INFLUENCE GAME: Online companies win piracy fight (AP) : Technet

INFLUENCE GAME: Online companies win piracy fight (AP)
StyleSeat Is OpenTable for Beauty Appointments (Mashable)
Newsmaker: Megaupload a story of Dotcom boom and bust (Reuters)
Why Sony's 'PlayStation Phones' Failed to Make a Splash (ContributorNetwork)
LG’s budget-friendly Android phone hits stores (Appolicious)
Gingrich says primary win a blow to elites (AP)
TiVo updates HD user interface, adds multi-room streaming (Digital Trends)
These fantasy sports iPhone apps are worthy of their own store (Appolicious)
France Tel to stand firm on mobile pricing: CEO (Reuters)
MegaUpload owner found hiding in safe room with sawed-off shotgun (Digital Trends)
Steve Jobs family absent from Disney board despite stake (Reuters)

INFLUENCE GAME: Online companies win piracy fight (AP)

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 10:38 AM PST

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Alan Fram, Associated Press – Sat Jan 21, 1:38 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Outspent but hardly outgunned, online and high-tech companies triggered an avalanche of Internet clicks to force Congress to shelve legislation that would curb online piracy. They outmaneuvered the entertainment industry and other old guard business interests, leaving them bitter and befuddled.

Before Senate and House leaders set aside the legislation Friday, the movie and music lobbies and other Washington fixtures, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, had put in play their usually reliable tactics to rally support for the bills.

There were email campaigns, television and print ads in important states, a Times Square billboard, and uncounted phone calls and visits to congressional offices in Washington and around the country. That included about 20 trips to the Capitol by leaders of the National Songwriters Association International, often accompanied by songwriters who performed their hits for lawmakers and their staffs.

"We bring our guitars on our backs," said songwriter Steve Bogard, the association's president.

Such campaigns are often music to the ears of lawmakers. This time, however, it was smothered by an online outpouring against the legislation that culminated Wednesday. According to organizers, at least 75,000 websites temporarily went dark that day, including the English-language online encyclopedia Wikipedia, joined by 25,000 blogs.

"The U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet," said a message on Wikipedia's home page, which was shrouded in shadows and provided links to help visitors reach their members of Congress.

Thousands of other sites posted messages protesting the bills and urging people to contact lawmakers. Protest leaders say that resulted in 3 million emails.

Google, its logo hidden beneath a stark black rectangle, solicited 7 million signatures on a petition opposing the bills. Craigslist counted 30,000 phone calls to lawmakers and there were 3.9 million tweets on Twitter about the bills, according to NetCoalition, which represents leading Internet and high tech companies.

"It's still something we're trying to comprehend," said Google spokeswoman Samantha Smith. "We had such an overwhelming response to our petition that it honestly far exceeded our expectations."

As co-sponsors of the bills peeled away, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Friday postponed a vote that had been set for this Tuesday on moving to the legislation. The vote seemed doomed well beforehand. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also put off further work. "I have heard from the critics," he said.

Just weeks ago, the bills seemed headed toward quiet approval with bipartisan backing that ranging from liberals such as Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., to conservatives such as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. The turnabout was so unexpected that some think the online world's triumph signals a pivotal moment marking its arrival as Washington's newest power broker.

"This does serve as a watershed moment," said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a communications professor at the State University of New York at Albany who studies how political groups use high technology. "Certain channels for communication that people routinely use have the power to get their users to become political activists on their behalf."

Both bills are aimed at thwarting illegal downloads and sales of thousands of American movies, songs and books, as well as counterfeit pharmaceuticals, software and other copyrighted products. They would do so by making it easier to stop American websites and search engines from steering visitors to largely foreign websites that pirate the items.

Supporters estimate that online piracy costs the U.S. at least $100 billion annually and thousands of jobs; even the bills' critics say sales of pirated products must be stopped. But foes say the legislation goes too far, threatening to curb Internet free speech, stifle online innovation and burden online businesses with damaging regulations.

"People love their Internet. They use it every day, they don't want it to change and they don't want Washington messing with it," said Maura Corbett, spokeswoman for NetCoalition.

