At long last, Roku owners who subscribe to Comcast will have access to HBO and Showtime—just in time for the holidays.
A dispute between Roku and the pay-TV provider has kept Comcast services off of Roku gadgets. But according to a filing Recode discovered Monday, the dispute is soon to be over. According to the document the two companies submitted to the Federal Communications Commission, “Comcast has, among other things, agreed to authenticate the HBO Go and Showtime Anytime apps on Roku video streaming devices.”
See also: Roku TV Disrupts Nothing, Which May Make It The Smartest Smart TV Yet
The filing notes the agreement was reached on November 25th, but does not say when the service will begin to become available. Right now, Comcast subscribers are the only Roku box owners who can't use their product's full functionality.
This isn't the first time Comcast subscribers have had fewer TV opportunities than subscribers at other providers. For example, Comcast is blocking HBO Go for Amazon Fire TV owners who subscribe to Comcast, but no other provider is making this decision. Many Comcast users have no choice to subscribe to any other provider when they're unhappy with service, such as when Comcast is the only provider in their area.
Photo via HBO's Game of Thrones
BlackBerry has finally launched its new-old smartphone, the keyboard-bearing BlackBerry Classic.
The phone, which has been available on pre-order for a month, offers users a rather unique proposition these days: a physical keyboard. The company earned its stripes with devices bearing hardware QWERTY keyboards, and some might argue that BlackBerry's business really began to slide when it ditched them to hop on the touchscreen trend.
See also: BlackBerry Goes Back To The Future With Its "BlackBerry Classic"
The Classic offers both—a keyboard and a touch-enabled display that's actually larger than the one featured in its last hit, the Bold 9900. Along for the ride are the familiar physical navigation keys and trackpad. Altogether, the phone should provide plenty of nostalgia for old-time BlackBerry lovers.
Whether that's enough to make it the hit the company so badly needs is another question.
The Classic Bid To Get Back In The Black
There's no strange keyboard layout, like the weird one with three rows of keys in BlackBerry's Passport. The Classic's keys, touchscreen and shortcuts were designed to let users fly through their communications “triage,” so they can select blocks of emails or zip through texts with lightning replies, even without looking at the keys.
Like previous BlackBerrys, those buttons have tactile contours and plenty of responsive spring when pressed, which should please touch typists. Folks who treasure the ability to manage their device with one hand should note that this phone is also much smaller than the Passport, and was designed for one-handed use—more like the old Bold 9900 from 2011.
The Classic's other hardware specifications seem to come from that era too. The device features a dual-core Qualcomm processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1230 mAh battery and a 3.5-inch touchscreen (at 720 x 720 pixels, 294 dpi HD resolution).
BlackBerry, perhaps trying to get in front of any criticism of its compact screen, notes that the display is still 40% bigger than that of the Bold. Jeff Gadway, head of product and brand marketing, also pointed out that "when you bring up a keyboard on an iPhone and compare it with the Classic, the [Classic's] display is within 4%." Of course, he didn't mention which of Apple's super-sized iPhone he was referring to, though it's all but certain he wasn't talking about the monstrous iPhone 6 Plus.
As for battery life, -- For more information read the original article here.
-- For more information read the original article here.
This optical illusion is making its way around the internet today.
Take a look:
There are only four circles here and they don't touch. C'mon brain you can do this. pic.twitter.com/mDPLXwl9av
— Kyle Hill (@Sci_Phile) December 19, 2014
No really, stare at this photo a little longer. You're supposed to be able to see the four circles (and yes, there are only four.)
Can you see them?
They're there:
Now do you see them?
We didn't think so.
Here's why you have a headache trying to find the circles looking at this photo, dubbed the "Intertwining Illusion."
It's actually the tilt of the squares in the photo that are throwing off your peripheral vision. Even though the squares form rings, it's the tilt of those squares that creates the illusion of a spiral.
"The offset between the black squares in one ring with the black squares in neighboring rings also creates the perception of a spiral, as does the offset between the white squares in adjacent rings," explains LiveScience.com.
SEE ALSO: The most jaw-dropping science photos of 2014
Join the conversation about this story »
No other plane in history has captured the hearts and minds of the American public quite like the SR-71 Blackbird, providing the West with an unprecedented look behind the Iron Curtain during its 33 year operational career. But before it was cracking the skies over Russia at mach 3.3, the Cold War spy plane had to prove itself during a series of test flights. The first of those took place on December 22, 1964.
...
-- For more information read the original article here.
Tesla Motors' latest car, the dual-motor Model S sedan, may have already begun shipping to customers, according to a Tesla investor who posted on Reddit.
The unnamed investor linked to a Tesla Motors Club forum, specifically a thread tracking deliveries of the latest car. One user uploaded a picture of the new car (shown here, on the left) — the highest-end model, the P85D — sitting next to another Tesla Model S in a parking lot.
The user claims the car was spotted at Sunday's Motor4Toys event in Woodland Hills, Calif.
We've reached out to Tesla Motors to verify that the company has in fact begun shipping its new car.
The new dual-motor Model S was unveiled in October. It comes with improved speed and acceleration, and a new “Autopilot” feature that can read speed limit signs and keep your car in its lane without your hands on the wheel.
Tesla initially said it would begin shipping its new dual-motor Model S in December.
If you want to learn more about the new Tesla sedan, check out the five biggest improvements in the P85D, and check out the must-see demo video of the car's “Autopilot” feature in action.
SEE ALSO: This 90-Second Video Will Convince You That Tesla Just Unveiled The Future Of Driving
SEE ALSO: 5 Ways Tesla Vastly Improved The Model S
Join the conversation about this story »
On Monday, Google made a startling announcement: under a new partnership, Microsoft will let customers move their Windows apps to Google's cloud for free.
It's as if Microsoft said, "Ok, Google, we'll share our customers with you."
The program goes by the name of the Microsoft License Mobility. It basically says that if a Microsoft customer has a support contract, the customer can move certain Windows apps to a cloud with no extra cost.
The software covered includes things like Microsoft's email server, Exchange; Microsoft's database, SQL Server; its videoconferencing and instant messaging server, Lync; its security software, Forefront; and a couple other things. It does not include the full Microsoft Office suite.
This License Mobility program is used to encourage Microsoft customers to try Microsoft's own cloud, Azure. But under CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft has a new mantra: getting people to use Microsoft software any way they want.
And some of them might want to use it in Google's cloud.
Cloud computing, the ability to run software in someone else's data center accessed over the Internet, is turning the $3.7 trillion enterprise tech industry on its head. Companies don't want to buy and run tons of software and hardware when they can rent it all instead.
There's a heated battle on between traditional enterprise vendors (Microsoft, IBM, SAP) and up-and-comers (Amazon, Google, Salesforce.com), to grab those customers.
Recently, Gartner rated Microsoft as a close second to leader Amazon in the cloud market. But Microsoft COO Kevin Turner said that Microsoft really views Google as its biggest competitor in cloud, and market leader Amazon as half a big a threat.
If you think about Microsoft Azure and Windows Server and the opportunity we have there, the way I like to think about this is you really have about 2.5 companies in all of technology from a multinational standpoint that have hyper scale cloud. Google certainly has a hyper scale cloud and I count Amazon as a half. And the reason I count them as a half is they're not completely global at this point and they don't have the functionality and redundancy.
So you would think that Microsoft would run away from sharing its customers with Google in this way — or any way.
Which is exactly why this is brilliant. Microsoft customers can use Google's cloud, but they still have to buy -- For more information read the original article here.