New Apple TV launching along with iPad 3?

Apple sent out invitations today (right) for a March 7th event that appear to confirm the company will unveil a new iPad. But there’s mounting evidence that a new Apple TV — or something along those lines — will be unveiled at the same time, too. If you visit just about any Best Buy, Fry’s or similar electronics store, you’ll discover that they’ve been sold out of Apple TV units for the last couple weeks, both online and in stores (we’ve checked several times over the last two weeks). When asked, Best Buy said they didn’t know when they’d receive any more shipments.

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Microsoft beats Apple in enabling first TV you can talk to

The war over the future of TV is in full throttle in a Microsoft/Apple world that does not consist of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. We just wrote about the possibilities that Xbox Live could bring to social TV, and now Microsoft is about to roll out a new Xbox update that brings voice-controlled Kinect, Bing search and new content providers like Hulu and NBC’s Today Show to its video experience.

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Was an Apple TV set Steve Jobs’ final plan?

Update: Bloomberg reports that Jeff Robbin, who helped create the iPod in addition to the iTunes media store, is now guiding Apple’s internal development of the new TV effort.

The possibility of Apple launching a TV set has been a rumor for months, but the upcoming authorized biography of Steve Jobs seems to give it new momentum. Quoting now from author Walter Isaacson:

“‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ [Jobs] told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”

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Hulu not selling to pursue ‘even greater success’

After shopping itself around, Hulu has decided to stay put. Statement: ”Since Hulu holds a unique and compelling strategic value to each of its owners, we have terminated the sale process and look forward to working together to continue mapping out its path to even greater success. Our focus now rests solely on ensuring that [...]

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Roku rolls out $49 player, adds HBO Go

“Our goal is a Roku in every home,” said Roku CEO Anthony Wood, and today the company announced a stylish low-cost player called Roku LT that will retail for $49 a pop. The new Roku will have Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Pandora and HBO Go. “We expect the Roku LT will be everyone’s [...]

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Amazon adds batch of FOX TV shows

Lest we forget, Netflix, Hulu and Google aren’t the only players in the online TV space. In an announcement posted on the Amazon.com home page, Jeff Bezos says they’ve signed a new deal with FOX to bring more movies and TV shows to its instant streaming service — 24, Arrested Development and The X-Files are [...]

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Viewers can now buy TV shows on Apple TV

Finally. Apple TV has pushed a software update that allows viewers to buy and watch TV shows straight from iTunes. Not only that, but Apple TV will let you watch shows purchased from other devices, too. Until now, you could only rent TV shows, thanks to the Apple TV’s memory limitations. But the new iCloud [...]

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Fox to stream newest shows only to paid subscribers

In a huge move that could signal the beginning of a reversal of free, timely programming on the web, Fox is planning to institute a eight-day delay on streaming its shows on Fox.com and Hulu, reports the WSJ. Paid subscribers to Hulu Plus ($7.99/month) and DirecTV Dish subscribers will be able to watch episodes the [...]

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‘Mad Men’ hits Netflix on Wednesday

Netflix shares plunged as much as 11% today (but have rebounded to around a 5% loss) after its announcement yesterday that a fair number of subscribers really are leaving after the price hike was announced. Needing some good news, Netflix just announced this afternoon that all four seasons of the hugely-popular Mad Men will be [...]

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Legality delays Netflix’s Facebook integration in US

Netflix released its quarterly earnings (.pdf), and stocks plunged as much as 10% in after-hours trading because the company admitted its recent pricing change will slow subscriber growth — in fact, essentially flat for Q3: “We hate making our subscribers upset with us,” Netflix said. “In Q4, we expect domestic net additions to return to [...]

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Xbox rolls out ‘Avatar’ for Kinect

Looking for a geeky way to produce your own TV talk show? The new virtual chat experience Avatar is rolling out on Kinect-enabled Xboxes, and you can easily record and share your own conversations — either individually or with guests, all decked out in Xbox Live avatars. GeekWire reviewed Avatar on Avatar (how else?), which [...]

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Will Netflix fans defect after rate hike?

