DirecTV

While most companies are making the jump from Web to mobile, NextGuide, the app that tells you when and where your favorite shows are on, has decided to go the opposite way. The social TV guide for iOS is now available on the Web.

NextGuide Web has the same functions as the iPad app and aims to bring together live TV and streaming videos. Users can pick their favorite shows and keep track of when, and where, the shows are available online or on TV.

"There's a lot of confusion around TV," said Jeremy Toeman, the CEO … Read more

Satellite TV provider DirecTV is thinking about buying all or parts of streaming-video site Hulu, according to news reports Friday.

An unnamed source told The Wall Street Journal that Hulu's owners, which include Walt Disney Company and Comcast, are considering several options for the site's future, including selling it.

Other unnamed sources told Bloomberg that DirecTV is still in preliminary discussions regarding Hulu and that it's not clear if DirecTV will buy some or all of Hulu.

Hulu is an attractive platform for TV providers like DirecTV because it would let them tap into online audiences. DirecTV … Read more

With satellite and cable TV packages hovering around the "thousand channel" mark, the common complaint isn't that there's nothing to watch--it's that it's difficult and tedious to find what you're looking for.

That's the problem that DirecTV's upcoming voice search functionality is aiming to solve. While DirecTV already offers search functionality on its DVRs, the new voice search features let subscribers ditch the tedious text-entry process by speaking to the DirecTV smartphone app, which is available for both iOS and Android.

DirecTV is far from the first to bring voice search … Read more

Ever-higher subscription fees for satellite and cable are a fact of life, and DirecTV confirmed as much by announcing rate increases yesterday that will take effect in February 2013.

The average subscriber's bill will go up about 4.5 percent, although the individual increases vary quite a bit. The entry-level Choice package goes up a buck from $63.99 to $64.99, while the top-end Premiere package goes from $119.99 to $124.99. An HBO subscription goes from $15.99 to $17.99.

Here's the full rate card with the new pricing.

DirecTV claims that its own … Read more

Streaming you the top Friday headlines with the latest in 2D technology:

Amazon scored a licensing deal with Warner Bros. to offer more shows for Prime streaming, including West Wing and Fringe. Amazon Prime continues to step up the competition with Netflix. Prime costs $79 a year, which works out to be less than a year's subscription of Netflix.

The fight between Viacom and DirecTV is finally over. The 20 million subscribers of DirecTV can now access 17 Viacom channels, including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. On July 10, DirecTV turned off 26 Viacom channels over a payment dispute … Read more

After more than a week of failed negotiations that led to a service cut-off, television giants DirecTV and Viacom have reached a new agreement that will restore many of the media conglomerate's popular television channels to the satellite service provider's 20 million U.S. customers.

The agreement, described as "long-term," will see 17 television channels -- including Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, BET and Spike, among others -- restored. Viacom cut service for the channels on July 10.

"We are very pleased to be able to restore the channels to our customers and thank them for … Read more

Viacom fired another shot at DirecTV today, telling DirecTV customers that the satellite provider won't compromise with Viacom to restore programming.

Viacom continues to keep 26 networks -- including MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, BET, VH1, Spike TV, TV Land, and CMT -- off DirecTV until the companies reach an agreement.

Viacom said in a blog post that DirecTV has "no intention" of working with Viacom and shows no "urgency" in compromising.

"We made a significant and comprehensive compromise proposal to DirecTV last Thursday that could have resulted in restoring all of our services to … Read more

This Thursday, it's time to train your brain to win the gold in multitasking:

Seems to be the season for security breaches. This time, it deals with a subsection of Yahoo, called Yahoo Voices. Hackers posted more than 450,000 login names and passwords of Voices users, and it was said to be done as a wake-up call to Yahoo and others to step up security. The Voices section of Yahoo was slacking in security and did not hash passwords or require complicated strings.

CNET's Declan McCullagh wrote a program to comb through the most frequently used passwords … Read more

The programming dispute between DirecTV and Viacom is starting to affect the general population, with Viacom escalating the issue by pulling some of its popular shows from the Internet.

"The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report," and "Jersey Shore" are among the popular shows no longer available online as of yesterday. Other shows, such as "South Park," remain online, and back episodes of some pulled shows can still be found on Hulu.

DirecTV and Viacom have been arguing over how much a distributor should pay an entertainment company for content. Amid that fight, … Read more