Claims that "big brother" would oversee the Internet infuriate bill supporters, who say their opponents employed fear-mongering and distortion to foment an online frenzy.

"They've misidentified this issue as an issue about your Internet, your Internet is being jeopardized," said Mike Nugent, executive director of Creative America, a coalition of entertainment unions, movie studios and television networks. "In fact their business model is being asked to be subjected to regulation. They're misleading their huge base."

Misleading or not, the online community had a huge impact on members of Congress, with many saying they heard little from the entertainment industry but plenty from Internet users.

"Everyone's online, and a lot of people online are very inclined to complain about" new fees and other problems, said Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va. "It's a culture of fairly quick mobilization."

The bills' champions said they purposely avoided hauling entertainment celebrities to Washington, saying they preferred to focus on how the measure would help the entire economy.

"If we brought in Hollywood stars, that would play into the other side's narrative that this is all about Hollywood," said Steven Tepp, who helped guide the campaign for the Chamber of Commerce. "We want to keep the focus on the reality that this is much, much broader."

In the end, the outcome showed the lobbying world is changing, said Kathy Garmezy, an official with the Directors Guild of America, which supports the bills.

"Of course you say to yourself, `What can you change?'" she said. "I don't think we've come to conclusions or closure."

Participants say last week's online protests were spawned last fall, as Congress was writing the bills and Internet users started chatting and emailing about them.

The blogging service Tumblr called attention to the measures on its website in November. Other efforts also garnered attention, including a drive by owners to remove their domain names from GoDaddy.com, which sells domain names and was a supporter of the anti-piracy legislation.

Among the first to publicly say they would darken their sites on Wednesday were Reddit and Wikipedia.

"Like most things on the Internet, it was very unorganized and chaotic," said Erik Martin, Reddit's general manager.

In terms of their Washington presence, online businesses are adolescents compared to the well-established industries they are battling.

According to Maplight, a nonpartisan group that analyzes money's role in politics, current senators have received $14.4 million over the past six years from entertainment interest groups supporting the online piracy bills, seven times the $2 million they got from Internet groups opposing the legislation.

The differences are also stark when it comes to lobbying.

Google, one of the Internet world's largest players in Washington, spent $5.9 million lobbying on all issues during the first nine months of 2011, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. The Chamber of Commerce spent $46 million, the most in town.

Even so, online businesses have been beefing up their representation in Washington, the center's figures show.

Google's $5.9 million paid for 112 lobbyists last year, more than double the $2.8 million it spent for 54 lobbyists in 2008. Facebook's $910,000 for lobbying during the first three quarters of 2011 paid for 21 lobbyists, compared with two lobbyists and $351,000 it spent a year earlier.

High tech companies are also learning the value of big names. One Google lobbyist is former Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, a House Democratic leader and presidential candidate. Last year, Facebook hired Joe Lockhart, a press secretary for President Bill Clinton, as vice president of global communications.

Bill supporters lost one advantage because former Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, could not personally lobby senators. The Capitol Hill veteran retired from the Senate last year and is legally barred from lobbying his former colleagues for two years.

___

Online:

Senate's Protect Intellectual Property Act: http://tinyurl.com/7lqbgzh

House's Stop Online Piracy Act: http://tinyurl.com/75vtcxg

NetCoalition: http://www.netcoalition.com

StyleSeat Is OpenTable for Beauty Appointments (Mashable)

Posted: 20 Jan 2012 03:20 PM PST

Lauren Indvik Lauren Indvik – Fri Jan 20, 6:20 pm ET

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. Name: StyleSeat

Quick Pitch: Find and book beauty salon appointments online.

Genius Idea: Robust marketing tools that bring salon owners and stylists onto the platform.

[More from Mashable: A Flash Sales Site for Fashion and Charity]

Like many promising startups, StyleSeat began with a problem. When Melody McCloskey -- the tall, conspicuously pretty San Franciscan who cofounded StyleSeat three years ago -- wanted to book a salon appointment, she struggled to find someone who was skilled at cutting curly hair within her budget. Friend recommendations only took her so far, and salon receptionists declined to make suggestions about which of their stylists would be best suited to her.

