entertainment

Sony Nasne DVR launches in Japan Aug. 30. But in U.S.?

Sony's Nasne DVR add-on is launching in Japan at the end of the month, but there's no word yet on when it might be making a trip overseas.

Sony announced the launch date today, saying that the device, which comes with 500GB of onboard storage, will be available to Japanese customers for 16,980 yen (about $216), including tax. The device will launch over a month later than Sony had initially anticipated when it announced a July 19 release date back in April.

Although the Nasne looks awfully similar to a PlayStation 3, the device doesn't play … Read more

YouTube to spend $200 million more on professional videos

YouTube is ready to dump more cash into its professional programming, according to a new report.

Google-owned YouTube will drop another $200 million into the programming to more effectively market the nearly 100 channels boasting professional videos, the company told the Wall Street Journal in a report published yesterday.

The Journal is reporting today, citing sources, that YouTube has so far attracted $150 million worth of advertising to its original programming. That investment, if it carries throughout the year, would help cover the startup costs YouTube incurred to get its programming off the ground.

YouTube has so far invested $150 million to experiment with original programming. … Read more

I'd Cap That+ adds even more funny to photos

I'd Cap That+ is the paid follow-up to the wildly popular, free caption-generating app I'd Cap That. For 99 cents, "+" offers the same crude humor of its predecessor, but adds a few features that many felt the original were missing.

Like its free counterpart, I'd Cap That+ is a novelty app that automatically generates hilarious, sometimes crude captions for your iPhone photos. Just fire it up, choose to either take a new photo or use an existing photo from your phone's gallery, and hit Use. After that, watch I'd Cap That slap a … Read more

Spotify finds a spot on Yahoo

Yahoo users will soon be able to stream music from Spotify without leaving the Yahoo site.

Yahoo and Spotify announced a global content distribution and promotion agreement today that will integrate the on-demand music service into Yahoo's media network.

This means Spotify will reach the network's hundreds of millions of unique visitors and that Yahoo gets some cool points with Spotify's 10 million or so active users. Both companies hope the partnership means more user engagement.

Spotify will initially roll out to Yahoo Music before being integrated globally across Yahoo. Yahoo entertainment sites will feature Spotify's … Read more

Google TV gets new audition with $199 Sony box, due July 22

Sony has finally said when it'll launch its next-generation Google TV set-top box it unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year.

Dubbed the NSZ-GS7 Internet Player with Google TV, the device will launch nationwide on July 22 for $199. Sony has already opened up preorders on the device on its online marketplace. In addition, the company has unveiled the NSZ-GP9, which adds Blu-ray support to the Google TV integration. That device will hit store shelves "in time for the holiday season," and will go on sale for $299.

Google TV has been somewhat of a … Read more

TwitVid renamed Telly to show off video-discovery focus

TwitVid, a service that was once considered the "TwitPic of video," has been rebranded as Telly.

The company announced the switch on its Twitter feed today, saying that it was "extremely excited to introduce you to our new name and experience." Under the new name, Telly will continue to allow users to collect and share videos with friends.

TechCrunch was first to report on the news.

TwitVid made a name for itself by allowing users to share videos over Twitter. However, the company changed things up late last year by becoming a discovery site for users … Read more

Wii U, Halo 4, and the expectations of E3

In today's show, we're stretching our thumbs, looking to Venus and pondering iPhone popularity:

It's time to gear up for the year's big video game conference, E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. The coverage begins around 9 a.m. Pacific, noon Eastern when Microsoft holds its press event. Expect talk of Halo 4 and new entertainment features tied to Xbox Live.

Sony will be holding a press event late Monday evening, and Nintendo will be having one Tuesday to reveal more on the Wii U, right as the show floor opens.

Google will be holding an event … Read more

I'd Cap That adds funny to photos

I'd Cap That is a novelty app that automatically generates hilarious, sometimes crude captions for your iPhone photos. Just fire it up, choose to either take a new photo or use an existing photo from your phone's gallery, and hit Use. After that, watch I'd Cap That slap a completely ridiculous and possibly humiliating caption under your mug (or your friend's). Most of the captions generated are pretty good at getting laughs, and many of them might even get shudders. See, the app often uses explicit and/or sexual language in its captions, so it comes … Read more

Google Music upsetting users with device-deauthorization rule

Google Music is catching some heat over at the XDA-Developers forum for reportedly limiting the number of devices that can be deauthorized from the service.

According to several forum posters, Google Music now only allows users to deauthorize four devices per year. Previously, users could deauthorize as many devices as they'd liked without worrying about hitting a limit, according to the forum posters.

In order for Google Music to work with devices, users must authorize them to work with the platform. Google limits the number of devices that can be authorized to 10. So, when users want to swap … Read more

Samsung takes entertainment to the cloud with mSpot buy

Samsung announced today that it acquired mobile cloud content service provider mSpot. This means that users will soon be able to access their music and video stored in the cloud via a pre-installed mSpot app on newly announced Samsung mobile devices.

"MSpot shares our vision to bring a best-in class cloud and streaming entertainment experience to consumers," senior vice president of Samsung Electronics' Media Solution Center TJ Kang said in a statement, "and they've backed it up with great technical solutions from a great engineering team." Samsung didn't announce terms of the acquisition.

Palo … Read more