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Netflix pushes 'OITNB' release six hours early during primetime
We were expecting season three of Orange is the New Black to become available for streaming at about 3AM ET tonight, but Netflix surprised everyone and released it at about 9PM. That was during its "OrangeCon" event in New York City for fans, but really raises an interesting question. What if Netflix bumps its all-at-once original series releases from those early morning hours to right in the middle of primetime? There's not much on tonight other than the NBA playoffs, but pulling such a stunt in the think of the fall TV season could be an interesting experiment -- if Netflix ever does it again.
Eddie Murphy's Tower Heist gets fast-tracked to Comcast VOD, $60 saves a trip to the theater
Perhaps you're not a fan of sticky floors, armrest sharing or simply other people. Well, crowd-averse Comcast subscribers at least will have the chance to watch one Hollywood release from the comfort of their home while it's still in theaters. According to The LA Times, Eddie Murphy's Tower Heist will be out to view on-demand a mere three weeks after its November 4th release. It's not the first time we've seen premium advance video-on-demand, the main difference being, at $60, Comcast's experiment looks to be double the price for half the wait. Now if we could just afford that 155-inch screen...
Firefox 6 breaks out ahead of schedule, gets official August 16th
It looks like the sly fox is ready to make its worldwide debut a few days early. In typical Mozilla fashion, a complete build of Firefox 6 is now unofficially available for your downloading pleasure, three days ahead of schedule. If you're looking for a major facelift to the desktop edition, you won't find one here -- most of the new features aren't cosmetic. Perhaps most visibly, you'll find the domain name of the page you're parked on highlighted in the address bar. On the Android side, version 6 makes much bigger promises, like a "fresh visual style in Chrome Gingerbread," enhanced image scaling, and, perhaps most importantly, it's "faster and uses less memory." We've downloaded the desktop version of the browser ourselves, and we've found the release quite snappy. If you're not afraid of a little pre-release downloading, you can catch the (desktop) fox at the source links below. And as per usual, please let us know how it's treating you.
Firefox 5 slips out ahead of schedule, gets official June 21st
Mozilla promised a faster refresh cycle for its wily web browser, following the release of Firefox 4, and it's made good on that promise. We got word this morning that the final version of Firefox 5 is now available for download on Mozilla's ftp server, just 12 weeks after the last re-up. The latest incarnation brings with it support for CSS animation and a more easily accessible do-not-track setting -- now available at the top of the privacy pane -- but won't see much in the way of GUI enhancements. Of course, if you want to play it safe, and avoid any last-minute tweaks, you can always hold off until version 5 gets official, but what's the fun in that? If you've already got your hands on the sly fox, let us know your thoughts in the comments below. [Thanks, Haseeb]
Flyer Friday: Best Buy starts selling HTC's seven-inch slate today
We thought HTC's Flyer wasn't going on sale until May 22nd, but it appears a certain big box retailer has changed its plans. Our tipsters have told us that stores with the device in stock have started selling it today, May 20th, despite the somewhat confusing text you see in the picture above. So, if you're pining for a $500, seven-inch slab of silky smooth Sense 3.0, head on down to the local Best Buy and grab one yourself. [Thanks, Anonymous]
DirecTV's $30 per rental premium video on-demand service launches Thursday
If the actual trip to the movie theater was the only thing preventing you from checking out Adam Sandler, Brooklyn Decker and Jennifer Aniston in Just Go With It, you can still check it out before it arrives on Blu-ray or DVD starting Thursday thanks to DirecTV's new premium video on-demand service. The Hollywood Reporter mentions Sony's flick will be the first one on the service and is already available for preordering on the new Home Premiere service, available only to customers with the satellite company's HD DVRs, which is about 6 million people. As far as DRM, HDMI is required but only a "digital watermarking technology" is mentioned. The next several flicks planned for the service include The Adjustment Bureau (Universal), Cedar Rapids (Fox) and Hallpass (Warner Bros.); they will be available for two weeks at a $29.99 pricetag, in 1080p with 48 hour viewing windows. Movie theater owners don't seem thrilled by the new service, we guess the next question is whether or not you are -- the poll is after the break.
MPAA dangles early HD VOD releases, in exchange for closing that pesky analog hole
Moving beyond day-and-date releases via internet and HD video-on-demand, movie studios may be ready to move towards regularly putting movies online ahead of the DVD release date for a premium price -- that surveys say some of us are willing to pay -- but prepare to have your analog hole plugged again. The MPAA petitioned the FCC earlier this month to lift the existing ban preventing cable and satellite providers from remotely disabling analog outputs on their set-top boxes via selectable output controls (SOC). In a bit of ICT redux, the movie studios haven't said definitively that they will use the technology, but insist on having the ability to force anyone wanting to view high definition movies to only see them through an HDCP-protected HDMI output to a compatible TV. The failure of AACS and BD+ to prevent high quality copies isn't a deterrent to the MPAA's push, so while ICT has gone unused on Blu-ray and HD DVD, we're still too fond of our component outs, switchers and homemade cables -- and too wary of a future change in policy -- to support any changes in the law.