So she persuaded Dan Levine, a former colleague and VP of digital product development at EMI, to become her cofounder. The pair did their field work, interviewing salon owners, wellness experts, and hair and beauty stylists to ascertain their needs. They found that professionals book 70% of their available appointment times on average, but lack the resources, particularly online, to further grow their businesses.

StyleSeat launched in May 2011, and has since expanded to more than 20,000 professionals in 4,300 cities. Two hundred fifty thousand appointments have been booked through the service altogether.

The site is designed to make it easy for consumers to find and schedule an appointment without picking up the phone, just as OpenTable makes it possible for diners to discover and reserve tables at restaurants. Users can filter search results by location, price range, those that offer online booking and those who are running promotions. They can even see who is available for an appointment in the next few hours.

Professionals have their own profiles, with which they can introduce themselves over a few photographs and a portfolio of work (see above). Consumers can look through the list of services and prices and easily pull up a stylist's calendar to pick an appointment time (see below).

After an appointment, a stylist can prompt a customer to give feedback through StyleSeat. If the feedback is negative, it gives the stylist an opportunity to address the customer's issue. If it's positive, the stylist can post it publicly on his or her profile. As such, McCloskey says the site isn't a replacement for Yelp or other review sites, but rather complements them.

For beauty professionals, there's also a range of tools for helping them better optimize their businesses. For instance, professionals can view charts that show them the days that they are booked most and least often. StyleSeat might then suggest a stylist run a promotion on his or her quietest day to help bolster bookings. The company has also produced a number of small business guides to help professionals take advantage of online marketing platforms such as Facebook.

The site is free for both professionals and consumers. McCloskey says StyleSeat will eventually introduce an online payment option that will charge professionals a fee similar to that of a credit card. The company is also looking into premium marketing packages as revenue opportunities.

Beyond developing its business model, StyleSeat is also building apps for iPhone and Android devices, and making it easier for consumers to shop for specialty services such as prom updos and children's haircuts.

Series Supported by Microsoft BizSpark

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Newsmaker: Megaupload a story of Dotcom boom and bust (Reuters)

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 08:16 PM PST

By Lincoln Feast and Sarah Marsh Lincoln Feast And Sarah Marsh – 1 hr 15 mins ago

(Reuters) – Among the roll-call of hip-hop artists and other celebrities plugging Megaupload.com's digital storage services in an online promotional video, a cameo from the website's founder would have gone unnoticed by many.

As the voiceover boasts of the site's billion users and four percent share of all Internet traffic, a colossal figure clad in black appears in a music studio.

"Bit by bit, it's a hit, it's a hit!" founder Kim Dotcom booms in a slight accent that hints at his German roots.

The hits may have just run out for Dotcom, also known as Kim Schmitz and Kim Tim Jim Investor, who spent his 38th birthday on Saturday in a New Zealand jail after 70 police raided his country estate and cut him out of a safe room he had barricaded himself in.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, which requested the raid, says Dotcom masterminded a scheme that made more than $175 million in a few short years by copying and distributing music, movies and other copyrighted content without authorization.

Megaupload's U.S. lawyer said the company merely offered online storage, would "vigorously defend itself" and was trying to recover its servers and get back online.

The arrest marks the latest twist in the checkered story of Dotcom, a former hacker who got his first computer at nine before going on to build an Internet fortune and friendships with music stars including Alicia Keys, Will.i.am and P.Diddy who appeared on the Megaupload.com promo video.

EARLY STARTER

Born in the German city of Kiel, Dotcom -- who was then known as Schmitz -- grew up in northern Germany.

As a child, he made copies of computer games to sell to his friends, and in the early days of the Internet, began hacking into computers via telephones, according to reputed German daily Die Welt.

Schmitz has made no secret of his controversial past as a cyber-raider, hacking into computer networks at NASA, the Pentagon and at least one major bank.

As the hacker pioneer generation came of age, so did Schmitz. After being convicted of computer hacking in 1998, he made a fortune providing computer security consulting and venture capital investment via the firm Kimvestor.

According to German magazine Der Spiegel, Schmitz once boasted he would become one of the richest men in the world. How was he so sure? "I'm smarter than Bill Gates," he said.

Schmitz, who also called himself Kimble after the wrongly convicted doctor-on-the-run in the film "The Fugitive," became well known for his lavish lifestyle as much as his computer skills.

