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First off I would like to wish all my readers a safe and happy holidays. Now I would like to talk about something that I found very interesting. A comedian by the name of Louis CK has done something that in recent memory I haven’t seen anyone do before. He created his own comedy special and instead of getting it done through HBO or Comedy Central, he decided he was going to show it through the internet. Now if you don’t know much about Louis CK, he is a comedian that started right here in the home town of Geek Choice, Boston and has had decent success over the years. Now that success has gone to a new realm, an online comedy special. The comedy special is Live at the Beacon Theater which you can purchase for $5 on his website. In just 12 days of this special being put on his site he has cleared the $1M mark. Which just goes to show you that you always don’t need the brass of high power TV executives to make something happen for yourself. If you have followed anything that Louis CK has done in the past, the great thing about this is that he has a TV show on FX just called Louie. Now that might not seem like it is special, it is more or less just like anything else right? Wrong, he has total and utter creative control of the show with no say from the people at FX. So this is probably the greatest thing for artists who want to make something special for themselves. I salute you Louis CK for making such a bold move that paid off in a big way.

Google Music has finally launched and there is plenty to talk about for all you Android users out there. You can get it on the Android marketplace.

The store offers more than 13 million tracks from artists on Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and the global independent rights agency Merlin as well as over 1,000 prominent independent labels including Merge Records, Warp Records, Matador Records, XL Recordings and Naxos. Google has also partnered with the world’s largest digital distributors of independent music including IODA, INgrooves, The Orchard and Believe Digital.

You can purchase individual songs or entire albums right from your computer or your Android device and they’ll be added instantly to your Google Music library, and accessible anywhere. Google is also giving you the ability to share a free full play of a purchased song with your friends on Google+.
So let’s see what Google Music can do!

CBS CEO Les Moonves is known to occasionally drop pieces of information that he’s not supposed to on his company’s earnings calls, and this quarter was no exception. When asked about CBS’s appetite for striking deals with new streaming providers that might not have the money to pay cash up front to license its content, Moonves said that CBS had decided against joining an Apple TV service because it was based on an ad split. Apple is rumored to be working on a subscription streaming service that would have content from many TV networks and would go up against the typical cable and satellite services. From what has been reported the CBS philosophy of getting paid for upfront licensing fees for syndication of its content online, as opposed to partnering on revenue-sharing agreements. This is also why CBS didn’t join Hulu. Although it looks like that move is paying off as they struck a deal with Netflix and Amazon earlier this year and the CW also licensed its shows to Netflix and Hulu.

Today I am focusing on the Playstation Vita which is the new handheld console of the Sony family. Looks like an original PSP with a touch screen to me. But is that all it really offers is a wonderful touch screen? So the cost of this will be $249 with wi-fi and $299 with 3G. 3G is going to be exclusive to AT&T it looks like so if want to use 3G you will have to hook up with their data plans like the iPad. So here are the main differences between the PSP and the new PS Vita:
• Advanced portable entertainment system
A high performance CPU / GPU combined with OLED enables rich, visually striking graphics never seen before on a portable entertainment system. PS Vita also adopts the Super Oval Design form factor, which fits comfortably in users’ hands.
• Revolutionary User Interface
A unique multi-touch pad on the rear, with the front touch display. Two cameras on it’s front and rear, as well as three motion sensors, gyroscope, accelerometer, and electronic compass.
• LiveArea™
Every game title for PS Vita will be provided with a space called “LiveArea™” where users can share the fun and excitement with other players.
• Location-based services
SCE will provide location-based services on PS Vita as part of the basic features utilizing PlayStation Network. The new application called “Near,” developed specifically for this service and the network, will be pre-installed in the system.
• Wi-Fi and 3G network connectivity
PS Vita is equipped with 3G in addition to Wi-Fi.
• Closely coordinated with PlayStation Suite
The newly developed and released game content for Android based portable devices can also be enjoyed on PS Vita.

Gamers have been waiting years for Nintendo to finally release its Wii successor, and Game Informer has heard from multiple sources that the company will unveil it at E3 this summer if not sooner. There has been talk about an HD Wii for some time now, and the time is perfect – almost necessary – for Nintendo to jump start itself with this new system. The company has been feeling the bite since Wili sales have declined from the previous years, and this week’s news that Nintendo could be dropping the price on May 15th of the Wii and an attempt to move as many Wii units as possible out of the retail channel before the new system hits. There is no confirmation if this new system will be backward compatible with the Wii or if it will even carry the Wii branding as has often been rumored. It is our understanding that Nintendo is trying to embrace the western gamer and will likely launch a new brand with this console. Around the office we have dubbed the system Nintendo HD. However, this information at this point is conjecture.

Google is looking to make an overhaul of YouTube as it is trying to position itself for what is going to be the rise of televisions that let people watch online videos in their living rooms. Google wants YouTube to compete against broadcasts and cable television. This is a goal to get people to stay on YouTube longer. I don’t know about you but I could watch a Pug singing the Batman theme a hundred times and it still wouldn’t get old. The site is going change the homepage to highlight sets of channels around topics of arts, news, and sports. About 20 channels with have hours of professionally produced original programming per week and there is a possibility they will have channels for content currently on the site. It is said that $100 million to commission low cost content specifically for the web. The reason this could be happening is because Google bought YouTube for $1.6 billion back in 2006 and is pressured to make YouTube a cash cow. The main idea would be to get people to stay on YouTube longer there increasing ad revenues for the website and if any of the shows they plan to produce get big, I am sure they will make tons of money on the ad revenue for that time slot and channel. These new idea should be interesting and maybe I will be watching.

