time warner

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

Microsoft is said to be scrapping the Zune player, but not the Zune brand.

Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile follow AT&T's lead and drop some or all charges for calls and texts to Japanese, or connected to earthquake relief.

AT&T is about to set broadband data caps for U-verse customers.

Yahoo adds Facebook chat to its Yahoo Mail client.

AOL and T-Mobile launch Play by AOL Music for Android to stream music to your mobile phone.

T-Mobile announces a 10GB per month data plan that does not come cheap.… Read more

Apple iPad owners who subscribe to Time Warner cable now have an app that will let them watch live TV directly on their tablets.

Launched today, the free TWCable TV app streams the live cable TV feed to the iPad via a Wi-Fi connection, meaning people can catch their favorite shows from any room in the house.

An online channel guide lets viewers scroll to see which shows are currently on and which ones are coming up next. Tapping on a particular show then streams it to the iPad. Subscribers will find shows broadcast in high-definition from a variety of … Read more

LOS ANGELES--HBO won't stand in the way of cloud video or UltraViolet, the name given to technology standards that the film industry hopes will become a new home video format and a successor to the DVD, say multiple sources.

If you've ever wondered why some movies disappear from the video services of Apple, Amazon, and Netflix, the likely reason is the HBO blackout. When a new release is aired on HBO, often the company has acquired the exclusive right to distribute the movie electronically. That means the title must come down at other outlets, including Web stores. HBO … Read more

Comcast and Time Warner Cable, two major Internet service providers, will participate in the World IPv6 Day testing June 8 to help test readiness for the next-generation Internet Protocol.

Because the two companies are crucial gateways to the Internet for millions of people, their test will be an important--both for trying their own technology and for supplying some IPv6 users who can help other's setup. The companies announced the test today.

Internet Protocol version 6 supplies a vastly larger address space for attaching computers to the Internet than IPv4, which was established with a paltry 4.3 billion addresses … Read more

Not long ago, ambitious young executives at the six major Hollywood film studios maneuvered to get into the home entertainment divisions.

Nowadays, getting assigned to home entertainment is like being sent to the Eastern front. Better to work in theatrical distribution, international, or maybe studio facilities. Recently, I spoke with an executive from one of the big studios who, while discussing the challenges of working in the film industry, noted there was one silver lining: "At least I don't work in home entertainment."

The studios' home-entertainment divisions typically oversee sales of DVDs and Blu-ray discs as well … Read more

As promised, Netflix released a report today on the company's tech blog about which Internet service providers are best at distributing the company's streaming video to customers' homes. According to Netflix's data, the nation's largest cable operators are tops in delivering the company's content.

Netflix, the high-flying video rental service, said cable operator Charter Communications was the best-performing Internet service provider, with Cox Communications, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner Cable all outperforming phone companies AT&T and Verizon Communications, as well as wireless broadband provider Clearwire.

Ken Florance, Netflix's director of content delivery, … Read more

On the heels of reporting a a whopper fourth quarter, Netflix shares hit a 52-week high of $211 in this morning's trading.

Netflix shares today jumped more than 15 percent to hit $211.30 after closing at $183.03 yesterday following its quarterly earnings report. Wall Street is obviously thrilled with the 3 million new subscribers that Netflix reported adding in the quarter ending December 31. The total number of Netflix subscribers stands now at more than 20 million.

The report released yesterday showed that the company blew past the street's profit expectations. The consensus among analysts was … Read more

Time Warner's very public bashing of Netflix in recent weeks is a result of the media conglomerate's frustration over having to bid against the Web's top video-rental service for Warner Bros. content, says a Netflix executive.

If it weren't for Netflix bidding up the price, Time Warner, parent company of pay TV service HBO, would have an easier time acquiring Warner Bros. content after the licensing deal between the studio and HBO expires in 2014. That is what Ted Sarandos, Netflix's content-acquisition chief, said today at a conference in Miami, according to PaidContent. Presumably, this … Read more

Following up on a host of smartphone, tablet, and TV announcements yesterday, Samsung said in a keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show today it is revitalizing the TV by adding live and on-demand content to its Smart TV and turning mobile phones and tablets into remote controls and guides.

People are looking for bigger and smarter devices, according to Boo-Keun Yoon, president of Samsung's Visual Display Business.

"That's why TV will once again become the dominant and central piece of technology" in people's lives, he said. "I am confident that Samsung's Smart TV will become the leader" in content.

In this new "Smart TV era" people will be able to search for any kind of Web content, as well as broadcast TV and movies, from any Samsung device connected to the cloud and view it on a high-definition or even 3D screen, he said.

He brought several content partners on stage whose companies are helping to make that vision reality, including Glenn Britt, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner Cable, who announced that a "live subscription TV feature" is coming this year.

"We're radically changing how consumers interact with their televisions," said Brian Roberts, chairman and chief executive of Comcast.

The announcements were:… Read more