He briefly became a fixture in Germany's nouveau riche party scene and made his own film, shot with a hand-held camera, Kimble Goes Monaco. The hulking Schmitz -- reportedly two meters tall and weighing more than 130 kg -- was often shown in Germany's tabloid press with fast cars and a model on his arm.

Schmitz's website at one point featured photographs of him racing cars, shooting an assault rifle and flying around the world in his private jet on lavish vacations.

"I have a different attitude towards money than those who rather hoard it," he said during an appearance on the Harald Schmidt Show, a popular late-night talk show in Germany. "I would rather spend it and have a lot of fun."

A documentary about the outlaw Gumball 3000 road race of 2001 by German TV station RTL filmed Schmitz driving the Russian leg of the rally in excess of 240 kph (150 mph) in a 480-horsepower Mercedes sedan, and then laughing when an opponent is pulled over by police in Finland. "Our competition is out of the way!" he says in jubilation.

Schmitz liked promoting himself through stunts such as offering up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest of Osama bin Laden in the wake of terror attacks against the United States.

THE NAME'S DOTCOM. KIM DOTCOM

But in 2002, he was convicted in what was then the largest insider-trading case in German history.

Prosecutors said Schmitz bought shares in an online business and drove up the share price by announcing plans to invest millions to rescue the company from insolvency. After selling his shares for a profit, he fled to Thailand, was arrested and deported.

A Munich court sentenced the then 28-year-old to 20 months probation and a 100,000-euro fine.

After his conviction, Schmitz disappeared from public view, reappearing a couple of years ago in New Zealand, having legally changed his name to Dotcom.

He and his family moved into a multimillion dollar mansion outside Auckland and were granted residency after promising to invest at least NZ$10 million ($8 million) in New Zealand.

The leased 20-hectare property, set in rolling hills northwest of Auckland, is one of the largest and most expensive in the country, featuring manicured lawns, fountains, pools, palm-lined paths and extensive security.

In an interview with the New Zealand Herald Newspaper last year, Dotcom said residency would allow him, his wife, Mona, and their three children to live in a country that would become a "rare paradise on Earth."

"I might be one of the most flamboyant characters New Zealand has ever seen but my intentions are good and I would like to see New Zealand flourish to its fullest potential," he said.

Dotcom reportedly paid $500,000 for a massive New Year's Eve fireworks display over Auckland which he and Mona watched from their private helicopter.

The FBI estimates that Dotcom personally made around $115,000 a day during 2010 from his empire. The list of property to be forfeited, including almost 20 luxury cars, one of them a pink Cadillac, hints at a lavish lifestyle which may be about to be put on hold.

Dotcom and three fellow accused will appear in a New Zealand court on Monday and face extradition to the United States. ($1 = 1.2433 New Zealand dollars)

(Reporting by Lincoln Feast in SYDNEY and Sarah Marsh in FRANKFURT; Additional reporting by Peter Maushagen in FRANKFURT, Mantik Kusjanto in WELLINGTON and Brian Rohan in BERLIN; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Why Sony's 'PlayStation Phones' Failed to Make a Splash (ContributorNetwork)

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 04:30 PM PST

Jared Spurbeck Jared Spurbeck – Sat Jan 21, 7:30 pm ET

Contribute content like this. Start here.

COMMENTARY | The tech world was abuzz when the original Sony-Ericcson Xperia Play was released last year, on Verizon and later on AT&T. People called it "the PlayStation Phone," before and after its release, because it was "PlayStation Certified" ... whatever that meant. Apparently, a slide-out game controller and a handful of PlayStation games, sold through apps called the PlayStation Suite.

Since then, a handful of other devices (like the Sony Tablet S) have been updated to receive the PlayStation Suite, and a couple of new PlayStation Certified devices were unveiled at this year's CES. Somehow, though, none of them have quite had the impact that one would expect of a "real" PlayStation device ... like the PlayStation 2, which caused people to line up outside Wal-Marts back around the turn of the century.

Why is that?

