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Verizon lays off 155 Go90 employees
Verizon launched its vertical video-focused Go90 service in October 2015, and now many of the people behind it have been laid off. Variety and The Hollywood Reporter note 155 people, mostly from the San Jose office where much of the team was based, were cut late last week. In a statement, Verizon said the moves were a result of "some duplicative resources," but that they did not indicate a change in strategy. It does, however, bring an end to the Intel OnCue project that eventually formed a basis for Go90. When Verizon acquired the Vessel video startup late last year and shut it down, it seemed well positioned to work on Go90. Now that is apparently coming true, as it confirmed to Variety that former Hulu CTO and Vessel co-founder Richard Tom will lead Go90, taking the title of CTO of Verizon Digital Entertainment.
The former head of Intel's internet TV project winds up at Vevo
Back in the day, there was a hope that OnCue, Intel's long-mooted internet TV service, would be the ultimate cord-cutter product, but a lack of support from both inside and outside the company killed it. It didn't take long after the project's assets were sold to Verizon for its charismatic leader, Erik Huggers, to skip out in search of pastures new. Now, Bloomberg is reporting that the executive is about to become the new head of music video network Vevo. According to sources, the music video outfit is banking on Huggers to turn the business into more than just a subset of YouTube where teens can find Taylor Swift videos.
Verizon thinks that the prepaid phone market is dead, and that's okay
If your response to the question "How much money did Verizon make in the last quarter" was "$3.79 billion in net profit," then congratulations. Big Red can afford to feel quite smug about its performance in the last three months, finding 1.53 million new wireless customers, of which 1.52 million took up monthly contracts. The tiny sliver of prepaid users has led the company to believe that the pay-as-you-go market is beginning to shrink as people move to monthly deals. Verizon is also happy to announce that it flogged 1.1 million LTE-equipped tablets this quarter, only a slight dip on the 1.15 million sold last time 'round. It's something that the company is happy to encourage, since people are likely to keep hold of their tablets for longer and are much cheaper to subsidize than comparable smartphones.
Head of Intel's former internet TV project abandons ship
When Intel formally abandoned its IPTV project in a sale to Verizon, the team behind it transitioned as part of the deal. Now, only four months later, the man who's been in charge of the venture all along has washed his hands of it, too. Erik Huggers, who originally outed Intel's plan to create an IPTV service/hardware platform (later dubbed OnCue), moved to Verizon and continued on as project lead. There's no indication that Huggers left on bad terms, or that OnCue's progression is stagnating at Big Red.
Verizon finally takes control of Intel's doomed internet TV service
Intel's whirlwind fling with IPTV has come to an end, as all its assets from the ill-fated OnCue project have been sold to Verizon. Started less than a year ago to create a product with "beautiful industrial design" that could stream movies, TV shows and other media, it quickly fell out of favor with Intel brass. Following rumors it would be killed, a possible Verizon deal was reported, which has now been finalized for undisclosed terms. Verizon will get all related intellectual property and said that all 350 Intel employees working on the project will be retained. It added that it already has extensive content and customer relationships for video delivery -- a reported stumbling block for Intel -- and will use the tech "to better serve audiences on a wide variety of devices." We're not sure if that'll include any tie-ins to Big Red's Redbox Instant streaming service, which hasn't exactly made the likes of Hulu or Netflix nervous (yet).
Intel's stalled TV service reportedly being eyed by Virgin Media's parent company
Word broke last month that Intel was in talks with Verizon to sell off its stalled web TV effort, presumably dubbed OnCue, which was slated to get off the ground this year. Now, Bloomberg's gotten word from a trio of sources that Intel is chatting with at least one more interested party: telecom titan Liberty Global, which purchased Virgin Media last spring. According to one of the outlet's well-informed contacts, the firm has designs to use the online television service outside of the US. Despite the cable outfit's interest in the chip giant's pet TV project, Bloomberg's informants say that the negotiations could fizzle out. Regardless, with interested buyers beginning to line up, a deal might not be far off.
Intel set to axe its OnCue IPTV project and sell leftovers to Verizon
Looks as if Intel is calling time on its much-hyped, forever forthcoming web TV project. AllThingsD is reporting that the chip maker is in talks with Verizon over a deal to hand OnCue over to the big red network. Originally tipped as a cord-cutter's dream, Intel's lack of industry clout and a lack of CEO support seems to have doomed the system before it began. There's no word on how the proposed deal will look, but hopefully Verizon can at least make use of the last few years worth of R&D.
Intel may ditch OnCue IPTV service project if it can't find an investor
If you were sincerely hoping to buy an Intel set-top box this year, those dreams are looking a little more unlikely. The chip giant may scrap its not-cable product if it can't find a backer to help fund and distribute it, according to All Things D. This comes after Corporate VP Erik Huggers admitted that the service wouldn't do as hoped and free users from the yoke of TV, while new CEO Brian Krzanich has said he's "cautious" about getting into the TV game. Perhaps the Pentium house should have considered these things, you know, before it started talking about the project in public.
Intel may launch internet TV service using OnCue name
Intel has been open with its plans to introduce an internet-based TV service, but many of the details remain up in the air -- not the least of which is the name. However, GigaOM has done sleuthing that suggests the offering could be called OnCue. A reported shell company for Intel, Sest, has registered trademarks that include the OnCue title, a logo and a "TV has come to its senses" slogan. Simultaneously, an employee at the marketing agency OMD claims to have worked on the OnCue launch. Intel isn't commenting on the apparent discoveries, but we wouldn't count on the trademarks arriving in tandem with a product. When the company is taking a very cautious approach to entering the internet TV field, there's a chance that the names will be all we ever see.
OnCue music player updated to version 5.0; total rewrite makes it awesome
Former TUAW contributor Dan Pourhadi has become quite the iOS developer, and his OnCue app (US$2.99) keeps getting more features and popularity with every revision. The app was updated to version 5.01 this week, and has been burning up the iTunes App Store charts -- it's currently the #12 paid iPad music app and #24 on the iPhone. In case you're not familiar with OnCue, it's an amazing mobile music player that gives users an easy way to create and arrange music queues. As an enhancement to your music library, it's a fun way to create queues on your mobile device with no need to resort to your Mac or PC and iTunes. Some of my favorite features are the ability to create those queues with just a tap-hold-drag-drop gesture, and the advanced crossfade capability. Dan has provided crossfade to make transitions between songs without gaps, and you can even customize the "fade in from" and "fade out to" volumes if needed. Another feature that I love is the ability to create Smart Queues. Like many of the smart folder features you find in other apps -- Mail.app is a good example -- you can create re-usable filters that use a set of rules to queue up songs. This replicates the capabilities of the Smart Playlists in iTunes, but lets you create the queues on your mobile device instead of on your Mac or PC. %Gallery-150821% When you're using OnCue on an iPhone, you can preview a song before adding it to your queue. I find the ability to get song lyrics, music videos, artist biographies, and a list of similar artists with a swipe-and-tap to be a huge plus. Be aware, however, that OnCue can't play DRM-protected music (such as older songs from the iTunes Store that were never updated to iTunes Plus), and it also can't play un-downloaded music that's stored remotely in iTunes Match/iCloud. For anyone who has used OnCue in the past, get the update now. If you haven't used OnCue and listening to music is one of the major reasons you have an iOS device, buy it now.
