Tag Archives: TV

Live action “Ambiguously Gay Duo”

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See how many of the live action actors you can identify. I wonder how much this cost.

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June 28, 1969

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On June 28, 1969, the New York Police raided a mafia-run gay bar called the Stonewall Inn. The raid triggered a powerful upraising of gay people for the first time in the United States. The uprising changed the tide of civil rights in the US.

Now American Experience on PBS, has produced a history of the events leading up to the uprising and its results. If you care about civili liberties in our country, you need to watch this program.

When police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City on June 28, 1969, the street erupted into violent protests that lasted for the next six days. The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement in the United States and around the world.

Watch the full episode. See more American Experience.

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Apple to launch cloud TV service

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This is a rumor, but according to Jefferies analyst Peter Misek,  Apple is on the cusp of launching a “new far reaching cloud-based service” focused on video.  Among other predictions, Misek claims that:

In terms of content we think some sort of subscription model also makes sense … We believe Apple has learned much from having Netflix on the Apple TV and we cannot help but feel Apple will try to improve on this model somehow. So how does Apple convince Hollywood and other content creators to license it? In our view, the best way to do that would be the model they use for App developers: let them take the vast majority of the revenue while you use the content to drive device sales and monetize it that way. We are huge fans of iTunes, but that cannot be it from Apple. There is another level coming here and we see this as one of the most fruitful potential uses of Apple’s enormous cash hoard.

Disclosure: I own Apple stock.

Downton Abbey

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If you like the period dramas that were the fare of Masterpiece Theater in its early days, you will love Downton Abbey, presented on Masterpiece Classic.  It is a richly produced story, focused on the upstairs and downstairs life at said Abbey in 1912, just prior to the outbreak of WW I.  Season 1 is now available via Netflix streaming (Netflix link). You won’t regret watching.

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6 Japanese networks cover the earthquake in real-time

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This video shows six Japanese television networks and how quickly they switched to earthquake coverage and warnings in real time. NHK was almost immediate. But the others seem woefully slow, given that the earthquake occurred in mid-afternoon local time. (via Colin Peters)

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Apple helps cutting the cord (updated)

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Cord cutters (consumers looking to drop cable TV and secure their entertainment via the Internet and IPTV) face at least one major challenge. After canceling cable TV it is fairly easy to get access to prime time TV, thousands of movies, and older TV shows. Services like Netflix streaming and Hulu Plus provide a a great deal of programing.

What is harder to replace are live TV broadcast events, especially sporting events.

Today, via a free software update, Apple TV 2 users can now subscribe to both major league baseball and NBA games via their Apple TVs. Bringing these live games into the home over the Internet is a significant attack by Apple on the bread and butter of cable and satellite TV providers. More live program needs to be made available for a robust alternative, but this is a major first step.

The same software update also provided enhanced 5.1 audio for streaming Netflix movies.

Good on Apple.

Update: More from MG Siegler at TechCrunch:

That’s great news for Apple TV owners, but such functionality has actually been available for some time on the rival boxes by Roku. Still, the ramifications of this are potentially huge because the lack of sports content has been the one point used over and over again in arguments against these new wave of Internet-powered set-top boxes killing cable. Between this, Roku, and Xbox Live getting ESPN content, we’re definitely getting closer to a full-on cable revolt.

The one element still missing from these boxes is the crown jewel: NFL content. The moment NFL Sunday Ticket launches on one of these boxes — and eventually, it will — you’ll hear screams of pure terror emanating from the headquarters of each of the cable companies. I can’t wait.

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Forget you

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The cleaned up version of “F_ _ _ You” won a grammy last night. And the performance of the song featured the Muppets and Gwyneth Paltrow. How’s that for a combination?

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