Amazon yesterday announced a new service in which you can store all of your music in one place and then be able to stream it through your phone and other devices. Well once again the music industry is crying foul. Stating that Amazon needs to get streaming licensing agreements for people to access their own music that they most likely already bought from a source like iTunes. Apparently Amazon is in the works of obtaining such licenses but not before launching the Cloud service. Of course the first thing I read about this is from Sony music having issues with the fact this streaming deal hasn’t been put into place but they are in high hopes that this happens.
This is not the first time a company has been taken to court over this back in 2007 EMI sued MP3tunes, which was a company that offered a service similar to the Cloud. It is unclear whether customers who own the music are allowed to remotely access the storage services offered by cloud computing. I am against the whole litigation against companies that are offering a service to stream music you already own to your private devices. If the music companies want to get paid for stuff they didn’t invent, why they don’t start working on these technologies. I feel like this is a bit of double dipping. The customer pays for the song but yet can’t access it from their computers via their phone. Well the funny thing s if you have an iPod and put music on that, you still have the music on your PC and iPod. So should the music industry put a tax on companies who make MP3 devices, full knowing the music could go on an iPad, iPod and still be on someone’s computer? But since it is not being streamed over the internet it’s ok to do that? This is a convenience service that a company created and people will love it and it is free for the first 5GB but the starving music industry must need a bail out from the government with all the litigation they do. I hope that if this goes to court the judge rules in the favor of Amazon. I am always angry to read these types of things, we can all understand the music industries battle against piracy because that is illegal but this cloud computing seems like a gray area to me. By ruling in the favor of the music industry this could open problems for other cloud computing ideas everywhere.

A few blog posts back I wrote about how Warner Bros. was putting the The Dark Knight up for rental through Facebook. Well it looks like it must have been successful. By now you should be able to rent films such as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Inception, Life as We Know It and Yogi Bear. So it seems like a strong mix of movies to rent. Although they are still in the testing phases and the movies such as Harry Potter and Inception were put on this test because of what the President of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution says has a very popular and active Facebook fan page. Customers will have full control over the movie while watching it through their Facebook account and will have it for 48 hours from rental. Seeing as Warner is expanding on the test it The Dark Knight must have been successful for them to try some movies. Although it is interesting they said two franchises have strong followings on Facebook, which could lead me to believe they are going to see if they can do the rentals on movies that are just capitalizing on a strong Facebook following.

If you had an outage on Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011 while trying to instantly stream your Netflix movies or TV shows well you should have received an email from Netflix apologizing for the downtime and not only that but also offering you a 3% discount on your monthly bill for the downtime. So check your email and click the link within the email within 7 days of receiving the email to earn your 3% credit. Although in the email Netflix doesn’t divulge why exactly it was down but sited that it was experiencing technical issues. To me honestly I am fine with an answer like that. Why you may ask? Well because they made good on the downtime. They issued everyone who had a problem a credit and that is how business like that should be done. It is no wonder Netflix has taken the rental world by storm, not only are they extremely convenient but they make good on mistakes and issues. I would love to see if my cable went down for a whole day they issue me a credit for it. It is just really nice to see that Netflix appreciates your business and you aren’t just an $8 a month number they collect.

When iTunes hit our PC’s everyone who had an Ipod was so happy to see a program that they could keep all of their music in one place to easily transfer to their iPod. This eventually evolved into applications and movies as well. Well no its Android’s turn for an app store, well sort of. Amazon has launched an Appstore with 3,800 applications for the Android. Tonight Amazon will be available online through amazon.com/appstore. Users of the android will also be able to download a version to their Android device. Amazons appstore will launch with some mobile heavy hitters being on the platform, including companies such as Gameloft, Handmark, and one of my personal favorites Glu Mobile. Though Apple is suing Amazon for trademark infringement and unfair competition over the name, who would have thought Apple would be afraid of a little competition.
The appstore is actually very small compared to the Android Marketplace and of course the iTunes market. Amazon is even making a splash with some exclusive content for Angry Birds. To drive more business Amazon will be offering a few things to drive it.
• First Amazon will offer one free application a day to help promotions.
• Amazon will offer a feature called Test Drive, which will allow a customer to try an app out before they buy it. The technology is using Amazon’s cloud services. Users will be able to open and use the application from within their computer browsers. The sim will last around 30 minutes at said point you will have to buy the product.
• Finally, Amazon will drive recommendations based on a user’s purchase history. So if someone purchases cook book and high-end utensils, Amazon will recommend a recipe application.
• Amazon will also have a one-click purchase for anyone who wants to keep a credit card on file.

So all in all Amazon is shaping up to be a true contender in the application market. We will just have to wait out and see what will happen with the lawsuit Apple has placed on Amazon and what will come of it if Apple does win.