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What Do the All-Star Break & Blogging Have in Common?

by Om Malik in July 17th, 2008

Topics: Allen Stern, Dave Winer, Doc Searls, Katie Fehrenbacher, Liz Gannes, MLB All Star Game, Om's Stuff, ParisLemon, VentureBeat

Baseball’s All-Star Break this week proved to be quite special - not because this was the last All-Star game at The Yankee Stadium, the cathedral of baseball and a place where I fell in love with this distant cousin of cricket. No, it was not special because the All-Star game went into the wee-hours of […]

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Is There More to Netflix/Roku Than Meets the Eye?

by VoIP & Gadgets Blog in July 2nd, 2008

Topics: Forbes, LG, Microsoft, Netflix, PDAs & Handhelds, Roku, VentureBeat, Video Hardware & Software, Xbox 360, device, services

Blogged about the intriguing Netflix/Roku deal back on May 20, but now an interesting piece on VentureBeat makes it even more (and more!) interesting.

The new Roku box (doesn’t look like much, does it?) lets you stream any of Netflix’s 10,000+ “Watch Now” movies (movies that can be watched immediately over the internet for free with your subscription) to your TV set instantly. However, a new wrinkle may make the device even more attractive — with a simple software download, other services beyond Netflix will soon be able to use it, according to Forbes.

This changes the device from a nice little purchase (it’s only $99), into a potential Trojan horse for digital content in your living room. Of course, it entirely depends on what other services reach agreements to use the device. Roku would only say that other “big name” providers could bring their services to the device with a simple update.

At the same time, Netflix plans to release another box featuring its “Watch Now” service in conjunction with LG later this year. There’s also an intriguing rumor that the service could come to Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

Tags: Forbes, LG, Microsoft, Netflix, Roku, VentureBeat, Xbox 360

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