CES 2012: Xfinity’s AnyPlay brings live TV to tablet

As promised Comcast’s Xfinity announced today it’s beginning to roll out AnyPlay, a new live TV service for the iPad (and soon the Motorola Xoom, as well.) Subscribers will be able to watch any channels included in their Xfinity package within range of their home WiFi. “Currently, we’re making AnyPlay available to Xfinity HD Triple Play customers in areas of Denver and Nashville at no additional charge,” explains Mark Hess, SVP of Video Product Development. “If you don’t live in Nashville or Denver, don’t worry, as we plan to add more markets in the coming months.”

CES 2012: Peel rolls out updated app with social TV features

The social guide app Peel — which doubles as a remote control if you buy the optional “Fruit” device — has just relaunched an updated version for iOS (iTunes) that adds social features to the experience. You can now like, recommend and check-into shows from the app, and those social activities roll up to an activity feed of your friends. The more you participate, the better Peel gets at program recommendations.

CES 2012: Microsoft shows how Kinect can make TV social

Microsoft’s annual CES keynote — its last, according to the company — was light on product announcements, but it did demonstrate how Kinect can transform traditional TV into a social, interactive experience. Using PBS Sesame Street and National Geographic as examples (promotional video below), CEO Steve Ballmer showed how Kinect can engage kids to participate in educational TV. Here’s a video:

CES 2012: Myspace and Panasonic launch ‘Myspace TV’

Justin Timberlake took the stage at CES 2012 to help introduce Myspace TV, a new social TV service presented by MySpace and Panasonic. That’s right, Myspace TV, coming this spring. “We’re ready to take television and entertainment to the next step by upgrading it to the social networking experience,” explains Timberlake, who’s a co-owner of Myspace. Can Timberlake bring Myspace back?

CES 2012: Samsung adds TV voice and motion control

Samsung took the wraps off “Smart Interaction,” a new feature for its next-generation TVs that allows voice and motion control — even facial recognition. This is the second TV manufacturer to announce voice control at CES (see our earlier story on Lenovo). Samsung explains:

CES 2012: Dish brings video streaming to iPad app

Dish Network is the latest in a string of cable and satellite providers to provide subscribers with access to on-demand video via a second-screen app. Dish rolled out an update to its “DISH Remote Access for iPad” app that now features thousands of hours of on-demand content, including HBO, Cinemax and other premium channels (assuming you’re paying for them in your service, of course.) Like other cable/satellite apps, it only works within the WiFi confines of your home.

CES 2012: Lenovo’s voice-controlled TV powered by Android 4.0

The first wave of press announcements surrounding this week’s big Consumer Electronics Show have hit the inbox, and one of the most interesting is a new TV set from Lenovo that runs on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and responds to voice controls. We’ve been following Apple’s highly-rumored race to bring Siri to TV, and of course, Xbox’s Kinect allows voice controls, too. So it’s no surprise that the TV manufacturers want to get in the voice game, themselves.

Yap.TV to add audio recognition through Audible Magic

Last year IntoNow surprised the market with an app that listened to what you’re watching on TV, allowing viewers to easily sync their devices to television. And now similar technology is starting to roll out across other second-screen apps. Yap.TV announced today it’s teamed up with Audible Magic to bring audio recognition to its apps later this quarter. “ACR (automated content recognition) is fundamental to creating an interactive TV experience,” said Yap.TV CMO Shawn Cunningham. “By recognizing the content…”

Dijit’s social TV app goes live on the iPad

We previewed the new Dijit iPad app last month, and it’s now live in iTunes. It combines a customizable universal remote (via the Griffin Beacon, and it also controls Roku boxes) along with a localized TV guide, Facebook recommendations from your friends, Twitter and Facebook integration, and the ability to control your Netflix queue, to boot.

Sunday’s NBC debate to feature real-time Facebook comments

This Sunday morning, Republican candidates will gather in New Hampshire for a live debate co-sponsored by NBC’s Meet the Press and Facebook. In advance of the debate, Facebook conducted a poll of a selected sample of residents in New Hampshire and Iowa — via a simple poll in the right column of Facebook.com — asking them to select the issue most important to them. And NBC has been collecting debate questions via Facebook, as well.

Analyst: Netflix is the 15th largest TV ‘network’ in US

Americans spend a lot of time watching Netflix — we’ve all heard the stories of how much bandwidth it eats up — and one analyst has crunched the numbers with some surprising results. If Netflix were a network, it would rank 15th in total minutes watched, explains Richard Greenfield with BTIG.

“Netflix streaming usage is exploding and is far, far bigger than traditional media executives give it credit for,” he said. “[It] had more hours of viewing in October than FX, HGTV and History and had more than 2x the viewer hours of CNN, Discovery, MSNBC and BET.” And if you isolate the numbers to just Netflix subscribers’ homes, it would rank #2 behind CBS in total minutes, he says.

NBC show ‘Smash’ to premiere first on Xfinity

You’ve probably seen all the promos for the upcoming NBC show, Smash, premiering on the network on February 6th. But NBC is practicing some synergy with its new majority owner, Comcast, by debuting the show early on Xfinity.

Roku’s new ‘Streaming Stick’ will make any TV smart

As connected (or “smart”) TVs become all the rage leading into CES, Roku announced today it’s working on a “Streaming Stick” that can convert any dumb TV into a smart device. In essence, it’s a Roku box in a stick that plugs straight into a television’s HDMI port.

“It essentially includes everything in a Roku player—built-in WiFi, processor, memory and software—and will deliver all the channels found on the Roku platform today,” explains Anthony Wood, Founder and CEO at Roku. “It will also benefit from regular free software updates and channel enhancements.”

TV news showcases social media for Iowa Caucus

If the debates have been any indication so far, election coverage this 2012 will be more social than ever. The news channels kicked into social media overdrive for the Iowa Caucus tonight. Here’s a brief summary, and please feel free to let us know of other social TV examples from the night:

Rupert Murdoch joins Twitter, deletes a controversial tweet

The man who bought MySpace just joined Twitter, attracting 55,000 followers and counting. News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch is a verified account at @rupertmurdoch, and he’s already deleted a tweet.

“Maybe Brits have too many holidays for broke country!” he tweeted, which disappeared a short time later. He later tweeted, “I’m getting killed for fooling around here and friends frightened what I may really say!”

Twitter for name supers on NBC’s Rose Parade

Twitter appears on TV in many ways, and seeing Twitter handles on-air is nothing new. But how about Twitter account names as the name supers themselves? Shaun Robinson and Al Roker anchored NBC’s coverage of the Rose Parade today, and here’s how their names appeared:

12 predictions for social TV in 2012

It’s great to watch Mashable, ReadWriteWeb and more proclaim that social TV has been one of 2011′s top trends. That’s why we focused Lost Remote exclusively on social TV nearly a year ago. Now that we’re heading into 2012, we believe that social TV is much greater than a trend: it’s nothing short of a revolution in the TV industry.

We’ve mapped out 12 of our predictions for next year based on emerging behavior we’re seeing in the social TV space. A couple, admittedly, are educated guesses, but that’s what makes it entertaining. To the list:

ABC News debuts political site with social stock market

ABC News has rolled out OTUSPolitics.com (as in “Of the United States”) this morning, a dedicated politics site to cover the 2012 Presidential Campaign. At the top of the site is a ticker called a “Political Stock Market” — powered in part with data from the social TV startup Bluefin Labs — which shows how the candidates are “trending.” Explains ABC: