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Facebook testing new status icons

Thursday's CNET Update talks about feelings:

Facebook has been busy coming up with new icons to share your moods. It's also launching a new type of gift card that can be assigned to different merchants before being mailed to friends. But make its own Facebook phone? Well that's just silly.

Also in this news roundup:

- Twitter tweaks photos and video viewing

- GameSpot: No Wii U price cut

- Foursquare reveals "best of" based on check-ins

Watch CNET Update in the video above, or subscribe to the podcast via the links below.

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iTunes (HD) |&… Read more

Spotify comes to TiVo

Spotify will now be available on TiVo Premiere, giving Spotify's premium subscribers access to its catalog of over 20 million songs via the set-top box.

TiVo users can sign in with an existing Spotify Premium account ($9.99/month) to stream music through their home theater system (or TV), as well as browse playlists, albums and artists, and search using the TiVo remote control.

TiVo is one of the first AV devices -- not including media streamers like Sonos, Boxee, and the WD TV Live -- to announce Spotify support. Samsung TVs announced Spotify support in October, but presently … Read more

Why is my cable box a horrible, energy-sucking beast? (Morrison's Mailbag)

CNET reader Michael writes:

About a year ago I downgraded my cable service for the purpose of getting rid of the huge cable box. The thing is an electricity sucking beast, and worst of all, it gave me a poor picture.

So my question: Why is it that we can now stream media to a cell phone yet we still need a huge clunker of a device to watch a TV? I can understand having a box, but one so large, that filters out all the HD goodness, and takes up precious real estate on my shelf? Have you seen anything on the way to eliminate that antiquated chunk of home theater?

Thanks, Michael

Well Michael, I don't think you're going to like the answer, cause it's equal parts depressing and annoying.… Read more

Insignia Connected TV review: TiVo-based smart LED

Is the time of TiVo behind us? It's been 10 years since Sarah Jessica Parker gushed about the device on daytime TV. Best Buy's Insignia Connected TV would like to suggest otherwise as it licenses the TiVo interface, if not the functionality. The Insignia Connected TV E859A11 offers a decent array of on-demand services, but picture quality takes a back seat to out-and-out features.

Read the full review of the Insignia Connected TV series.

DAR.fm, a TiVo for radio, will enable downloads

Michael Robertson, founder of such companies as MP3.com and Lindows, appears to be daring big radio and music companies to challenge him on copyright again.

Robertson's latest company DAR.fm, billed as a TiVo for Web radio, is expected to announce tomorrow that the service will enable users to capture the radio shows they record instead of just streaming them to their PCs or Web-connected devices. In the future, DAR.fm users can record talk shows and music and download them to iPads, iPhones, or Android devices, Robertson told CNET today. Not surprisingly, DAR.fm users can store their recordings at Robertson's digital-locker service, MP3tunes.com.

The new feature is available for free for the first series, which means that if you listen to say, NPR's "All Things Considered," DAR.fm will record it and download it daily for free. For more series, up to 10, a user must pay $39.95 a year.

So, how is this different from subscribing to a podcast?

Remember that not all radio shows offer a podcast. Fans of Rush Limbaugh must pay a yearly subscription. Some shows post their podcast three days after they air and some offer only highlights. Robertson promises that DAR.fm can record any show on the Web, period.

The download feature will certainly be reviewed closely by the big radio companies, such as Clear Channel and CBS Radio ( which shares the same parent company as CNET), as well as record companies. "Yes, it's hard to imagine that the record labels are going to be excited about this," Robertson conceded. … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1547: Calm down: Netflix stream limits are just a bug! (They say.) (Podcast)

Carol Bartz is out at Yahoo and the stock is up, which has got to hurt. They're still raking in the cash, but shareholders hate nothing more than a plateau. Plus, Netflix swears that at least this time, its jerk move (restricting users to only one stream at a time) was a total accident, and they're definitely not doing that. Promise. Plus, Groupon's IPO roadshow is off and the IPO itself may be off for good, and the Droid Bionic has finally arrived. Hooray!

Yahoo fires Carol Bartz

The four-tuner Tivo Premiere Elite makes its debut, Netflix cracks down on people who stream more than one video at the same time, and Yahoo's board fires CEO Carol Bartz after less than three years on the job.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

Yahoo! board fires CEO Carol Bartz Netflix cracks down on more than one stream Facebook for iOS gets update Apple ships 27" Thunderbolt displays Tivo Premiere Elite Reddit spins out... sort of Subscribe: iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (320x180) | iTunes (HD) | RSS (MP3) | RSS (320x180) | RSS HD

Buzz Out Loud 1476: The Oprah Browser (Podcast)

On today's show, Apple responds to the Mac Defender concerns with a support forum and a promised OS X update, Google may announce mobile payments via NFC as early as tomorrow (Thursday), and Facebook might launch a music service with Spotify (but no, not in the U.S. -- yet). Also, TiVo makes tons of money from suing people and Brian Tong bids a teary farewell to Oprah. --Molly

After 10 years, I'm done waiting for TiVo

The last straw broke last month, when, after a DSL outage, I could no longer connect to the TiVo service.

I got the dreaded N17 error message that says, "Failed while negotiating." The only support guidance TiVo offers is (I'm not joking) to unplug the TiVo and plug it back in. Nothing helped. I trolled forums, restarted my modem, changed my router DNS settings, rebooted over and over, even switched to another TiVo, and connected to a Sprint Overdrive, just to troubleshoot and get guide info. I just couldn't get it working. I tweeted TiVo for … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1460: Twitter breaks the Osama Bin Laden news! (Podcast)

Twitter shines in another moment for citizen journalism and the internet. And then there's that guy who live-tweeted the whole raid, without knowing about it. Sony officially apologizes for the PSN outage and they're giving back to the users, but is it enough? And we "Like" what the BOL Menu is serving.