TiVo gives ex-Aereo customers a break on its cord-cutter DVR
TiVo made no bones about wanting to scoop up Aereo’s former cord-cutter TV business, and that apparently includes many of its viewers. The DVR provider has launched a promo for ex-Aereo customers that gives you a Roamio OTA box, a TiVo Stream and two years of service for no money down and $20 per month. It’s not the hugest deal in the world, and it won’t exactly match what you got under Aereo, but it could help if you’re still hunting for an easy way to watch over-the-air broadcasts on your own terms.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Source: TiVo
Comedy Central channel starts streaming on Roku
It took a while, but Comedy Central is finally bringing its video content to Roku’s streaming devices. As Variety points out, although the network hasn’t made an official announcement, the channel’s now available for download. You will need a pay-TV subscription to access most of Comedy Central’s on-demand library, however, which includes The Daily Show, Key & Peele, South Park, Broad City and many more shows. That said, cord-cutters won’t be completely left out, since they’ll be able to enjoy the latest episodes of some shows — like The Daily Show, The Nightly Show with Larry More and a few select others. Don’t have it on your Roku player yet? You can install it directly from here.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD
Via: Variety
Source: Roku
Helio’s cellphone service comes back to life with a $29 plan
Remember Helio, the virtual carrier that tried to cater to the tech-savvy young crowd (not so successfully) with data-centric plans and rebranded basic phones? It’s baaaack. Ubi Telecom, a mobile company focused on Korean-speaking Americans, has quietly revived the brand as a mostly bring-your-own-device service on Sprint’s network, with Verizon* as a roaming partner. However, it’s definitely not the provider you remember from a decade ago. Service is much cheaper at $29 (tax included!) for unlimited data, text and voice, but that data is capped at a paltry 128Kbps — you won’t be checking out Netflix. The ready-to-go phone catalog is old, too, with the Galaxy S4 being as good as it gets. The resurrected Helio makes sense if you think that even Virgin Mobile’s $35 plans are too rich for your blood, but it won’t trigger those warm, fuzzy nostalgic feelings.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Verizon, Sprint
Via: TeleGeography, FierceWireless
Source: Helio
YouTube star PewDiePie made $7 million in 2014
Last year around this time, word got out that Felix Kjellberg, a 24-year-old Swedish bro known online as PewDiePie, made $4 million a year by playing video games, recording his reactions and uploading the resulting videos to YouTube. At the time, he had 27 million YouTube subscribers. Today, Kjellberg has 37.7 million subscribers on YouTube and his company, PewDiePie Productions, pulled in roughly $7.5 million in revenue in 2014, according to Swedish newspaper Expressen. It looks like this whole “watch people play video games on the internet” craze is here to stay.
When Kjellberg’s revenue numbers hit last year, he was inundated with questions and messages of incredulity — so many that he did a Reddit AMA to clear the air. He confirmed the $4 million figure and noted that he does charity work alongside his “Let’s Play” gaming videos: “I still spent far more money on charities than anything I’ve ever spent for myself. Which I am proud to say at least.” In June 2014, Kjellberg announced that his bro army (see: fans) had raised more than $1 million for various charities, including the World Wildlife Fund, Save the Children, St. Jude hospital and Charity: Water. In March this year, Charity: Water thanked Kjellberg for helping 10,028 people in Rwanda get access to clean water. Not bad for a band of bros.
Kjellberg’s next big thing is the launch of his book, titled This Book Loves You, a collection of inspirational quotes that he’s said over the years as an online personality. For example: “Don’t be yourself. Be a pizza. Everyone loves pizza.” This Book Loves You is due to drop in October.
Filed under: Gaming, Internet, HD
Source: Expressen
Instagram Finally Bringing 1080px Photos to their Android App
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Android users that use Instagram at an almost daily basis for selfies and food porn, know that the quality of photos that get posted from their phone don’t always look as clear once placed in the feed. That’s because the Instagram Android app breaks down the image to 640×640, there by bringing down the quality of the beautiful picture you just took. Androidians will now start seeing the beauty in those food pics and sunsets in 1080×1080, and some users right now have already started receiving the update. Let us know if you got the update already and if there is a significant change in picture quality.
Source: Droid-Life
The post Instagram Finally Bringing 1080px Photos to their Android App appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
Apple Retail Stores to Offer Third-Party Accessories in New Apple-Style Packaging
Apple is planning to introduce new co-designed packaging for many of the third-party accessories that it sells in its stores, according to retail store information shared by 9to5Mac. Apple has reportedly been working with several third-party accessory manufacturers on packaging design, helping to create a new look for boxes to better fit in with the packaging that’s used for Apple’s own products.
