time warner

Our verdict on Facebook's privacy retool: well ... we're tough graders. Also today, will Steve Ballmer show up at the WWDC keynote? Palm loses its mobile UI design guy to Android, which is good news for Android, but continuing bad news for Palm and WebOS. Also, introducing Darth Vader's Dog.

The heads of the big TV companies are in Los Angeles this week, and all of them are making an effort to publicly embrace the brave new world of video. Not freaked out by it at all, OK?

Here's Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, for instance, showing off a forthcoming iPad app that allows you to program and control your TV remotely.

Looks cool. And while I think there's actually a limited-use case for programming your TV while you're out of your house, the ability to search for shows on the app should be better than the crappy … Read more

Time Warner Cable, the No. 2 cable operator in the U.S., saw strong broadband subscriber growth in the first quarter, which helped the company boost earnings 30 percent during the three-month period.

Time Warner reported a profit of $214 million, or 60 cents a share. This was up from $164 million, or 48 cents per share, during the same quarter a year ago. The results included 22 cents of restructuring charges. Revenue was up 5.4 percent to $4.6 billion. Analysts expected the company to earn 74 cents a share on $4.56 billion in revenue, according to … Read more

Cablevision, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable are teaming up to allow their subscribers in New York City and the surrounding area to roam onto each other's Wi-Fi networks.

All three companies currently offer free Wi-Fi service to their cable subscribers in areas surrounding the Big Apple, including parts of Long Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Starting Thursday anyone who subscribes to broadband from any of these providers will get free Wi-Fi access on the two other cable operators' Wi-Fi networks.

The blog Broadband Reports notes this is particularly good news for Time Warner Cable customers. Time Warner has relatively … Read more

Time Warner Cable has launched free Wi-Fi for all 1 million of its New York City customers.

According to Time Warner, customers can connect to "thousands" of high-speed Wi-Fi hot spots around the city starting Thursday. Time Warner Cable subscribers will have unlimited access to the Wi-Fi services, which run on Cablevision's Optimum Wi-Fi network that launched in 2008.

It should be noted that only New York City-based subscribers will be able to access the hot spots. In order to access a hot spot, customers will need to log in using their Road Runner username and password.… Read more

One of the most attractive benefits that Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, and other Internet movie services have to offer is that they're a cheaper alternative to paying monthly cable fees.

That may be one of the reasons why the cable companies are going on the offensive. The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing Co-op, a group that includes Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Sony Pictures, and Universal Pictures announced on Wednesday it plans to spend $30 million on an advertising campaign designed to "expand consumer awareness...of (rental) movies on demand."

The theme of the campaign will be "… Read more

The Federal Communications Commission wants to help you make sure you get what you pay for when it comes to broadband.

On Thursday the agency launched a new tool that allows consumers to test the download and upload speeds of their broadband connections. The tool, which can be found at www.broadband.gov, tests wireless or landline-based broadband connections. It also allows consumers to see the latency, the time it takes for data to be sent from a computer to the testing server and back, and jitter, the variability in the delay between a computer and the testing server, that'… Read more

If you're looking forward to a future of streaming movies, gargantuan Internet file exchanges, and other high-bandwidth activities, cheer up.

Broadband service providers in most of the major markets around the country will soon be able to deliver 100Mbps broadband service with no problem. That's enough to download a music album in as little as 5 seconds, an hour-long TV show in about 30 seconds, and a high-definition movie in roughly 7 minutes, 25 seconds. But it's going to cost you.

This should make the Federal Communications Commission's goal of getting 100Mbps service to 100 million homes by 2020 … Read more

Pay-TV juggernaut HBO has officially announced the launch of HBO Go, a video-streaming service.

Unless you are one of the 38 million cable subscribers who gets HBO or sister service Cinemax, HBO Go won't be offered to you, the company has said.

HBO Go provides subscribers Web access to the same movies HBO screens on cable TV--at no extra charge. This is the on-demand movie provider's attempt to hang on to subscribers during a down economy, as Netflix and other Web video services attract more and more consumers looking to reduce entertainment costs.

The new streaming service is … Read more