Archive for January 6th, 2008
NBC has teamed with Microsoft’s MSN team to power NBCOlympics.com, the official site of the 2008 Olympics. During his CES 2008 keynote, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft Silverlight will drive the online video for the site. As announced before, NBC will stream 2,200 hours of live coverage — as many as 30 simultaneous live feeds — and make more than 3,000 hours available on demand. The live feeds will have a “metadata overlay” which will allow users to click for enhanced information. “It’s going to let us illustrate why TV is going to be very different,” Gates said. “Events like this in the broadcast format… are not as satisfying.” In a video, Bob Costas showed a quick preview of the Silverlight service with Olympics video, which showed a quad split of four screens of video playing at once. Costas called it the “most comprehensive and ambitious” live broadband production ever. Screen grab…
It’s unclear if this means the end of Internet Broadcasting’s role in NBCOlympics.com, or limits its role to the local content. The press release with more details follows below.
Read the full post January 6th, 2008
Now that the Wall Street Journal is owned by the same company behind Fox Business, CNBC has partnered with the New York Times to share web content. As part of the deal, CNBC video will appear on NYTimes.com.
January 6th, 2008
Gates also announced that ABC and Disney will sell their hallmark shows, such as Lost and Grey’s Anatomy, on Xbox Live. MGM will also offer movie downloads on the service. “This is not a hobby for Microsoft, this is something we take quite seriously,” said Microsoft exec Robbie Bach. Release…
Read the full post January 6th, 2008
Bill Gates has been giving the kick-off keynote at CES for over a decade. And tonight, it’s his last, as he’s stepping down from his day-to-day work at Microsoft in June. So he opened his presentation with a video chronicling his last day at work at Microsoft. Wow. Stars like Matthew Mcconaughey, Jay Z, George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama, Bono, Al Gore, Jon Stewart and Brian Williams (of course) appeared in the clip. Hilarious stuff. Currently the video is only available in the full presentation clip, but let us know if you see it on YouTube or somewhere else in clip form.
Gates asks Mcconaughey, “Am I ready to take my shirt off yet?”
Update: Here’s a link to the clip, courtesy of CitizenRain.
January 6th, 2008
For most kids, Christmas was a couple of weeks ago, but for tech geeks, it’s now with CES. With that in mind, here is a list of places you can go to for updates. We’ve also changed the news wire in the right column to automatically update with the latest CES news from nearly two dozen sources.
- PaidContent reporting from CES
- CNET at CES, including video from the floor
- Engadget, Gizmodo and Crunchgear, for all the gadget coverage
- Wired.com @ CES
- Valleywag for all the gossipy stuff
- Switched (AOL News blog)
January 6th, 2008
Since we here at LostRemote know that Lost fans tend to find our website, let me point out that ABC.com has just posted the first 3 seasons of the show, in streaming HD, as a way to get you ready for the January 31st return of the show. To this point ABC has only posted a few episodes of any show in HD, so this is news to our normal readers too. If you’ve had a chance to watch the streaming HD video, you know it’s clear. I imagine many will be interested in going back and watching shows they may have missed, so this is a great move for consumers, but you have to wonder about the impact on DVD sales.
January 6th, 2008
In the first big announcement of CES 2008, Warner Bros. has decided to support Blu-ray, “a decision that could serve as a death blow to Toshiba’s rival HD DVD format,” reports Variety. Warner says consumer preferences for Blu-ray were outpacing HD DVD. That leaves Paramount and Universal still supporting HD DVD, with Warner joining Disney, Sony, Fox and Lionsgate all backing Blu-ray. Meanwhile, the HD DVD team was stunned with the news heading into CES. They canceled a media event, but promised to keep fighting. “We’ve been declared dead before,” says a Toshiba spokesperson.
January 6th, 2008
NBC Universal is set to tee up three new sites this month - with at least one of those debuts set for Monday. AccessHollywood.com will get a makeover and new direction - and be unveiled during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. nightly.msnbc.com was also set to debut tomorrow, with Brian Williams broadcasting live from CES. TVNewser says Williams’ CES broadcast has been moved to Wednesday - so it isn’t clear how this affects the Nightly site relaunch. We’re also expecting a relaunch of NBCSports.com with MSNBC.com before the Super Bowl.
NBCU is going all out for CES - with a massive booth, and live broadcasts planned for Today, Nightly, MSNBC, CNBC, Access Hollywood, Telemundo and News Channel. The company has also set up a blog at NBCUatCES.com They’re also rolling out something called the iWall - which is described with some pretty heavy prose:
Our booth at CES will include 290 web sites, 61 presentation tapes, 18 downloadable pieces of content, and 14 interactive sizzle reels on what’s called the iWall (you have to see this thing!)
I think I had a sizzle reel for breakfast once. Here’s the artist’s rendering:
January 6th, 2008