Companies participating in Apple’s revamped packaging efforts include Tech21, Sena, Incase, Mophie, Logitech, and Life Proof. When these products are sold in Apple Stores, they’ll be sold with simple, no-frills white boxes with minimal labeling as seen in photos.
According to the memo, the packaging will be mostly white to match the Mac, iPhone, and Apple Watch boxes, while they will also include simpler fonts, new photography, higher-quality materials, and more consistent compatibility labeling. This shift is yet another in a string for third-parties that has included new environmental guidelines and a ban on leveraging early iPhone leaks.
Apple’s new head of retail, Angela Ahrendts, has been working to revamp the Apple Store experience in recent months, streamlining the purchasing process and reimagining both product discovery and customer-employee interactions. The packaging redesign is part of a larger effort to overhaul Apple’s in-store accessory lineup, limiting the number of products that are sold for a more refined look.
News of the revamped packaging was first shared by Mac Otakara in June, and a sneak preview of what the accessory sections of Apple’s retail stores might look like can be seen at the company’s Upper East Side store in New York.
Apple’s Upper East Side store, image via Mark Lennihan, Associated Press
Apple Store accessory sections are expected to begin seeing changes starting next week, which is when the new packaging will be introduced.
Instagram will now show your photos in 1080×1080 resolution
Instagram has become one of the easiest ways to share photos with your friends and followers on mobile, but the app has always come with one big caveat. For some time now, images have been resized to the low resolution of just 640×640, which is very noticeable when scrolling through your timeline. But now that current mobile phones can produce much higher resolution photos, the Instagram team is making a big change that many users will enjoy. Beginning today, images uploaded to the service will finally be viewable at 1080×1080.
The ability to view higher resolution photos is now rolling out to both Android and iOS apps, though there was no mention in the announcement regarding Instagram’s website. Also, there’s no need to head to the Google Play Store to update your app – this is a subtle change, so you’ll begin seeing higher resolution photos in your feed automatically.
We’re not exactly sure when everyone will get these improvements, but the Instagram team says the new feature is gradually rolling out as we speak. Be sure to let us know if your feed looks any better today!
Windows 10 preview turns Xbox Music into ‘Groove’
Welcome to the new music experience in Windows 10. As hinted at earlier this morning by Paul Thurrott, the company just announced it’s rebranding the Xbox Music experience to “Groove“, while also renaming the Xbox Video app to just “Movies & TV.” According to a blog post about the changes, the new naming is meant to be “more identifiable to our broad customer base” and will roll out to other devices in the coming months. The timing of the change is odd as Windows and Xbox begin to work more closely together than ever before, but it doesn’t appear that the actual features will be much different. Of course, with the launch of Apple Music, rebranding could be just the way to get some attention for an existing service that already offers a lot of the same features.
The subscription Xbox Music Pass is turning into Groove Music Pass with $10/month or $100/year streaming of songs from the Windows store, along with custom radio stations. Meanwhile, if you want to store your own tracks in the cloud, that OneDrive link to the Music service that just launched on Xbox, Windows and Windows Phone is coming to Android and iOS “soon.”
The new Movies & TV app in Windows 10 is also mostly the same, however now it’s added MKV container support while it lists your personal video files along with any stuff you buy from the Windows store. Windows Insiders on the Fast ring should see these changes with the next update, while everyone else will have to wait until Windows 10 launches July 29th.
Filed under: Internet, Software, Mobile, Microsoft
Source: Blogging Windows, Groove Music
Microsoft’s latest app experiment helps you get friends together
Microsoft’s Garage team has tried to solve many everyday problems with its experimental mobile software, but it’s now tackling one of the most common: how do you get your friends together for a night on the town? The group’s new Tossup app for Android and iPhone gives you a simpler, shared experience for deciding on where you’re going, when, and who’s coming. You only have to ask your friends for a vote, and Tossup will automatically plug your decisions into your calendar. Is this a one-trick pony? You bet — but that might be all you need if you don’t want to set up a Facebook event (or juggle multiple conversations) just to head out for Korean barbecue.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile, Microsoft
Source: App Store, Google Play
Prepare to be inundated with Happy Birthday tweets
Do you enjoy getting a truckload of birthday wishes on Facebook each year? Well, prepare for the same thing to happen via Twitter. The 140-character social network now allows you to add your birthday to your profile, letting the masses know the proper 24-hour period to ping you with a celebratory GIF. Adding that bit of info is optional, of course, and you’ll be able to configure the settings so that it only appears for the folks who you really want to be informed. And yes, you can leave out the year so the internet won’t know exactly how old you are. The new addition is said to be available “starting today,” so if you’re not seeing it now, you should be shortly.
[Image credit: OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images]
Filed under: Internet, Software
Source: Twitter
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