Video

Investors are cheering on Netflix as it moves from DVDs to streaming video, and keeps adding customers along the way. But "digital" doesn't equal "cheap" for Reed Hastings' company. In fact, the online move has cost Netflix at least $1.2 billion.

That's the amount Netflix has committed to paying Hollywood studios for the rights to stream their movies and TV shows. And it's up from $229 million three months ago, the company disclosed in an SEC filing yesterday.

Most of that leap comes from a five-year deal that Netflix previously announced with … Read more

Some of you may well be readers of Glamour magazine. Others may not.

So may I quote this repository of optimism about a certain technologically sophisticated wedding proposal purportedly made in Central Park on Sunday?

"A Proposal Story: This Sweet Guy Proposed in Central Park--Then Threw the Ring! (I Got Teary Eyed!)" reads the Glamour headline. The post is accompanied by a YouTube video of the proposal.

The video purports to show a woman called Kasey who has been lured by a friend to the park, where she is surprised by her fiance in a rowing boat. While … Read more

Remember the big Apple vs. everyone else video-format war from last spring? When Apple was pushing the HTML5 standard it wanted to use for video on the iPhone and iPad, instead of Adobe Systems' Flash?

No one seems to spend much time talking about it anymore. For good reason: in large part because Steve Jobs insisted on it, "online video" increasingly means "HTML5-compatible." There's not much to debate anymore.

Video search engine MeFeedia, for instance, says that 54 percent of Web video is now compatible with HTML5. That's more than double the tally the … Read more

Costs from its pending acquisition of NBC Universal and lower subscriber growth took a bite out of Comcast's third-quarter earnings.

For the quarter ended September 30, the cable company reported net income of $867 million, an 8.2 percent decline from $944 million in the year-ago quarter. Net income per share was 31 cents for the quarter just ended, compared with 33 cents a year ago. Earnings were impacted by the $66 million in total expenses that Comcast was forced to take in relation to its NBCU transaction. But the third-quarter profits were also hit by a 3.5 … Read more

It's our long-awaited Nerd Show (i.e., episode 1337), and in my opinion, we rose to the occasion admirably. Our show covers everything from the iPhone security secret sequence to how to become a lazy hacker. Plus, WiFi Direct certification, a ghostly white iPhone sighting, and PAT vs. NAT. Again. -- m011yW00t

On today's show, we're predicting what Barnes and Noble will announce tomorrow for the Nook--early mockups seem to indicate a mystery hook on the bottom that could maybe, uh, attach to your belt-loop? Also, Google admits that the 600GB of data "fragments" it collected from its Street View cars might kind of, funnily enough, include email addresses, passwords, and complete email text. Oh, and phone numbers. Great. --Molly

Yikes: ABC, CBS, and NBC all block their content from Google TV. New Nook may be first color e-reader. iMovie says no fake Universal trailers for you. And we smash a rocket into the moon. On purpose!

Google TV has the network television industry's attention.

Certain television shows on the Web sites of broadcast networks CBS and ABC are currently being blocked when Google TV users try to access those sites. The Wall Street Journal also reported that NBC confirmed it was blocking streams to Google TV users, although CNET was able to view shows on NBC.com using Google TV. (CBS.com is published by CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET.)

The decision to block the programs only seems to affect full-length episodes available on the Web sites of those companies, and it began in … Read more

Apple giveth (the Ginsu Book) and then it taketh: We discuss a gaping security hole in FaceTime and Apple's dis to Java developers. Also, GE launches hybrid lightbulb, Clearwire demos 100 gigabit LTE, and the mysterious space hot tub of Upsilon Andromedae b.