Tag Archives: Fire TV

Weekly output: 5G IoT security worries, Big Ten carriage deals, House of the Dragon streaming glitches, Netflix + ads, Russian digital attacks on Ukraine, YouTube TV, Thursday Night Football, Xfinity Mobile, NBC Sports Washington, non-TV video viewing, Plex breach, video budgets, FuboTV, LotR: Rings of Power, SpaceX + T-Mobile

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Monday’s schedule has three big items on it: the Space Launch System’s Artemis I liftoff, our kid starting seventh grade, and my flying across the Atlantic for the IFA electronics trade show in Berlin for the first time since 2019. They’re all pretty exciting, although one of them has a vastly more detailed checklist.

(The IFA organizers are covering most of the travel costs for an invited group of U.S. journalists and analysts, your blogger here included.)

Screenshot of story as seen in Safari on an iPad mini 5.8/22/2022: The next wave of wireless security worries: API-driven IoT devices, Light Reading

My Black Hat coverage continued with this recap of a talk about the possible security risks of connected devices on 4G and 5G networks.

8/22/2022: NBCUniversal and its Peacock streamer get Big Ten Saturday night, FierceVideo

I spent my mornings this week filling in at my video trade-pub client, starting with this post about a sweeping deal for college-sports carriage rights.

8/22/2022: Some Fire TV users fired up over streaming glitches with HBO Max, FierceVideo

Some House of the Dragon viewers had trouble watching the Game of Thrones prequel on Amazon Fire TV devices.

8/22/2022: Report: Netflix to keep new movies and kids’ shows ad-free, FierceVideo

I can imagine the relief of cash-strapped parents on learning that the upcoming cheaper-with-ads version of Netflix won’t feature ads in kid-oriented content.

8/23/2022: Six months into the war, how have Ukraine and its Western allies resisted Russia’s digital tactics?, Fast Company

I was almost done with this piece when I got the chance to quiz TCP/IP co-author Vint Cerf at a Washington event about how Russia has abused his creation.

8/23/2022: YouTube TV to add YouTube Shorts and four-channel viewing, FierceVideo

This lede essentially wrote itself: “YouTube TV’s shorter-attention-span viewers may applaud (albeit briefly) two new features apparently coming to the streaming video service.”

8/23/2022: DirecTV-Amazon deal keeps Thursday Night Football in bars, FierceVideo

This story about NFL rights is really one about the uneven availability of broadband in the U.S.

8/23/2022: Comcast’s Xfinity Mobile Cuts Rates for Subscribers With 2 or 3 Lines, PCMag

Verifying the fine print in Xfinity Mobile’s plans took a surprisingly long time.

8/24/2022: Comcast sells D.C. RSN to Monumental Sports & Entertainment, FierceVideo

After I wrote this, the Washington Post reported that MSE founder Ted Leonsis is preparing a bid to buy the Washington Nationals.

8/24/2022: 59% of U.S. adults watch video daily on non-TV devices, FierceVideo

I wrote up a survey of video-viewing habits.

8/24/2022: Plex reports data breach, tells users to reset passwords, FierceVideo

It was somewhat nice to write about a data breach that didn’t involve me.

8/25/2022: Survey: 26% of U.S. households have cut video budgets, FierceVideo

This survey found that Americans’ biggest money-saving move was dining out less often.

8/26/2022: Fubo adds slate of Cinedigm FAST lifestyle channels, FierceVideo

I noted that the streaming-TV provider Fubo’s list of channels is now as long as the average cable company’s.

8/26/2022: WSJ: Amazon spends $715 million on The Rings of Power, FierceVideo

I would have written this piece faster if I hadn’t spent so much time finding Lord of the Rings references to drop into it.

8/26/2022: T-Mobile to Expand Coverage With the Help of SpaceX’s Starlink Satellites, PCMag

A very long Thursday wrapped up with me writing a version of this post from an advance copy of the joint SpaceX/T-Mobile announcement, then rewriting it that night after watching the stream of the event.