Lackluster hardware

First off, there is no one PlayStation Phone. There are a bunch of different devices now, with different looks and specs. Few of them bear all that much resemblance to an actual PlayStation, either, whether in looks or in quality. Just look at Engadget's review of the Xperia Play; the shoulder buttons on the game controller were "too sensitive," and the screen is "one of the worst screens we've seen" on any hardware they've reviewed.

The new Xperia handsets just announced by Sony, like the Xperia Ion, look a little bit more well-designed. But none of them have slider game controllers, which suggests that was only a passing fancy ... and will make it a bit harder to play certain PlayStation games on them.

Dearth of games

Which certain PlayStation games, you ask? Not too many, unfortunately. When the Xperia Play first came out, there were only a handful. As of last October, there were still just 10, according to the PlayStation blog. And these are PlayStation games in the sense that they were made for the original PlayStation ... you know, the PSOne. The one that was made more than 15 years ago.

A handful of other games were given support for the Xperia Play's slider gamepad. The trouble is, no other phones even have that, and it's not looking good that more will. And Android itself doesn't have many games to begin with, at least not great games. At least not compared to the iPad, or even the PlayStation Portable.

Misleading branding

David Hinkle of Joystiq says being PlayStation-Certified means a device can use "entertainment services from Sony Entertainment Network", and the Sony press release he quotes says that it guarantees " a high quality smartphone gaming experience.****" Yes, with four asterisks.

What does that even mean? Can a "PlayStation Certified" phone buy games from the PlayStation Network? No. Can it do PSN multiplayer? No. Will the games you buy on it be playable on your PSP or PS3 consoles? No, and no. So how is it anything but diluting the PlayStation brand, to sell a line of me-too Android smartphones and tablets that are only tangentially connected with it?

The new Xperia phones might do well on the market, but it's not because PlayStation gamers will buy them. And judging from Sony-Ericcson's recent performance, there's a ways it has to go before it's dug itself out of its hole.

LG’s budget-friendly Android phone hits stores (Appolicious)

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 10:00 AM PST

Gingrich says primary win a blow to elites (AP)

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 07:41 PM PST

By SHANNON McCAFFREY, Associated Press Shannon Mccaffrey, Associated Press – 1 hr 50 mins ago

COLUMBIA, S.C. – With a resounding comeback win in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich sent a message to Mitt Romney: not so fast.

Saturday's victory marks a remarkable turnabout for the former House speaker, who has battled back twice from near political oblivion. And it showed that Romney will face a fight from the right in order to take the GOP nomination.

Gingrich won with solid support from conservative and evangelical voters as well as those worried about the economy, according to exit polling.

On Saturday night before a packed crowd at the Hilton in Columbia, Gingrich cast his win as a victory over the "elites." He was gracious to his competitors, even Romney with whom he has sparred.

With an eye toward Florida, Gingrich urged supporters to donate and get involved.

"We don't have the kind of money that at least one of the candidates has," he said in a reference to Romney. "And we proved here in South Carolina that people powered with the right ideas beats big money."

Gingrich had suffered humbling finishes in both Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina was seen as do or die. The former Georgia congressman played up his Southern roots and steadily hammered away at Romney as a Massachusetts moderate who had wavered in his support for gun rights and abortion. Gingrich also assailed his leadership at Bain Capital, accusing the private equity firm of "looting" troubled companies.

But it was a pair of fiery debate performances in Myrtle Beach and Charleston that sealed the deal for some South Carolina voters, who saw in Gingrich someone tough enough to take on Democratic President Barack Obama in the fall.

Even an 11th hour television interview from Gingrich's second-wife, Marianne, in which she alleged he had asked her for an "open marriage," failed to stall his momentum in the state with many religious conservatives.

Gingrich, 68, took nothing for granted, soldiering on through five campaign stops throughout the western part of the state Saturday, the last at a burger restaurant where he shook hands and posed for photos just before polls closed.

Gingrich now heads to Florida, where his lack of deep pockets and organization is likely to become more apparent because of the state's size. He will have to move quickly to capitalize on momentum from Saturday's win to reload his campaign warchest in time to launch ads for Florida's Jan. 31 primary.

Gingrich ran his South Carolina campaign in large part on bravado. He made the case that he was the only conservative able to halt Romney, despite being defeated by fellow conservative Rick Santorum in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

And when he scored points in debates it was often for assailing the questioner.

