An Online Answer to the DVR
By ANNE EISENBERG
SOME people who want to watch a movie at home wait for Netflix to mail it to them on a disc. Others click on a link at Netflix or other Web sites and immediately watch films, TV episodes or sports events streamed to them on the spot.
But streamed shows can be ephemeral — they depend on a good broadband connection, and they pass by as they are viewed, unlike downloaded videos that can be watched later offline. And some shows can’t be found again at a site that once provided them, because they are meant to have a limited run.
Now, for $5 a month, a new service called PlayLater lets subscribers copy streaming video as it shows up at 30 sites, including Netflix, Hulu, PBS, ESPN and CNN, so they can watch it later.
With PlayLater, viewers can stockpile episodes of their favorite television shows on their hard drives and thumb drives, just as they copy programs on a digital video recorder for later viewing.
PlayLater has many restrictions — it works only on PCs, and the videos made with the software may be watched only on the PC licensed by PlayLater to record the show, or on another PC that shares the license. And it doesn’t work with iPhones, iPads, or mobile Android devices, although Jeff Lawrence, the chief executive of PlayOn, the Seattle company that offers the subscription service, said these apps would be available soon.
The number of people who watch streaming video is climbing, said Radha Subramanyam, an executive at Nielsen, the ratings firm, “and so is the time they spend watching.” Netflix subscribers spent an average of nearly 8.5 hours doing so in June, she said.
“Everyone streams across all ages,” she said, “but some age groups stream more than others.” She said that there were strong numbers for both the 18-to-24 and 24-to-35 age groups.
PlayLater is among many new services that aim to take advantage of streaming’s popularity, said Dan Rayburn, a New York-based analyst at Frost & Sullivan, a market research firm, and an executive at StreamingMedia.com, a Web site devoted to covering the streaming media field.
Mr. Rayburn called the subscription service “a great idea” but said it had many weaknesses. “Most important,” he said, “it doesn’t work on Macs.”
I signed up for a free trial offered by PlayLater and installed the software on my PC — a painless process that took about 10 minutes. There is no central schedule of streaming choices at the bare-bones PlayLater home page. Instead, I went to each participating site and shopped for shows I might want to copy. The software records in real time, so it takes 30 minutes to copy a 30-minute show — though you can skip the commercials when you watch the recordings later.
I listed in a queue all the programs I wanted, then PlayLater recorded them one after another. But I couldn’t program the software to record on future dates, as can be done with DVRs. (Mr. Lawrence of PlayLater says the company is working on creating this feature.)
Streaming quality, of course, will be affected by the Internet connection. PlayLater’s site recommends a broadband connection of at least 1.5 megabits a second, the same speed that Netflix recommends.
Even with a decent connection, you should be sure that other people on your home network aren’t downloading large files or playing an online game, taking away needed bandwidth.
The quality is also affected by computer hardware. You’ll need a laptop or desktop PC bought within the last five years to avoid problems, Mr. Lawrence said. Each hour of video being recorded requires about one gigabyte of storage space.
The picture quality of the shows I stored on the hard drive was similar to that of the movies I stream from Netflix or Amazon — sharp and clear when tiny, and grainier when I enlarged the image. That is how it should be, said Ara Derderian , co-host of the HDTV and Home Theater Podcast.
“Don’t expect high definition, or the quality of a Blu-ray player,” he said. “The copy of what’s streamed should look identical to what you’d get if you were streaming it.”
SUBSCRIBERS might also be worried about the legality of copying video content. Mr. Lawrence said PlayLater is following the path set earlier by VCRs and DVRs.
“PlayLater is legal for the same reason that using a VCR and a DVR is legal,” he said. “There is a well-established legal precedent that consumers are allowed to record videos for time-shifted viewing.” (In time-shifting, people make copies for their personal use that they can view later.)
Denise M. Howell , an appellate, intellectual property and technology lawyer in Newport Beach, Calif., says she isn’t so sure that software like PlayLater’s will succeed without a legal challenge. She pointed out that the terms-of-service agreements that users have with companies like Netflix and Amazon limit a video’s viewing.
