Entertainment

Does Microsoft have plans for the future of television?

The company has posted three job postings seeking engineers for its Interactive Entertainment Business that would work on a "new cloud-based TV platform." The job postings don't describe what the Cloud TV team will do, but the company entices candidates by urging them to "get in on the ground floor of an ambitious new project."

Microsoft's Careers site has been a valuable resource for Microsoft followers trying to see what the company has up its sleeve. Back in August, for example, a job posting looking … Read more

CBS programming is coming to Hulu Plus.

The video-streaming site announced the news today, saying that the CBS library will be made available to Hulu Plus customers starting in January. More than 2,600 episodes from the CBS library will come to Hulu Plus, including those from series "Medium," "Numb3rs," and "CSI: Miami."

As part of the deal, Hulu will also get its hands on old shows, like "I Love Lucy" and "The Twilight Zone," the company said today in a blog post announcing the deal.

CBS, which owns CNET, … Read more

Boxee has just won a big one.

Wal-Mart tomorrow will start carrying the $99 Boxee TV set-top box at 3,000 locations nationwide. Bloomberg, which was first to report on the news, spoke with Boxee CEO Avner Ronen, who said that the Wal-Mart partnership could deliver "a big launch" for his set-top box.

Boxee announced the product earlier this month, calling it a "No Limits DVR." The device, which connects to a television set, has no onboard storage but acts as a DVR thanks to cloud storage. In addition, over-the-air television programming can be watched due … Read more

Google Play's position among the top destinations for entertainment content, right there alongside Apple and Amazon, can no longer be denied.

Google announced today that it now has the licenses to offer movies and TV shows from News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox, which means Google Play can rent and sell material from all the major Hollywood studios. Google also locked up a deal with Time Inc. to distribute the media company's top magazine titles such as People, InStyle, and Time.

Perhaps most telling for Google is the deal it struck with Warner Music Group, one of the … Read more

After a whirlwind of Apple announcements, it's nice to take a quick break and chuckle at the experience after all the hype settles down.

During yesterday's "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" on CBS (disclosure: CBS is the parent company of CNET), the amusing Scottish talk show host took on the iPad Mini during the opening monologue.

In a futile attempt to explain the latest and greatest Apple product to the general audience, Craig points out that many people continue to repeatedly purchase the same thing in different sizes. You might have a laugh as the eccentric comedian tries to explain that 8 inches isn't really that small. … Read more

News Corp. is taking bids for IGN Entertainment as the media conglomerate tries to divest itself of the network of video game and pop culture Web sites.

News Corp., which paid $650 million in 2005 for the network, expects to get around $100 million for the sale, people involved with the negotiations tell The Wall Street Journal, which is also owned by News Corp. The media giant is formalizing the bidding process as part of its planned separation of publishing assets from its media and entertainment business.

Digital content providers such as Break Media and SAY Media, as well as … Read more

Imagine your virtual character relaxing in the confines of the massive World of Warcraft city Orgrimmar, when suddenly, zero health points. Upon spinning the mouse cursor around, everything around you also simultaneously perishes. Not long after the death, countless skeletons of fallen players stack up upon the city streets.

While this sounds like a bad dream that might strike someone who plays World of Warcraft too much, the deadly scenario played out yesterday across many WoW servers around the world. Entire Horde and Alliance megacities -- including Stormwind -- suddenly became graveyards for thousands afflicted by an in-game exploit carried out by malicious players. … Read more

While most classical concert halls deliver the best of Mozart, Beethoven, or Bach, the Boston-based Video Game Orchestra plays tunes from the annals of beloved franchises such as Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Castlevania, and others.

The eclectic musical group -- which weaves a Mannheim Steamroller-esque synthesis of classical music and a rock -- played to a packed house yesterday at the Boston Symphony Hall and completed a major milestone on Kickstarter by generating $40,000 in donations to launch an album recorded from the performance. … Read more

Gaming is helping men close the gender gap on how much time is spent in front of televisions.

According to new data from Nielsen, the average American woman between the ages of 18 and 34 spends 4 hours and 11 minutes watching television each day. The average man of the same age spends 37 minutes less time watching television, tallying 3 hours and 34 minutes per day.

However, when it comes to using consoles for everything from gaming to watching video, men spend 48 minutes with the hardware, more than doubling the average woman's 22 minutes of daily usage.… Read more