Digital Entertainment

July 5, 2009

Five Apps I'd Like to See on My TV

When I was growing up, my parents referred to the television as the "idiot box" or the "boob tube" because of its power to sap my ability to do anything other than ...

June 24, 2009

Time Warner, Comcast Plan to Wall Off Online TV

Amid the rush to make programming available for free online, Time Warner and Comcast are fighting back. The companies on June 24 announced a new model that will ...

June 12, 2009

Millions Left Behind as TV Goes Digital

As Pedro Ortez and his wife, Wanda, watched Law and Order on Thursday night, they knew that soon after the program finished their screen would fade to static. The TV, ...

June 4, 2009

Oprah: Tech's Latest Trendsetter

Poolhouse, the Toronto-based creator of pet-related applications on Facebook, recently got an unexpected but welcome phone call from the producers of The Oprah Winfrey...

June 4, 2009

Livio Radio Makes Streaming Easy

There is no shortage of ways to enjoy music—from old-school CDs to conventional radio stations, Sirius XM (SIRI) satellite radio to MP3 players. There's also ...

June 4, 2009

Rupert Murdoch's Latest Deal with John Malone

It was one of those calls that only a couple of media moguls could make. Rupert Murdoch needed approval from his longtime partner and occasional nemesis John Malone ...

June 4, 2009

Hulu May Begin Charging for Content

By Brennon Slattery San Francisco - Nothing free and awesome lasts forever. Case in point: Hulu.com. According to Jonathan Miller, News Corps.'s chief digital officer,...

June 3, 2009

Cable TV vs. Cable Broadband

Cable TV has come a long way since the 1990s. The industry's customer service record was so abysmal that it was lampooned in the Ben Stiller comedy The Cable Guy, ...

June 1, 2009

Microsoft Moves onto Nintendo's Motion Turf

Microsoft wants to beat Nintendo at its own game. Nintendo revolutionized the $30 billion gaming industry with a console that lets people use body movement in their ...

May 21, 2009

Copyright Meets a New Foe: The Real-Time Web

Copyright law wasn't written with today's content consumption in mind. The way online video copyright functions is based on a reading of the 10-year-old Digital ...

May 17, 2009

Will the iPhone Grab the Lead in Games?

Last week, I got a visit from the CEO of a company that makes games for the iPhone. It was a revelation. Shervin Pishevar, CEO of Social Gaming Network, showed me a ...

May 13, 2009

Boxee Battles Big Media

Like many people who own a PC, Avner Ronen found himself watching more and more video online. But he wanted to view it on the TV in his living room as well as on his ...

May 11, 2009

SCIFI Channel: Playing to the Tech-Savviest Fans

Nerds across the galaxy strapped on their pointy ears and beamed into theaters to catch the big budget reboot of Star Trek this weekend. Science-fiction fans may be ...

May 7, 2009

Sirius XM's Subscriber Drain

Investors put up with financial losses at Sirius XM so long as it and predecessor companies were posting subscriber growth. But now the satellite radio provider is ...

May 1, 2009

NBC Seeks Vision of TV's Future

The job of a network executive has never been easy. Picking a hit is a tall order even for someone with what the industry likes to call a "golden gut"—a knack ...

May 1, 2009

CBS: Outside the Hulu Huddle

And then there was one. Now that Walt Disney (DIS) has struck a deal to put its content on the online video site Hulu, CBS (CBS) is alone among the four major networks...

April 30, 2009

Social Gaming Scores in the Recession

Gaming goes gangbusters in a downturn. In 2001, the Nasdaq was plunging and such tech mainstays as telecom, e-commerce, and enterprise computing were in a tailspin. ...

April 30, 2009

What Disney-Hulu Means for Apple

When Walt Disney (DIS) said it would start streaming shows via online video site Hulu, attention immediately turned to what the deal means for Hulu rival YouTube as ...

April 30, 2009

Warner Bros.' Financing Bumps

For decades, movie moguls have, it is said, lived off "other people's money." Investors come and go, lured by Hollywood's glamour—only to wind up losers while ...

April 27, 2009

William Morris Endeavor's Wobbly Merger

How do you know a merger agreement was hard fought and perhaps is still fraught with problems? When the new company has not one, or two, but three CEOs. But this is ...

April 24, 2009

Get Ready to Prove You Paid for That Video

If 2008 was all about getting premium content online (thank you, Hulu!), 2009 is shaping up to be the year you pay for it, and Comcast-owned video portal Fancast is ...

April 23, 2009

YouTube's Bold Move Toward Profitability

YouTube helped make Scottish singer Susan Boyle an overnight sensation, but the video-sharing site isn't getting much in return. Clips of the singer's spectacular ...

April 17, 2009

Icahn's Blockbuster Move: So Far, a Bust

You can only hope Carl Icahn loves a good slasher movie. He's starring in one of his very own, financially speaking, when it comes to his investment in Blockbuster ...

April 13, 2009

Deconstructing Apple's Tiny iPod Shuffle

When the first iPod graced store shelves almost eight years ago, it could pack about 1,000 songs into roughly the same space as a deck of playing cards. A new ...

April 10, 2009

Nintendo's New DSi: Well Worth the Money

Nintendo dominates handheld gaming, hands down. The company recently said it has sold more than 100 million of the original Nintendo DS and its follow-on DS Lite since...