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…”

Social TV startup Zeebox scores over $15 million from BSkyB

We’re only in week two of 2012 and another social TV startup has just received a huge amount of investment from a major media company. Zeebox, yet to launch in the US, received over $15 million from News Corp controlled BSkyB, the largest pay-TV broadcaster in the UK with over 10 million customers. As Paid Content points out, “The funding means Zeebox has a triple-digit million valuation after just two months of live operation, and without yet having executed a monetization strategy.”

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.

Steve Martin on Twitter’s similarity to television

While riding in a taxi cab recently, a clip started playing from an episode of NBC’s Rock Center where host Brian Williams gets into a detailed conversation with his guest Steve Martin, on his love of Twitter. If you’re a regular Lost Remote reader, you no doubt understand the fascinating love affair Twitter and TV had in 2011. Most of the time we discuss how many people were tweeting about a program and how many times, or how the show creatively used Twitter to offer fans a deeper engagement with the show….

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.

Waiting for Zeebox to launch in the US

While the social web is instantly global, linear television is definitely not. Rights to distribute top television content globally often prevents top programming from airing outside the US for months. Completely different linear programming schedules is now forcing social TV startups to carefully launch in new markets to make sure TV needs are being addressed in each market’s ecosystem.

Zeebox is one of these apps that launched in the UK that we’re extremely excited to see. It launched in early November with very good reviews. Available on iPad, iPhone and Zeebox.com, it combines a social program guide with real-time tweets and (for internet-connected TVs) a remote control, 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.”

Loyalize to power Spike TV CES Broadcast

Loyalize, the poll-focused social TV startup that powered a Spike TV show back in September, will be powering the network’s broadcast of CES next week. Viewers of the broadcast will be able to drive interview questions, vote on their gadget favorites (not just once-and-done voting, but thousands of fans seeing what thousands of other fans are voting on at the exact second it is happening) from their smartphones/tablets and laptops.

CES is going to be an exciting time for social TV as new technology is revealed that might force some of the established platforms to rethink how consumers might use Connected-TVs, tablets and more. Todd Greene, CEO of Loyalize, answered a few questions…

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:

First fully Shazamble TV broadcast powers Christmas-day parade

Shazam continues to power their way onto the TV screen. To tech-savvy consumers, it’s often difficult to move past what Shazam does best, discover what the song is you’re listening to that you can’t. For many this app was one of the first iPhone apps that made you realize that there really was something amazing happening in this new iPhone world of apps. Now Shazam has $32 million specifically to invest in TV. They also have a user-base that’s larger than all the social TV startups combined (150 million). Now in a first, the Christmas-day parade that aired on ABC over the holidays was the first fully Shazamable TV broadcast.

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:

The year in social TV by Bluefin Labs [Infographic]

The VMAs, the X Factor and NBC all topped Bluefin Labs‘ most-social list for 2011 in a handy infographic that wraps up a big year for social TV. A glance at the word cloud makes it clear that the VMAs, Justin Bieber and the Jonas Brothers dominated conversations across the web. Here’s the infographic, and make sure you check out the additional insights they provided us following the graphic:

‘Bored To Death’ and ‘How To Make It’ fans react to cancellation

Sadly, great content and business models clashed recently as two of the best shows on television were cancelled. HBO’s ‘Bored To Death,’ ‘How To Make It In America,’ and ‘Hung,’ will be no more.

What hurt the most was not knowing that the recently concluded seasons for these shows would be their last….

SocialGuide’s year-end look at social TV [Infographic]

As 2012 is upon us, it’s very fun to see that the leading social TV data analyzers are proving fun and insightful infographics. Brooklyn-based SocialGuide, who will be rolling out a new analytics product soon, has put together a year-ender graphic with the most social TV and movies of 2011: