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As of yesterday, Amazon's partnership with HBO officially began in earnest, offering great collections of older streaming content to Prime members.

HBO has made older shows available, as well as newer shows and current shows as long as they have been off the air for three years.

Among the shows available now are full series of The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Rome, Six Feet Under, Eastbound & Down, Enlightened, Flight of The Conchords, Treme and Band of Brothers. Initial seasons of True Blood and others will be available later in the year.

Amazon Prime costs $99 per year and offers free 2-day shipping on millions of items and the free Instant Video streaming catalog.

Most notably, the deal is an exclusive for Amazon, leaving rivals like Netflix out in the cold. Amazon is said to have paid upwards of $300 million for the content.

Earlier this year, Google added the hands-free voice search "OK Google" command to its desktop Chrome browser, but you needed to install a special extension or become an early tester through Google to use it.

Of course, with any beta software, users were hit with bugs and performance that was not ready for prime time.

As of this week, however, Google has updated Chrome with voice command, as long as you are an American Chrome user with the browser set to US English as a default language. Windows, Mac and Linux versions have all been updated.

Google has left a few examples via their blog post:

Perform searches: Say "Ok Google, how many ounces are in a cup?"
Set a timer: Say "Ok Google, set a timer for 30 minutes"
Create a reminder for Google Now: Say "Ok Google, remind me to pick up dessert at 6pm tonight"

Samsung has confirmed the end of their Samsung Music service (Music Hub), with the service and its features shutting down on July 1st.

Executives had already hinted that the service would shut down this year, and for now the company says consumers should "take the time to download all purchased content and use any remaining vouchers for Samsung Music before July 1, 2014 - after that date they will no longer be available."

The service launched in 2011, and had access to millions of tracks, allowing users to preview tracks before purchasing just like bigger rivals such as iTunes and Google Play Music and Amazon MP3.

One cool feature was that up to 200 songs could be made into a playlist and then cached offline.

Samsung had pre-loaded the app, which many considered bloatware, with their Galaxy S devices, including the recently launched S5.

Source:
TechRadar

Nest Labs has recalled about 440,000 of its Nest Protect smoke detectors, due to safety concerns that a feature glitch could potentially delay an alarm from sounding.

The company halted sales of new devices last month and will be sending an OTA software update to disable the "Nest Wave" feature which lets users silence alerts temporarily just by waving their arms.

Consumers will not have to send back their devices or wait for replacements. You can get a full refund if you do not feel safe, however.

For the time being, after the update Nest Wave will be disabled and grayed out so it can not be re-enabled.

Nest Labs says new buyers will be able to get the Protect "in a few weeks" when it returns to the market.

Source:
CPSC

Google has disclosed that it passed on a $5 billion deal for an unknown foreign company last year, a deal that would have been one of its largest ever.

The deal, which is sure to bring speculation and guesses in the coming days, was revealed in a letter late last year to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In the letter, the company also adds that it will need up to $30 billion in overseas profits to help fund the acquisitions and licensing it wants to make in 2014. The company spent $1.4 billion on smaller acquisitions last year, mainly robotics companies and the social mapping app Waze.

The SEC had been inquiring about the company's overseas cash, which now tops $35 billion compared to just $25 billion held in the U.S.

Google has already started their acquisitions in grand fashion this year, purchasing smart home thermostat maker Nest Labs for $3.2 billion.

Facebook has unveiled a Shazam-esque TV and music identification service which will allow you to tag what you are listening to or watching in your news feed post.

Friends can then preview the songs for 30 seconds or be linked to the TV show's Facebook page.

The social networking giant built the feature from scratch over the last year, and will rollout over the coming weeks for iOS and Android users. The service can bring up shows from 160 TV stations, and from millions of artists.

Facebook says the new feature is an extension of the "feelings and activity sharing" option unveiled last year. Over 5 billion posts have been shared with feelings or activity since last year, adds the company.

The new service will require users to opt-in, and if you do not, nothing will change with your Facebook experience.

According to BGR, Microsoft is preparing a line of Android-based smartphones to complement their Windows Phones.

The handsets will be sequels to the Nokia X Android phone released earlier this year in India and Latin America.

Microsoft recently completed their $7 billion acquisition of the Finnish handset maker and its patents.

With their Nokia X, the company effectively took the open-source nature of Android and molded it to look like Windows Phone and included a suite of Nokia and Microsoft apps while leaving out Google applications like Gmail, Chrome, and even the Google Play Store. Nokia has its own app store, as well, and Nokia said at the time they hope the phones will be gateways to Lumia Windows Phones and their own growing ecosystem.

Supposedly, the new phones will be priced lower than entry-level Lumias, but higher than white box Android devices.

China has shocked Microsoft this week by banning Windows 8 on government computers.

The restriction came down as part of a larger decree about energy-saving products but the nation's official news agency Xinhua cited security concerns for foreign operating systems as the reason.

Microsoft said it will continue selling Windows 7 to Chinese officials, despite the ban.

Xinhua reported that officials saw the end of security support for Windows XP as a huge threat, as the operating system is still run on over 50 percent of Chinese computers. "The Chinese government obviously cannot ignore the risks of running OS without guaranteed technical support," reported the paper. "It has moved to avoid the awkwardness of being confronted with a similar situation again in future if it continues to purchase computers with foreign OS."

