is launched.

Congratulations on winnings a 20th Anniversary Edition PS4 … oops, we’ve lost your details, bad luck!

The paper-less, cloud based office is the office of the future. And if this is true, then the office of the future is also where a multinational corporation accidentally erases the list of winners of a high profile, nation wide competition. Sony Japan has accidentally deleted the winners of their much hyped Anniversary edition PS4 competition. With the PlayStation brand entering its 20th year, Sony released a limited edition PS4 that has the same “silver/grey” finish as the original PlayStation console. Japanese consumers who bought a PlayStation console or an approved accessory in December or January received an unique code that could be submitted to Sony to go into the draw to win one of these fabled PS4 consoles, with Sony Japan choosing 123 winners. The only problem? Sony has lost the list of 123 winners “somehow”, and now the winners will have to find their unique code again, or to provide other evidence of their purchase. Sony assures customers that their data has not been stolen. The data has merely been lost with no explanations given. I guess someone should have printed out the list or something.

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That’s all we have for this week. Hope you enjoyed this week’s eclectic collection of news stories, I’m hoping for more of the same next week. Until then, have a good one!

Posted in Computing, Copyright, Electronics, High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K), News Roundup, PS3, PS4, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (8 March 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (1 February 2015)

Sunday, February 1st, 2015

It’s been one hell of a week here in Australia. Two weeks ago, we had almost no streaming video-on-demand services, and now we have two, with Netflix on its way too. Australia may now have the most competitive SVOD markets anywhere in the world, and Netflix’s success here may no longer be guaranteed.

We’ll have more on this later in the WNR, for now, let’s start with the copyright related news stories.

Digital music sales have fundamentally changed how music is sold, from the days of (much more profitable) CD albums

Another nail into the coffin for the notion that piracy reduction leads to increased revenue, based on the far too simplified idea that every pirated copy is a lost sale. Despite a dramatic decrease in the music piracy rate in Norway, revenue for the industry has barely changed, and in real money terms, may have decreased since the heady days of piracy.

Whereas in 2009, 80% said they downloaded pirated music, now, only 4% admit to doing so. And despite the country’s tougher copyright laws, it was refreshing to hear from the country’s anti-piracy lobby that new legal services, and not legislation, has been largely responsible for this change in behaviour. But despite music piracy having been practically defeated, music industry revenue in Norway remains flat.

The explanation is simply. The fall in music revenue has little to do with piracy, and much more to do with the transition from physical media, CDs, to digital. Highly profitable CD album sales gave way to cheaper digital track sales, and revenue has been going downwards ever since (which is common sense, since there is quite a difference in earnings between paying $12 for an album of 12 songs for only one song that you actually want versus paying $1.29 for the same song as a download). The fact that piracy, itself a by-product (or side effect) of the digital transition, rose during the same time period only suggests correlation, not causation.

Now, some of this lost revenue is being clawed back by revenue from streaming. It’s not going to replace what was lost by CD album sales, which seems to be the chief complaint of the music industry these days. They’re just going to have to get used to the new normal, because purchasing habits have dramatically changed and no amount of blaming piracy is going to change it back.

For video streaming, things are changing too. Instead of relying on the (often limited and frustrating to use) streaming capabilities of other CE devices (such as Blu-ray players, smart TVs and game consoels) to watch streaming content on their TVs, more and more are using dedicated media streamers such as Apple TVs, Rokus, Chromecasts and Fire TV Sticks. And even more, 40% of households, will be using them by 2017, says NPD.

Devices like the Amazon Fire TV are taking over from Blu-ray players and game consoles for TV streaming

It goes the other way too. Streaming services need to realise that user experience is sometimes just as important as the content. Taking a look at Australia, where the streaming scene has exploded in the last week with the launch of not one but two new streaming services (and this is before Netflix even arrives, in March). Both new services, Presto and Stan, have decided to go down the Android, iOS and Chromecast route (Stan additionally also supports Apple TV). Devices like the Chromecast now represents the quickest way to get video streaming apps on TVs, even TVs without Internet connectivity, and it’s also easier for developers than having to work with Microsoft or Sony, or who knows how many other smart TV makers, to get apps onto these closed platforms. Netflix, with their experience and expertise, will be able to launch in Australia with greater hardware support, and that will give them a big advantage.

Microsoft does have an advantage here, with Windows 10 apps likely to work across a range of Windows and Xbox devices, making it easier for developers (and increasing the incentive) to make apps for that platform. Sony, on the other hand, will have to hope that the PS3/PS4’s popularity is incentive enough for video app developers to take on the platform (time will tell if Presto and Stan get PS3/PS4 apps). That leaves the smart TV makers, all of whom have their own closed platforms that developers will have to take a lot of time to learn and develop for. What smart TV manufacturers need is a common app OS, and Android TV may be the answer.

Apps and OS’s aside, what has made things easier recently has been the increasing support for HTML5, which allows websites and apps to share common code, and for an easy way to streaming video. YouTube’s decision this week to default to HTML5 for its videos, for Chrome, IE 11, Safari 8 and Firefox beta users, is the best indication yet that this is the direction all web/app developers will be heading towards. It’s bad news for Flash though, and I think even Adobe realises that its time has come and gone.

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That’s the way. See how every story this week seems to have segued nicely from one to the other? I love it when this happens, even if sometimes I have to take force the issue somewhat. See you next week.

Posted in Copyright, Electronics, News Roundup, Video Technology | Comments Off on Weekly News Roundup (1 February 2015)

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Archive for the ‘Electronics’ Category

Weekly News Roundup (17 May 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (3 May 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (15 March 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (8 March 2015)

Weekly News Roundup (1 February 2015)

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