“If the streaming sites let this go, ignoring it, they will irritate the people who provide the content,” she said. “They are not going to be able to sit back and look the other way.”
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
In our world, where information is constantly being plugged into one device after another and frequently changes hands, many people don’t realize how vital it can be to safeguard their digital information from sniffers and malware – destructive programs which can steal sensitive information. Here are 5 free software encryption tools for your on-the-go use.
1. How To Encrypt Your Files On The Cloud, e.g. Dropbox
clip image0041 5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
It may be all smooth and easy going encrypting files on your own hard drives, but what about files on the cloud? As we become increasingly dependent on the cloud for storage, we also become more and more wary of the fact that all our personal, and potentially important files, are floating on some foreign server, exposed to the vulnerabilities of that server.
So if you have files on Dropbox, for instance, what’s a person to do? Thankfully, there’s BoxCryptor, a great free program which allows you to encrypt files even on cloud servers. The free version works great with the standard AES-256 encryption, but does not allow commercial usage and is only limited to encryption of files up to 2 GB. Still, that’s plenty enough for most of us, and is an excellent solution towards solving file encryption on the cloud.
2. What To Do If You Want to Encrypt Entire Hard Drives
clip image0021 5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
The issue: Enabling encryption on one machine disables it from being read on another unless they both have the same encryption software installed; which is sometimes not practical when you have to constantly switch between PCs in an environment, such as a school setting.
Enter TruCrypt, a truly real-time encryption program which encrypts data as it is being written onto the file partition (e.g. folders), and decrypts it in real-time as it is being removed. Impressive feature aside, this gives you the peace of mind that you won’t ever find yourself stuck with an inaccessible file simply because you were trying to be careful.
TruCrypt also allows you to encrypt entire hard drives, which can be useful if you run your own company, and has a hundred and one other fancy uses such as enabling hardware acceleration during encrypting on modern processors. It is by far the most highly recommended free encryption software on the Internet, customizable for nearly all but the most specific uses.
3. How to Encrypt Your Entire USB Flash Drive Without Installing Anything
clip image0011 5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
PenProtect doesn’t give you any excuse to not use file encryption while transferring files. There’s absolutely no hassle in using it – all you have to do is copy the downloaded file to the home folder of your USB drive – no installation required! It really doesn’t get any simpler than this, and it provides full 256-bit key AES encryption to your entire USB flash drive, hiding files from being interpreted by the host computer.
4. How To Plug In Your USB Drive With Peace Of Mind at Internet Cafés
clip image0031 5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
By now, we should all already have recognized how dangerous it can be to plug in your flash drive into a port of a computer at a cyber café. Since you never know what the computer has been uploaded with, the potential for your information being compromised is mind boggling; there could be key-loggers to trace your passwords, malware to read your Word files, trojans to sneak onto your device… the list goes on and on…
Add to this the fact that most of the time, you don’t get administrator privileges in a computer at such places, disabling the option to install a “safe” encryption program on-the-spot. So what can you do? Well, there’s a solution with FreeOTFE Explorer, an encryption software which not only does not require installation, but works even on PCs where administrator privileges have been disabled! It works by creating a “virtual disk” on the computer in question, where everything that is written to that “disk” is encrypted securely before being stored.
5. How To Enable File Encryption using Tools Already Within Reach
clip image0051 5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
Some people just don’t like having an extra program hanging around on their computer, especially something like encryption which isn’t visible enough to warrant having to stare at its icon every time you access My Computer. Well, did you know that you probably already have a fully sufficient encryption program sitting on your desktop?
7-Zip, the great file compressor, is also a decent file encryptor. Providing only AES-256, it’s really solid. Whether it’s sending work documents over email, or personal items to your loved ones, if you really don’t want to deal with the hassle of an extra program, 7-Zip may just be the perfect file encryptor for you.
1. How To Encrypt Your Files On The Cloud, e.g. Dropbox
clip image0041 5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
It may be all smooth and easy going encrypting files on your own hard drives, but what about files on the cloud? As we become increasingly dependent on the cloud for storage, we also become more and more wary of the fact that all our personal, and potentially important files, are floating on some foreign server, exposed to the vulnerabilities of that server.