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Weekly output: Verizon earnings, Netflix casting, Verizon Fios TV apps, Redbox + Wurl, AT&T earnings, Twitter tests downvotes, Locast comes to Pittsburgh

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I spent three days filling in at my trade-pub client FierceVideo covering industry developments–which allowed me to spotlight yet another example of customer abuse by a telecom conglomerate.

7/21/2021: Verizon Q2 earnings show video continuing to shrivel, FierceVideo

As I wrote in a Forbes post months ago, the sales pitch awaiting at Verizon’s site suggests this company is already acting like a post-pay-TV provider.

7/21/2021: Netflix launches in-house casting department, FierceVideo

Before writing this post, I would have guessed that Netflix had set up its own casting operation long ago, but I’m not exactly a student of Hollywood’s workings.

Screenshot of the story as seen on an iPad mini's copy of Safari

7/22/2021: Verizon adds Apple TV, Fire TV apps for Fios TV, FierceVideo

I had this story mostly written when I thought I should step through the ordering process on Verizon’s site to see if it would suggest its new Apple TV and Fire TV apps as alternatives to renting its Fios TV boxes–and then I was surprised and annoyed to see the company list a $20 monthly fee for the privilege of using these apps. Verizon’s inability to read the room here–even after it’s seen more than 20% of its TV subscriber base boil away in the last four years–is something to behold.

7/22/2021: Redbox turns to Wurl to boost its free-with-ads streaming TV, FierceVideo

My editor asked me to write up this bit of embargoed news she’d gotten; no problem.

7/22/2021: AT&T continues to shed video subs but touts HBO Max success, FierceVideo

AT&T’s earnings call confused me more than a little when the company spent so much time talking up the HBO Max video business that it will soon spin off into an independent company.

7/22/2021: Twitter tests downvotes, Al Jazeera

The Arabic-language news network had me on to discuss Twitter’s new experiment in letting some iOS users downvote replies–with that negative feedback only shown to the authors of those replies, not to the general Twitter public.

7/23/2021: Locast lights up Pittsburgh, FierceVideo

My last post for Fierce this week covered the expansion of this non-profit organization’s free streaming of local broadcast stations to the Pittsburgh market, which I used as an opportunity to educate readers about that region’s unusual second-person plural pronoun “yinz.”

Weekly output: Amazon Fire TV, Roku TV, social-media propaganda, IFA

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I’m back from Berlin and my eighth IFA is in the books. I feel more wiped out than usual from jet lag, maybe because my five-hours-late departure Monday left no time for me to walk around the city Wednesday afternoon and get some sunshine into my head. I had better be recovered in three days, when I’ll be back on a plane for the Online News Association’s conference–this year in New Orleans, one of my favorite travel destinations.

If you need more gadget pictures in your life, there’s a slideshow of photos from this year’s IFA waiting after the jump.

9/5/2019: Amazon bids to spark new markets for Fire TV, FierceVideo

I wrote this from an Amazon event in Berlin Wednesday night, at which I had the advantage of being able to quiz a couple of analyst friends who had watched the same sales pitch.

9/7/2019: Roku expands Roku TV program to Europe, FierceVideo

Roku CEO Anthony Wood gave an uncommonly concise keynote at IFA Saturday morning–it ran only 24 minutes.

9/7/2019: Social-media marketing for Sudan’s military, Al Jazeera

I offered my perspective on a weird case of social-media propaganda via Skype from my hotel room.

9/8/2019: 2019 IFA Trade Show Recap with Rob Pegoraro, Moor Insights & Strategy Podcast

I shared my thoughts on this year’s IFA with Moor’s Mark Vena from a semi-quiet table at a restaurant in our hotel; I hope the background chatter from other guests isn’t too distracting.

Continue reading →

Weekly output: Apple Park, forced-redirect ads, net neutrality, tech trends, Tech Night Owl, media-player tips

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I would add up how many weeks this year have involved me writing about net-neutrality issues, but that would be too depressing.

