The On Demand service from Blockbuster Inc. (NYSE:BBI) has launched on TiVo box devices. The Blockbuster service is compatible with the Series2, Series3, TiVo HD, and the TiVo HD XL DVR system. The rentals will range from about $2.99-$3.99. The classics will be $2.99 and new releases will be $3.99.
“Blockbuster nights are synonymous with family and fun, something that goes perfectly with the TiVo experience,” stated TiVo SVP of Sales and Marketing Joe Miller. “By bringing Blockbuster’s content direct to TiVo subscribers, we show once again that TiVo offers much more choice and convenience for our customers compared to other DVR offerings. We are very pleased to say that customers can now walk into a participating BLOCKBUSTER store to purchase TiVo DVRs and that together both companies have succeeded in bringing even more entertainment direct to the living room.”
It has been heavily debated whether Shakespeare had a ghostwriter in some cases. But now researchers at the University of London can verify that they have found one instance where Shakespeare did get some help. The University of London used software that can detect plagiarism. In this case they found that Shakespeare received help from Thomas Kyd. One play that Shakespeare specifically received help with was The Reign of King Edward III.
The software used is called Pl@giarism. Pl@giarism was made for catching students that cheat. Sir Brian Vickers was the professor behind the Shakespeare project. Vickers compared this The King Edward play to other writing pieces from the same time period. The King Edward play matched Kyd’s style of writing.
The Shakespeare matches came from four scenes, about 40 per cent of the play. The remaining scenes had about 200 matches with works by Kyd, best known for The Spanish Tragedy, a play known to have influenced Shakespeare, indicating that he wrote the other 60 per cent of the play.
I’d like to run this software on Kaavya Viswanathan’s How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. I think it’d be entertaining.
Blaze is some of the craziest videogame modding companies I’ve heard of. They made a SEGA Genesis replica in the U.K. And now the company is working on a Nintendo Wiimote style controller for the Sony PlayStation 3. The Motion Freedom 3D Controller “thrusts the PS3 gamer into the very heart of the action by employing the latest motion sensing technology which before now has only been the reserve of Nintendo Wii gamers,” according to the Blaze website.
Yahoo! Connected TV is a service that adds widgets to television services. Patrick Barry, the head of Connected TV has decided to leave Yahoo! because there is “too much opportunity out there not too.” Barry helped manage the partnerships that Yahoo! had with Samsung and Sony. Below is the e-mail that Barry sent as his resignation.
From: Patrick Barry
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:01:01 -0700
To: Connected Team
Cc: Tapan Bhat, XXX
Subject: Moving on
Connected TV Team,
After 5 great years here at Yahoo, it is time for me to move on to new projects and aspirations. I am tremendously proud of all we have accomplished together, from defining the world’s best user experience for interactive television, to shipping our technology platform on millions devices with some of the biggest brands in the industry. You have been an amazing team, and I will treasure the great times we have had working together to overcome challenges and make an impact for Yahoo. I remain a big believer in our vision for the future of television, and I would not be leaving now if I didn’t have faith in your ability to continue to achieve our goals and extend that vision.
Thank you for the hard work, passion and commitment over these several years. I will miss you all.
I will continue to be here through the end of the month to help make sure our plans and partnerships stay on track. Please join Tapan and I on Monday morning at 9:30 in Chutes so we can answer any questions you might have about my transition.
AVG Technologies, the company behind the very popular anti-virus scanning software has launched a new feature. This new feature is extremely handy for those who are active on Twitter. Twitter messages often contain short URLs, but it is unpredictable which ones have links to viruses and which ones don’t.
AVG’s LinkScanner scans websites as you browse them to make sure that malway is not contained in them. If there is malware, the Internet user is blocked from revisiting the website. Twitter themselves use the Google Safe Browsing API to check websites that Google has blacklisted to make sure that there aren’t any short URLs connected to them. Twitter deletes the post immediately after detecting the malware-contained short URL.
AVG’s LinkScanner service track the malware websites in real-time. Short URLs are scanned by LinkScanner which can find bad links within GMail, Digg, MySpace and Bebo.
Jyri Engeström co-founded a social network in Finland called Jaiku. A couple of years ago Google bought his company out and did nothing with it. Between the time that Google bought his company and now, Twitter took off and Jyri decided to leave. Jyri took on another project at Google and the search engine company ceased internal development of Jaiku. Jaiku was added to the Google App Engine and was open sourced.
Jyri left Google in order to “make meaning” out of another project. The tweet he wrote was “It was my last day at Google today. As for what’s next, @guykawasaki nailed it by saying: make meaning http://ping.fm/TUBnO.”
After the acquisition, Jyri and his family moved to San Francisco. But ever since then his family wanted to move back to Finland. Jyri and Chris Messina are rumored to be working on a new project together that involves “social objects.” Messina is a board member of the OpenID foundation.
Jyri is also helping his wife on a start-up called Thinglink. Thinglink will focus on sharing collections and photos.
Miley Cyrus made a rap video about quitting Twitter. The video received over 3 million views in 3 days. The video was just asking for a parody to be made and Jimmy Fallon jumped on it quickly while tapping his inner Billy Ray Cyrus. Miley Cyrus’ dad Billy Ray still uses Twitter and so Jimmy Fallon made a song about that. Above is a video embedded of the video.
Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has been airing commercials that feature a young Asian-American girl named Kylie to promote their new operating system called Windows 7. In the commercials, Kylie points out all the “happy words” that reviewers have been giving about Windows 7.
To get a further boost in publicity, Microsoft is hiring Seth MacFarlane and Alex Borstein to put on a variety show. MacFarlane is the creator of the animated series Family Guy. Borstein is one of the voice actresses for Family Guy, best known for playing Lois Griffin. The variety show will be aired on November 8 without commercials.
The deal was made between Microsoft, The Family Guy cast, and ad agency Crispin, Porter & Bogusky. Media agency Universal McCann brokered the deal. Crispin and MacFarlane worked together on a deal in the past for creating Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. The series was uploaded to YouTube and was sponsored by Burger King initially. The series is now being sponsored by Priceline.com.
The variety program sponsored by Microsoft will feature Family Guy musical performances, celebrity guest appearances, and Microsoft product placements. “You’ll see us deeply integrated into the content … you’ll hear a lot about how Windows 7 can help you simplify your PC — it’s simple, fast and easy to use,” stated Microsoft general manager of consumer engagement and advertising Gayle Troberman. “Think about metaphors and examples we might use, talking about how simple things are. We’ll be evoking the cast of ‘Family Guy’ in some interesting ways that integrate the product messages.”
Update: Below is a video sneak peek from Win741 of how Windows 7 will be used by Family Guy:
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