During the Google Nexus and Chromecast Event (no things left for imagination after that title), which Google held in company headquarters in Mountain View, California, the search engine giant expanded its family of hardware products. There are two new mobile phones (Nexus 5X and 6P), Pixel C tablet that challenges iPad Pro and Surface 3 Pro, and not one, but two new casting devices. Chromecast TV sold in over 20 million units, which is quite impressive consider Apple sold 25 million units, and had a headstart of couple of years. and an interesting competitor to Rocki, the new $35 Chromecast takes on a more rounded shape, available in black,
Spotify's Billion Dollar Business Comes Mostly From Paid Subscriptions
Spotify has grown to be a billion dollar earner, with premium subscriptions making the bulk of the business. But don’t count out free users just yet.
DirecTV to Deliver 4K Content to Samsung Customers
DirecTV has launched their new 4K content delivery service through their Geniue HD DVR service allowing Samsung owners to watch some 4K content over DirecTV
MSI Releases the X99S Gaming 9 ACK
MSI announces today the new MSI X99S GAMING 9 ACK, a version that has been updated with the latest Killer DoubleShot Pro.
DivX Gets Freed, Breaks off From Rovi and Goes Private
DivX, the popular media player and codec company of the 2000’s is coming back as a private independent entity and is looking to start expanding with 4K
Samsung Outs Amazon 4K UHD Video Service
In an announcement for next month’s for IFA Berlin, Samsung [KRX:005930] has unveiled a slew of 4K UHD streaming video content partners to strengthen its 4K UHD content offerings. As of right now, if you buy a Samsung 4K TV that isn’t one of the curved displays, you won’t get any 4K content at all with your TV. However, if you do buy one of Samsung’s new curved 4K TVs then you get a $300 1TB hard drive filled with 4K content containing five movies. In the announcement, the company announced multiple partners to help expand its 4K content library through streaming capabilities. The services include: Amazon, Netflix, maxdome, Wuaki.tv, and
Report: Amazon Buying Out Twitch TV (Update)
Update: In a new blog post, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear revealed that Amazon has indeed acquired the game-streaming service. “Today, I’m pleased to announce we’ve been acquired by Amazon. We chose Amazon because they believe in our community, they share our values and long-term vision, and they want to help us get there faster. “We’re keeping most everything the same: our office, our employees, our brand, and most importantly our independence. But with Amazon’s support we’ll have the resources to bring you an even better Twitch.” A month ago Google was ready to buy up Twitch TV for the tune of $1 billion. Now it appears that
Qualcomm Buys Wilocity, Adds WiGig to Snapdragon 810
WiGig is a technology that has been developed by Wilocity with the help of various industry partners, including Cisco, Marvell and Qualcomm. We’ve been following the company for years and have been able to see their technology develop little by little into a truly mobile technology. They’ve moved from a proof of concept all the way to integrating their technology into laptops and smartphones. From our experience, their laptop technology is far more mature than their mobile technology, however they have made significant strides in terms of improving the technology’s performance and usability. They already have their WiGig technology working in some of Dell’s laptops
T-Mobile's New Free Music Streaming Violates Net Neutrality
Normally, when a company violates something such as Net Neutrality it generally is in the company’s best interest and they are looking for ways to make things more profitable and less valuable to consumers. A perfect example of that is with what Comcast is doing to Netflix (and others) in terms of requiring them to pay for prioritization in violation of Net Neutrality. This ultimately hurts Netflix and Netflix users that might be on Comcast, resulting in everyone but Comcast losing. Now, T-Mobile as part of their Uncarrier 5.0 and Uncarrier 6.0 initiatives made an announcement that they would be allowing users to stream music for
Google to Buy Twitch.tv for $1 billion in Cash?
Some places are calling this new acquisition rumor of Twitch.tv to be one that has YouTube as a suitor and others are calling it a Google acquisition. Ultimately, Google is the parent company even though it would directly associate with YouTube in terms of media delivery and sharing. Whether you say YouTube is acquiring Twitch or Google, the end result is that Twitch is getting acquired for $1 billion in cash according to Variety, an interesting source of M&A news. While I would certainly allow this rumor to mature and ferment a bit in the rumormill, this may actually be the most reasonable acquisition (and acquisition price)