Year: 2014
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Why DRMs are still a necessary evil on movies and TV shows (according to the industry)
A very close friend of mine works for a big company that does media streaming and movie downloads. One of our favorite discussion topics is DRMs, and how they are actually preventing the market to grow exponentially. People are still worried (and legitimately so) today that if they buy a digital movie, they won’t be […]
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How to: Set up unblock-us on the Amazon Fire TV
Unblock-us is the service I’ve been using for 2 years now to bypass geolocation checks on services such as Netflix and Amazon instant video. It lets us watch streaming services like Netflix from countries like India, Australia, Spain, Canada. I’ve been personally using it from Japan and India with great success. I’m also a gadget […]
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One last step, and I’ll ditch Netflix in favor of Amazon Instant Video
We’ve written not so long ago an article name How Amazon Instant Video is slowly but surely getting better than Netflix. Today, Amazon added free music streaming to their prime offer, making the service even more attractive than ever. There’s one remaining tiny step for Amazon to take before I ditch Netflix…
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Review: Amazon Fire TV
There are many reviews of the fire TV out there, so why one more? I’ll be trying to compare the fire TV to the devices I usually use for my own TV use which is slightly different from the typical reviewer: I won’t be comparing the fireTV to the Roku or the Apple TV: these […]
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This is the real reason Google wants to become your fiber provider
Google, like many other tech giants, has been expanding in various directions lately, from hardware (wearable computing, home automation, cars) to services such as video streaming or becoming an ISP. It sometimes feels like these companies go in various directions, throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks, but in this case I want […]
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What’s wrong with Japanese electronics today
I’ll change a bit the general topic of this blog today by talking about general electronics. But this is not entirely off topic: smart tvs and set top boxes have one general issue they need to solve: it’s how to become simpler. What people like about their TVs is that they don’t have to go […]
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Amazon releases the Fire TV
With the Amazon Fire TV, Amazon the world’s largest e-shop, stepped into the realm of set top boxes. Media streaming services such as Youtube, Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus and Amazon’s own Prime Instant Video are becoming more and more popular by the day. The Amazon Fire TV is the company’s solution for streaming a large […]
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How to install the Playstation App on your Kindle Fire HD / HDX
a few months ago Sony unveiled their Playstation app for Android, a nice companion app for all PS3/PS4 users out there. Among other things, the Playstation app can be used on your tablet as a second screen for your PS4, a feature that was made popular with the Playroom free game for the PS4. The […]
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Netflix too slow? New data indicates a VPN or DNS Redirector could improve your Netflix experience significantly
If you’ve seen a drop in performance on your Netflix subscription recently, you’re not the only one. With more and more customers, as well as ongoing disputes around Net neutrality between Netflix and the main ISPs, it is now believed that ISPs such as Comcast or Verizon might be intentionally slowing Netflix traffic down. The symptoms […]
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10 Essential Apps for your Android Smart TV (2014 Edition)
Around the same time last year I wrote a suggestions of 10 “must-have” apps for Android Smart TV (a.k.a Android dongles used to make your TV a smart TV – that includes the MK802 III which we reviewed here). The article was extremely popular, and, although the suggestions are still valid, I feel like it […]