streams

The battle for the future of television is just beginning, but it looks to be a long one. One of the key players is Microsoft, which has spent the past several years morphing its Xbox 360 from a straight-up gaming console into one of the best video-streaming boxes you can buy.

Of course, the current Xbox 360 is getting long in the tooth, and the next-generation model is expected to be announced soon, and to be available as early as the end of 2013. And TV services look to be just as central to the core of that device as … Read more

Spotify continues to turn up its music service around the world.

As of today, Spotify is now officially available in eight new countries, including Mexico, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Iceland. The latest launches extend Spotify's global reach to 28 different countries.

CNET actually uncovered the news yesterday based on information from "a person familiar with the situation." CNET News reporter Paul Sloan reported the rollouts in the new markets with the launch date pegged for today.

Spotify kicked off in the U.S. a year and a half ago and now has 24 million active users, … Read more

Due to eroding support for browser plug-ins, Netflix is making plans to move its streaming service from Silverlight over to the emerging HTML5 video format.

The movie-streaming service has used the Microsoft plug-in to deliver streaming content to Windows and Mac OS X computers since 2008. But after Microsoft announced last month that it would end support of the browser versions of the plug-in by 2021, it became clear Netflix needs to start focusing on a replacement.

While the solution may present into through Google's efforts to make Netflix available on the ARM-based Samsung Chromebook, the movie service has … Read more

As Boston grapples with the aftermath of two explosions that hit the city during its annual marathon, YouTube has created a way for people to immediately get the latest news.

The video steaming site has built an official YouTube Spotlight page devoted to all video related to the blasts. Titled "Explosions at the Boston Marathon," the page has 26 videos as of this writing -- from President Barack Obama's speech to videos captured by onlookers to police press conferences detailing the explosions. More videos will surely be added as more is uncovered about what happened.

If you were hoping to watch last weekend's Coachella concert on your iDevice, you just missed your chance: although the event was streamed live on YouTube for free, the iOS YouTube app doesn't support live streaming.

It does now. (Cruel timing, Google!) YouTube 1.3 for iOS, released today, adds a handful of new features and fixes, not the least of which is access to live streams.

For those unaware, YouTube offers a variety of live content, everything from concerts (natch) to news and sports.

The iOS streaming feature joins a "Send to TV" option introduced back in February, … Read more

More and more radio stations are streaming online, and there's a lot of great music and other programming broadcast throughout the Interwebs everyday. With Alexander Nottelmann's fab freeware StreamWriter, you can record streaming audio as easily as you could pop a tape in a deck and press "record" to capture traditional broadcasts. Not only is StreamWriter free, it's open source and community supported, with regular updates, bug fixes, and enhancements. StreamWriter can record multiple audio streams simultaneously and save them as MP3 or AAC files and worked great for me in my evaluation.

StreamWriter offers … Read more

Netflix had an exceedingly strong first quarter, according to CEO Reed Hastings.

On his Facebook page yesterday, Hastings said that Netflix served up over 4 billion hours of streaming video during the first three months of the year, reaching a high-water mark for the company. Hastings didn't say which videos contributed most to the strong quarter, but his mention of Netflix's first original series "House of Cards" might lead some to believe that the critically acclaimed and wildly popular show starring Kevin Spacey helped out.

Hastings' announcement comes just months after he announced on his Facebook page … Read more

About a year ago I asked readers if it still made sense to buy CDs, what with DRM all but dead and MP3 albums typically selling for less than their disc-based counterparts.

The response was incredible, with some pretty passionate defense of the seemingly antiquated CD. For some users, it's all about sound quality. For others, it's about the security of owning physical media.

Lately I've been wondering if it makes sense to own music at all. Make no mistake: I grew up accumulating LP and 45 records (a crate of which I recently donated to charity), … Read more

Apple is close to striking a streaming deal with two of the major music labels that could end up far sweeter for the music industry than what the labels currently get from Pandora, according to two people familiar with the negotiations.

Much has been made in recent weeks of Apple trying to squeeze the labels on terms, and the deals do have Apple paying the labels a per-stream rate that's half of what Pandora pays. But CNET has learned that Apple's planned music service would offer new revenue streams as well.

That includes a quick way for consumers … Read more