Stream Xbox One games to Windows 10 & tablets this year.

So it looks like Microsoft is going to take another stab at PC gamers with Windows 10 while muddying the waters with being able to stream your Xbox One to windows 10 PC's

http://www.joystiq.com/2015/01/21/stream-xbox-one-games-to-windows-10-pcs-and-tablets-later-this/

http://www.joystiq.com/2015/01/21/fable-legends-confirmed-for-windows-10-pcs/

iOS 7.1 update coming in a few days with SXSW app for iTunes Festival

Apple is on track to release iOS 7.1 very soon along with a SXSW companion app as the company prepares for the very first US iTunes Festival. (Streamed via iTunes)

According to John Gruber of the Daring Fireball blog, Apple is building the SXSW app exclusively for iOS 7.1 which gives the company just under 6 days to launch the update and the app, as SXSW starts on March 11th in Austin, Texas.

http://www.neowin.net/news/ios-71-update-coming-in-a-few-days-with-sxsw-app-for-itunes-festival

60 days instead of 30 of Spotify premium for free.

You need to give card details / paypal details. Just set a reminder to quit before the 60 days are up and it will cost you nothing!

Also gives to access to using the service on mobile devices.

Offer ends today!

http://goo.gl/d10YhC

ISPreview: Headache for Broadband ISPs as Netflix UK Add Super HD Movie Streams

The interesting bit is:

"Naturally the extra quality might give a headache to some providers and that’s one reason why Netflix are attempting to encourage ISPs to adopt Netflix Open Connect, which is their “highly optimized video content delivery network” that’s available at no cost to broadband providers."

I doubt any ISP's would struggle in their core of distribution layers of their network with this upgrade. The only problems will arise if there are access network capacity issues that beat forecasts in certain areas, otherwise this is a bit of a non-story really. 

I hope Now TV move to match this quality. Their standalone NowTV box (for people who don't want Sky or prefer a pay as you go model) is awesome for the price but let down by being only 720p. 

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2013/09/headache-broadband-isps-netflix-uk-add-super-hd-movie-streams.html

Xbox One delivers premium voice quality via hardware improvements and Skype’s audio codec

Thanks to integration with Skype’s audio codec, which has a proven track record of high-quality voice through billions of hours of use within Skype, as well as dedicated audio processing (for Xbox One conversations via Skype and multiplayer party chats), Xbox One offers higher quality voice chat with the Xbox One Chat Headset compared to Xbox 360—whether you’re chatting in-game or through party chat with Skype on Xbox One.

But the improvements don’t stop there. The Xbox One Wireless Controller’s new expansion port dramatically expands the data transfer rate between the controller and console. Combined with Skype’s audio codec, this enables crystal-clear digital audio with the Xbox One Chat Headset, both capturing and rendering speech at 24 KHz PCM, which is triple the rendering sample rate and a 50 percent capture rate improvement over Xbox 360 headsets. And, as we shared before, the Xbox One Chat Headset comes with every Xbox One console.

http://majornelson.com/2013/08/29/xbox-one-delivers-premium-voice-quality-via-hardware-improvements-and-skypes-audio-codec/

Could a new Star Trek series be happening exclusively on Xbox Live?

Totally a rumour mill article but it'd an interesting one. The tactic has certainly worked for Netflix and in an ever increasing market its becoming difficult to complete unless you have a major pulling factor to grab subscribers away from other services. 

http://www.neowin.net/news/other-sci-fi-tv-shows-microsoft-could-revive-for-xbox-live

Got your own CDN's to host Netflix's content. The you could have SuperHD streams.

See link: http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/07/netflix-superhd-3d-comcast/

Roku NowTV box £9.99

Great if you don't have Sky or just want to use it occasionally. 
https://shop.nowtv.com/

Mozilla, Otoy debut high-speed codec for any browser with no plug-ins

Simply using HTML5 and JavaScript (With Otoy's proprietary library):

ORBX.js is the library is question.

Mozilla and Otoy plan to demo the technology at a press roundtable in San Francisco at 10:30am Pacific time on Friday, along with Autodesk, which helped fund development of ORBX.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/03/mozilla_otoy_announce_orbx/

Netflix drops Silverlight, moves to HTML5- The Inquirer

Guessing other services will follow swiftly once the DRM is properly sorted (Now TV, Sky go). Look out for browser updates to support "HTML5 Premium Video Extensions"

Netflix drops Silverlight, moves to HTML5- The Inquirer

NowTV

I got a free 24 pass to try NowTv.com so I gave it a spin.

I didn't realise you can have two simultaneous streams which is nice. It doesn't allow for a third as you'll see below:



Needs a bit more app support but I tend to connect my PC / laptop into a TV via HDMI so its not really an issue for me.

If I didn't already have Sky I could see myself using it for the odd F1 race or football match when having friends over.

BBC gives itself a gold in 700Gbit-a-second Olympic data race

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/14/bbc_olympics/