So if you have files on Dropbox, for instance, what’s a person to do? Thankfully, there’s BoxCryptor, a great free program which allows you to encrypt files even on cloud servers. The free version works great with the standard AES-256 encryption, but does not allow commercial usage and is only limited to encryption of files up to 2 GB. Still, that’s plenty enough for most of us, and is an excellent solution towards solving file encryption on the cloud.
2. What To Do If You Want to Encrypt Entire Hard Drives
clip image0021 5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
The issue: Enabling encryption on one machine disables it from being read on another unless they both have the same encryption software installed; which is sometimes not practical when you have to constantly switch between PCs in an environment, such as a school setting.
Enter TruCrypt, a truly real-time encryption program which encrypts data as it is being written onto the file partition (e.g. folders), and decrypts it in real-time as it is being removed. Impressive feature aside, this gives you the peace of mind that you won’t ever find yourself stuck with an inaccessible file simply because you were trying to be careful.
TruCrypt also allows you to encrypt entire hard drives, which can be useful if you run your own company, and has a hundred and one other fancy uses such as enabling hardware acceleration during encrypting on modern processors. It is by far the most highly recommended free encryption software on the Internet, customizable for nearly all but the most specific uses.
3. How to Encrypt Your Entire USB Flash Drive Without Installing Anything
clip image0011 5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
PenProtect doesn’t give you any excuse to not use file encryption while transferring files. There’s absolutely no hassle in using it – all you have to do is copy the downloaded file to the home folder of your USB drive – no installation required! It really doesn’t get any simpler than this, and it provides full 256-bit key AES encryption to your entire USB flash drive, hiding files from being interpreted by the host computer.
4. How To Plug In Your USB Drive With Peace Of Mind at Internet Cafés
clip image0031 5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
By now, we should all already have recognized how dangerous it can be to plug in your flash drive into a port of a computer at a cyber café. Since you never know what the computer has been uploaded with, the potential for your information being compromised is mind boggling; there could be key-loggers to trace your passwords, malware to read your Word files, trojans to sneak onto your device… the list goes on and on…
Add to this the fact that most of the time, you don’t get administrator privileges in a computer at such places, disabling the option to install a “safe” encryption program on-the-spot. So what can you do? Well, there’s a solution with FreeOTFE Explorer, an encryption software which not only does not require installation, but works even on PCs where administrator privileges have been disabled! It works by creating a “virtual disk” on the computer in question, where everything that is written to that “disk” is encrypted securely before being stored.
5. How To Enable File Encryption using Tools Already Within Reach
clip image0051 5 Free Ways to Encrypt Your Files on the Go
Some people just don’t like having an extra program hanging around on their computer, especially something like encryption which isn’t visible enough to warrant having to stare at its icon every time you access My Computer. Well, did you know that you probably already have a fully sufficient encryption program sitting on your desktop?
7-Zip, the great file compressor, is also a decent file encryptor. Providing only AES-256, it’s really solid. Whether it’s sending work documents over email, or personal items to your loved ones, if you really don’t want to deal with the hassle of an extra program, 7-Zip may just be the perfect file encryptor for you.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Michael Hart, a Pioneer of E-Books, Dies at 64
Michael Hart, a Pioneer of E-Books, Dies at 64
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Michael Hart, who was widely credited with creating the first e-book when he typed the Declaration of Independence into a computer on July 4, 1971, and in so doing laid the foundations for Project Gutenberg, the oldest and largest digital library, was found dead on Tuesday at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 64.
His death was confirmed by Gregory B. Newby, the chief executive and director of Project Gutenberg, who said that the cause had not yet been determined.
Mr. Hart found his life’s mission when the University of Illinois, where he was a student, gave him a user’s account on a Xerox Sigma V mainframe computer at the school’s Materials Research Lab.
Estimating that the computer time in his possession was worth $100 million, Mr. Hart began thinking of a project that might justify that figure. Data processing, the principal application of computers at the time, did not capture his imagination. Information sharing did.