12/11/2017: Why doesn’t Apple make its devices as carefully as it’s making Apple Park?, The Washington Post

After seeing Jony Ive’s talk at the Hirshhorn Museum last month, I tweeted out a line from him about how people should shut up about Apple Park’s perfectionist design–which then irked a great many people. I decided there was a story in this and, after striking out at two other places, found a home for it at the Post. Once again, I enjoyed confusing people who hadn’t seen my byline there in years.

12/11/2017: How to stop rogue ads that can set you up for malware, Yahoo Finance

When my mom asked how to dispel an obnoxious “forced-redirect” ads–the kind that take you off whatever you’re reading and then break your browser’s back button–I figured the problem was widespread enough to be story fodder.

12/14/2017: Here’s what you can expect now that the FCC has killed net neutrality, Yahoo Finance

The anger I’m seeing about this–not to mention the 3,767 comments this has drawn so far–suggest that FCC chair Ajit Pai’s PR strategy of laughing off fears is not calming anybody down.

12/16/2016: What’s Up With Tech?, PATACS

In my first talk to this user group since 2010, I talked about why I’m not sold on a handful of much-hyped technologies–4K TV, smart speakers, drones, virtual reality and Bitcoin. I brought a bag full of random trade-show swag to give away, and now I have that much more room in my home office’s closet.

12/16/2017: December 16, 2017 — Rob Pegoraro and Jeff Gamet, Tech Night Owl Live

I talked to host Gene Steinberg about the demise of the service once known as AOL Instant Messenger, net-neutrality politics, and my decision to replace my MacBook Air with a Windows laptop.

12/17/2017: Cord-cutting tips for setting up your new Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV, USA Today

The advice about using an Ethernet connection instead of WiFi should be obvious, but I’ll bet a lot of people don’t think about using Plex’s apps to play music and videos stored on their PCs or using a media player’s remote-control app to avoid having to type passwords by clicking at letters on the TV’s screen with the player’s regular remote.

 

 

Weekly output: streaming-media players

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For the first time since June, I only have one posted story to my name. I filed two others, but I also tried to set aside work from Wednesday afternoon through this evening. Aside from some e-mail that I had to attend to Friday afternoon, I mostly succeeded.

pegoraro-streaming-media-players-post11/23/2016: How to figure out which streaming media device to buy, Yahoo Finance

My original copy tried to explain Apple and Amazon’s conduct by throwing around some references to multilateral diplomacy and balance-of-power theory, but my editors may have thought that description was a little too much Georgetown School of Foreign Service for a guide to buying gadgets. If so, I can’t exactly blame them.

There’s something weird with how Google indexed this–searching for keywords or the exact phrase of its headline finds nothing at finance.yahoo.com, while Google has no trouble locating the copy posted to Yahoo Tech. At least the original got picked up on Reddit, I guess.

 

Weekly output: Amazon versus Apple TV and Chromecast, enterprises helping startups, ransomware

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Two of these three items were basically handed to me over the previous week: Amazon elected to throw its weight around in an unwise manner, and then a reader wrote to me about an awful experience with malware.

10/6/2015: Hey Amazon: What Did Apple TV or Chromecast Ever Do to You?, Yahoo Tech

I really enjoyed writing this rant about Amazon’s foolish, bullying behavior. Should I have been surprised to see Apple and Google haters unite in defending Amazon’s conduct in comments on this post?

Tech.Co startups and enterprises post10/6/2015: How Enterprises are Helping Startups, Tech.Co Celebrate

I moderated a panel about the sometimes-complicated relationship between startups and big-name companies looking to help them and maybe later acquire them. Afterwards, Tech.Co’s Ron Barba wrote up the conversation I had with Google’s Don Dodge, Microsoft’s Steve Seow, PayPal’s Corrado Tomassoni, and American Airlines’ Paul Swartz.

10/11/2015: ‘Ransomware’ a game-over scenario unless you have backups, USA Today

Getting this reader’s testimony about the hijacking of his computer was no fun at all. I quizzed a few security experts about what he could do, and their answers did not provide any hop; I hate telling a reader that he’s screwed.