Gingrich was left for dead in the spring when his top constants and staff quit en masse after he left the campaign trail to take a luxury cruise in the Greek Isles with his wife, Callista. He struggled throughout the summer and early fall, but began to climb in the leadoff state of Iowa as a series of other candidates rose and faltered.

Leading in Iowa polls as recently as mid-December, Gingrich finished the Jan. 3 caucuses a distant fourth. He adopted a far harsher tone as the campaign moved to New Hampshire, beginning attacks on Romney's tenure as the head of Bain Capital.

But Gingrich hit his stride in South Carolina, where he drew enthusiastic crowds across the state.

He was helped along by an endorsement of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who dropped out of the race on Thursday, as well as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a tea party favorite, who said if she was South Carolinian she would vote for Gingrich.

______

Follow Shannon McCaffrey: http://www.twitter.com/smccaffrey13

TiVo updates HD user interface, adds multi-room streaming (Digital Trends)

Posted: 21 Jan 2012 12:34 PM PST

Mike Flacy Mike Flacy – Sat Jan 21, 3:34 pm ET

Announced on the official TiVo blog earlier this week, the DVR service company is rolling out a new user interface for owners of the TiVo Premiere, TiVo Premiere XL, and TiVo Premiere Elite. Called version 20.2, the new update overhauls the previously translucent high definition grid guide and live guide as well as introduces a mini-guide, info banners, speed improvements, a revision to the discover bar, improvements to the search algorythm and the ability to stream content between TiVo boxes on the same home network. Multi-room streaming is a popular trend that's been introduced by a handful of media companies over the past year.

Prior to the update, the TiVo Premiere user interface used a see-through background on top of the main picture. The new high definition interface isolates the channel feed to the top right corner of the screen and covers the remainder of the screen with a dark blue background. The user also has the option of turning the video feed completely off. In addition, the TiVo design team has added an updated icon to designate new episodes and added the first aired date to the description of the episode so the user can tell if the episode is from the most recent season. There's also a new option to sort by channel name if the user prefers to find a station like "ABC" or "FOX" by name rather than hunt down the channel number.

TiVo is also launching a mini-guide that allows the user to continue watching the episode on the full screen, but creates a small overlay at the bottom of the screen which includes three channels at a time. Just like the full guide, users can change the channel, select programs to record and cycle through hours in advance. When the user wants more information about the program, new info banners at the bottom of the screen have beenÂ implementedÂ rather than taking the user to a full information page. The banners allow the user to continue watching the television episode and include new data such as the upcoming show in the next time slot as well as the amount of data that the TiVo has recorded if the user wants to rewind to a specific spot.

Changes to the discovery bar have decreased the amount of the content on the bar to four selections, assuming the user has left the video feed in the top right corner turned on. Content on the bar has also been labeled with reasons why the television shows and movies have been selected. Categorization includes popular Season Pass content, highly rated content, popular Web content, new on-demand content or recently recorded shows. When the user highlights the content in the discovery bar, there's a more complete description why that content was chosen. TiVo's update to the search bar includes the ability to search through Hulu Plus content as well as search by channel name. The ability to search through content on Netflix, Amazon Prime and Blockbuster was already available in prior updates.

Prior to this update, users had to transfer a movie or television show between two different TiVo boxes to watch the content in another room. With multi-room streaming, the user can browse content on another TiVo box on the same network and simply select "Play" to activate streaming. Once the user completes the television show or movie, they can also delete the content off the remote box. However, TiVo recommends that users attempting to stream high definition content should use a wired connection instead of streaming over Wi-Fi.

This update has already been released for many TiVo Premiere owners, but is expected to hit all boxes by the end of January 2012. The update is automatically downloaded to the TiVo Premiere hardware and installed during the early hours of the morning to avoid the heaviest viewing traffic. Users that pay for TiVo Premiere through cable companies will have to wait to the Spring for the full update. Also dated for the Spring, TiVo is planning to roll out updated Netflix and YouTube applications, parental controls within the HD menus and Xfinity-on-Demand from Comcast in specific, unannounced geographical markets.