Netflix announced a new pricing plan today that separates the unlimited DVDs-by-mail and instant streaming subscription (which currently costs $9.99 together) into two separate plans at $7.99 each, effectively raising the rates by $5.99 for subscribers who still want both options. In making the change, Netflix is organizationally splitting into two units as well — [...]

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Report: Google in early talks to buy Hulu

The LA Times is reporting that Google is in preliminary talks to buy the video service Hulu, and other big suitors are in play, too. “Hulu has begun meeting with potential buyers including Google, Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Inc. to drum up interest in a sale,” the LA Times reports. It all began when Yahoo [...]

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Why social TV will be a multi-billion dollar business

The former CEO of Endemol, the world’s largest independent production house, says social TV is “going to be huge.” The CEO of Hulu calls it a game-changer. And the research firm Futurescape says social TV has “radical implications for the future of television viewing.” Is it just hyperbole, or are real economics in play? There are three arenas where social TV is quickly gaining traction, and all three have the potential to become billion dollar businesses by themselves.

1. Interactive TV at last

Last April, Yahoo snapped up IntoNow for $20 to $30 million, just three months after the TV-listening app made its debut. By encouraging viewers to “tag” TV shows and commercials for rewards, IntoNow is beginning to bridge the last mile of television, bringing interactivity to TV commercials — a task that interactive TV companies have tried for a decade. This month the music-listening app Shazam landed a $32 million funding round to expand its push into TV to reward users for tagging commercials, and other startups, like WiO, are quickly pushing into the space.

TV check-in companies like GetGlue and Miso, for example, also have potential if they can move beyond the mobile check-in. “(The) check-in is just the starting point of a conversation about TV but it is not the be-all end-all,” says Miso CEO Somrat Niyogi, who recently opened an app store for Miso’s API. “We believe the social TV experience can exist everywhere.”

Xbox, too, is making strides at connecting viewers to commercials in innovative ways. Last week Xbox announced that will voice and motion interactivity to commercials — called NUads — for users with the Kinect attachment. “I’m here to say that it will change television as we know it — forever,” explains Mark Kroese, a GM at Microsoft. “I say this because NUads — specifically the Kinect voice and gesture technology that enables them — finally unties the Gordian knot of interactive television, and by extension, interactive advertising…”

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Netflix gets social: CEO joins Facebook board

Earlier this year, Netflix said it was planning “extensive” Facebook integration. Last month, Mark Zuckerberg said that TV, music and books are the next “media experiences” that will be revolutionized by social media. So perhaps it should come to no surprise that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is becoming Facebook’s sixth board member. “Reed is an [...]

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TV viewing still growing, but web video growing faster

A new cross-platform report by Nielsen released today shows some interesting TV viewing trends. For starters, people are still watching more TV, up .8% in the first quarter of the year. But the biggest gains are mobile video (+41%), time-shifted TV viewing (+13.2%) and internet video viewing (+4.8%, which includes watching Netflix on your TV [...]

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Comcast testing new social TV experience with Facebook

One of the biggest complaints about cable TV service (other than the bundled price) these days is the old-fashioned user interface. Looking for an on-demand TV show is like navigating a menu on an old Commodore 64. It looks like those days are about to be over. Comcast will announce at the Cable Show later [...]

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Xbox TV? All eyes on Microsoft at E3

Monday morning Microsoft will take the stage at E3 to announce, well, something about Xbox that has lots of folks buzzing about it. Even Microsoft is fueling the buzz. “The Xbox home entertainment pot will be boiling over,” explains Microsoft’s Frank Shaw in a blog post. This site claims the announcement will be for a [...]

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Roku bringing Angry Birds to your TV set

The mega-popular mobile game Angry Birds — which has sold 200 million downloads — is coming soon to TV thanks to a deal with Roku. Starting this summer, new Roku boxes will have Angry Birds pre-installed for free. And that’s not all. “Roku will offer Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio video [...]

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The most-watched TV shows on Comcast Xfinity

Comcast says it recently surpassed 20 billion views of its On Demand movies, TV shows, music videos and sports clips. For perspective, Comcast says that’s twice as many as the total number of app downloads by all iPhone, iPad, and iPod customers worldwide. So what’s the most-viewed On Demand clip ever? The very funny movie, [...]

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