The ban is extended to desktops, laptops and tablets.

Netflix has announced its first major expansion since 2011, with the streaming service headed to Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Rollout dates and prices were not revealed, but the price is expected to be in line with other EU nations.

Altogether, the company's catalog should be available to over 200 million new potential customers.

Each nation will have to abide by different rules, with France being the most stringent. The nation blocks movies from being on subscription VOD for three years after their theatrical run, and the company must offer at least 50 percent European content.

The streaming co. has 48.5 million customers, with 35.7 million in the U.S. The company has set goals of 60 million in the U.S. and 120 million outside, excluding China.

Spotify has announced today that the unlimited streaming music service now has 10 million paying subscribers, along with 40 million monthly active users, large boosts from previous disclosures.

A little over a year ago, the company had 6 million subscribers and 24 million active users, respectively. Paying subscribers get access to either ad-free listening or ad-free listening and mobile access.

"We've had an amazing year, growing from 20 markets to 56 as people from around the world embrace streaming music," added CEO Daniel Ek. "10 million subscribers is an important milestone for both Spotify and the entire music industry. We're widening our lead in the digital music space and will continue to focus on getting everyone in the world to listen to more music."

Additionally, users have created 1.5 billion music playlists. Avicii's "Wake Me Up" is the top streamed song of all-time, at 235 million spins.

The company has a plethora of rivals but remains the most popular streaming music provider. Apple may step into the market soon, however, with rumor being they are prepared to acquire Beats Electronics, the maker of premium headphones and the Beats Music streaming service in the U.S.

According to research firm Strategy Analytics, the market for smartwatches has grown 250 percent in the Q1, with Samsung once again the dominant force like they are in the smartphone world.

The company has shipped over 500,000 Galaxy Gear smartwatches this year, good for 70 percent share.

Most notably, the figures do not even include shipments of the Gear 2, Gear 2 Neo and Gear Fit, which were released last month.

Of course, shipments do not necessarily mean sales through to consumers, but most retailers have improved inventory management and do not overbuy supply they cannot sell (for the most part).

Sony, Pebble and other companies make smartwatches, but sales have been lackluster. Later this year, devices running the new Android Wear operating system are set to launch, including the LG G Watch and the Moto 360, which are expected to help boost sales.

Apple has also long been rumored to be releasing an iWatch, although the company has never confirmed.

Motorola Mobility and Apple have agreed to settle all long-standing patent litigation between the two companies.

Despite the suits being dropped, the new settlement does not include cross-licensing of the patents.

"Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform," reads the joint statement.

Multiple cases between the two companies were consolidated in 2012, with the most notable being Motorola's accusation that Apple was infringing on an essential patent relating to smartphone usage of a 3G network.

Some cases were thrown out in 2012 due to lack of evidence, but an appeal revived them last month.

Motorola Mobility is currently owned by Google but its hardware business has been sold to Lenovo while Google keeps most of the patents.

Popcorn Time, the popular app that catalogs and allows streaming of 1080p pirated content, may be the new target of copyright holders, and especially the troll law firms that back some of them.

The German lawfirm GGR Law has reported that a few clients they are representing received demands for cash settlements from the firm Waldorf Frommer alleging copyright infringement.

All of those that received letters swear they have never used or even installed a torrent client on their computers, but each admitted to using streaming services, namely Popcorn Time. In Germany, viewing pirated streams is not illegal, so the letters demanding 815 euros appear to be misplaced.

This is where the story gets muddier, however. Popcorn Time and its variants (Cuevana Storm in this case) use BitTorrent protocols, uploading content to other users while video is being streamed to the viewer. This is usually unknown to the user, as the interface gives the impression that the site is like YouTube and other server-to-client streaming services.

The Pirate Bay's browser for those worried about censorship has been downloaded over 5 million times from the official site since its launch last August.

Of course, the browser is available on other software sites including Afterdawn, so the figure could be potentially much larger.

PirateBrowser is a mix of the Tor client (Vidalia), FireFox Portable browser (with foxyproxy addon) "and some custom configs" to allow you to circumvent censorship. Although it has Tor in it, anonymity is not the point of the Pirate Browser.

The torrent tracker explained at launch that the "PirateBrowser is a bundle package...that allows you to circumvent censorship that certain countries such as Iran, North Korea, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Italy and Ireland impose onto their citizens."

TPB is one of the most universally banned sites on the Web, as governments try to keep their citizens away.

According to multiple sources, YouTube is preparing to purchase videogame streaming company Twitch for over $1 billion in cash.

If it comes to fruition, the deal will be the largest in YouTube's history. The site itself was purchased for just $1.65 billion in 2006 and is valued at over $20 billion now.

Twitch, popular among gamers, allows you to upload or stream live gameplay videos. You can also see sponsored content from popular gaming sites GameSpot, Joystiq and Destructoid. Twitch was started in 2011 by the founders of once-popular streaming site Justin.tv.

The company says it has over 45 million monthly users, and that number is expected to increase as the service was only recently added to the Xbox One after months of being available on the PS4.

Source:
Variety