After attending a July 4 fireworks display, he stopped in at a grocery store and received, with his purchase, a copy of the Declaration of Independence printed on parchment. He typed the text, intending to send it as an e-mail to the users of Arpanet, the government-sponsored precursor to today’s Internet, but was dissuaded by a colleague who warned that the message would crash the system. Instead, he posted a notice that the text could be downloaded, and Project Gutenberg was born.
Its goal, formulated by Mr. Hart, was “to encourage the creation and distribution of e-books” and, by making books available to computer users at no cost, “to help break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy.”
Over the next decade, working alone, Mr. Hart typed the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the King James Bible and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” into the project database, the first tentative steps in a revolution that would usher in what he liked to call the fifth information age, a world of e-books, hand-held electronic devices like the Nook and Kindle, and unprecedented individual access to texts on a vast array of Internet archives.
Today, Project Gutenberg lists more than 30,000 books in 60 languages, with the emphasis on titles of interest to the general reader in three categories: “light literature,” “heavy literature” and reference works. In a 2006 e-mail to the technology writer Glyn Moody, he predicted that there would be a billion e-books in 2021, Project Gutenberg’s 50th anniversary, and that, thanks to advances in memory chips, “you will be able to carry all billion e-books in one hand.”
Nearly all the books are in the public domain, although a relatively small number of copyrighted books are reproduced with the permission of the copyright owner. The library includes two books by Mr. Hart: “A Brief History of the Internet” and “Poems and Tales from Romania.”
“It’s a paradigm shift,” he told Searcher magazine in 2002. “It’s the power of one person, alone in their basement, being able to type in their favorite books and give it to millions or billions of people. It just wasn’t even remotely possible before; not even the Gideons can say they have given away a billion Bibles in the past year.”
Michael Stern Hart was born on March 8, 1947, in Tacoma, Wash. His father was an accountant; his mother, a cryptanalyst during World War II, was the business manager for a high-end women’s store. The couple retrained to become university teachers and in 1958 found posts at the University of Illinois, in Urbana, where his father taught Shakespeare and his mother taught mathematics.
Michael began attending lectures at the university before entering high school and, following a course of individual study on human-machine interfaces, earned a bachelor of science degree in 1973.
Work on Project Gutenberg proceeded slowly at first. Adding perhaps a book a month, Mr. Hart had created only 313 e-books by 1997. “I was just waiting for the world to realize I’d knocked it over,” he told Searcher. “You’ve heard of ‘cow-tipping’? The cow had been tipped over, but it took it 17 years for it to wake up and say, ‘Moo.’ ”
The pace picked up when he and Mark Zinzow, a programmer at the University of Illinois, recruited volunteers through the school’s PC User Group and set up mirror sites to provide multiple sources for the project.
Shrewdly, Mr. Hart included books like “Zen and the Art of the Internet” and “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Internet” to expand the audience for the project’s books.
Today, relying on the work of volunteers who scan and proofread without pay, the project adds to its list at the rate of hundreds of books each month.
Even in the project’s early stages, Mr. Hart envisioned it in revolutionary terms. Borrowing a term from “Star Wars,” he referred to e-books as just one form of replicator technology that would, in the future, allow for the infinite reproduction of things as well as words, overturning all established power structures and ushering in an age of universal abundance.
One hurdle on the road to the diffusion of knowledge was the Copyright Term Extension Act, passed in 1998. The act, sponsored by the California congressman and former pop singer Sonny Bono, removed a million e-books from the public domain by extending the copyright by 20 years. Under United States law, the average copyright now lasts for 95.5 years.
Lawrence Lessig, then a law professor at Stanford University (and now at Harvard), approached Mr. Hart to see if he would be interested in taking part in a constitutional challenge to the law.
He met Mr. Hart in a pizza parlor in Urbana, where, Mr. Lessig recalled in a telephone conversation on Thursday, Mr. Hart added a thick layer of sugar to his pizza while explaining that he saw the case as much more than a test of copyright law. It offered, as he saw it, a way to challenge the entire social and economic system of the United States.
Mr. Lessig, looking for a somewhat less visionary lead plaintiff, eventually enlisted Eric Eldred, the owner of Eldritch Press, a Web site that reprints work in the public domain. In 2003, in Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the copyright extension act.
Mr. Hart is survived by his mother, