studios

A group of technology and entertainment companies appears to have defied the doubters and is actually launching a new cloud-video platform--thanks in large part to Time Warner's HBO.

UltraViolet (UV) is the name for a set of standards and technology designed to enable consumers to store their movies and TV shows in the cloud. Participating retailers and services will store customers' video on their servers and then users can view the films on a wide assortment of devices from member consumer-electronics makers.

UV is what most of the Hollywood film studios, as well as many others connected to online-movie … Read more

Our guest today is Robin Yang of Toy Studio, one of Barnes & Noble's premier gaming publishers for the Nook Color tablet. She'll help us out with the rundown that includes stories about the real 53 percent, the long-awaited Facebook app for the iPad, MacBook Air competitor Ultrabooks from Asus, and how to run Android apps on a PC.… Read more

commentary Microsoft just turned Xbox into the Swiss Army Knife of cable boxes.

Forget calling Xbox a game console. That doesn't go far enough. Microsoft today announced licensing deals with 40 television content suppliers, including Comcast, HBO, Verizon and even Vevo, a music-video service.

Microsoft can tell consumers, any kind of entertainment you want--games, movies, music--we got it. One important caveat: the price isn't cheap. To watch shows from HBO or Comcast on the Xbox, you have to subscribe to those services.

If you're one of the cost-conscious people who railed against Netflix after the Web's … Read more

The lowly drinking fountain has been largely neglected as we fill up our wireless hydration-advice-giving water bottles and wear coats that catch and purify rain.

British design group Poietic Studio has given the drinking fountain a new lease on life with the Tropism Well. It senses when you're nearby, sucks water up a tube, fills up a carafe, and elegantly offers it to you.

You'll need to provide your own cup. Otherwise you'll have to kneel down and try to catch the water in your mouth, and nobody wants to see you do that.

The bowing motion is achieved simply by sending the water up the tube. The weight of the water does the rest. Isn't physics fun?… Read more

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos served notice today that his company is very much a Netflix competitor.

Some analysts predicted that Amazon would not make a serious effort in online video distribution. But at a press event in New York this morning, Amazon kicked Netflix where it hurts the most right now: price and value. The Web's largest retailer announced a series of new electronic readers as well as a tablet computer called the Kindle Fire (See CNET's first look at the device). Amazon wrapped the tablet into a hard-to-beat offer for many movie fans.

Not only is the … Read more

Western Digital announced today its latest in the My Passport family of portable drives, the My Passport Studio and My Passport for Mac portable hard drives. Both drives are designed to work with a Mac out of the box and feature compact, elegant designs.

The new My Passport Studio, which is the update to the version released in 2010, now boasts an all-metal, scratch-resistant design and provides multiple connectivity options, including two FireWire 800 ports and a USB 2.0 port. The reason it doesn't feature USB 3.0 is simply because Mac computers don't offer this option. … Read more

Meet MotionStudio 3D, Corel's inaugural entry into the animation and motion graphics software category. Geared more toward novices and prosumers than professionals, this capable newcomer lets you create 3D text and titles, lathe objects, and a variety of animations with relative ease.

MotionStudio's interface is intuitive, which should be comforting to motion graphics novices. The Edit Window displays your project as you work, and can reflect changes in near real-time--with virtually no waiting for rendering. Also, you can drag objects directly within the Edit Window for a more tactile way to customize basic aspects like position, rotation, and … Read more

Even if you believe that splitting Netflix into two services and raising prices is the right plan for the company in the long term, the moves in the near term have many subscribers asking whether managers value them.

Many Netflix users are outraged for the second time in the past three months. CEO Reed Hastings offered an apology last night in a letter to customers as well as in a video message for the way the company announced a price increase in July. He didn't say he was sorry for the actual price hike, and more importantly, he also said Netflix was splitting itself into two separate services. The new Netflix will be involved in streaming video over the Web exclusively, while the other service, called Qwikster, will oversee DVD by mail.

Some analysts and customers argue that Netflix has made plenty of other missteps in the past several months. The company couldn't close a licensing agreement with Starz, the pay-TV service that owns Web distribution rights to content from Sony Pictures and Disney. That means Netflix's streaming library will offer even fewer films from the top Hollywood studios. Much of Hollywood is lukewarm about Netflix's business model and the company has struggled to acquire streaming rights for popular films. … Read more

Altair ProductDesign announced a partnership with Studio X-Gene to develop a new electric concept vehicle, the Avant GT.

The Avant GT is the brainchild of Taiwan-based Studio X-Gene along with partners Delta Electronics, Wistron, and Qisda.

Altair ProductDesign joined the project to offer engineering development of the vehicle. "Altair was given responsibility for providing a simulation driven design approach for the vehicle's crash, durability, vibration, vehicle dynamics, and computational fluid dynamics drag evaluation along with supporting Studio X-Gene during the architectural design phase," an Altair spokesman said in a press release.

The Avant GT, described as "… Read more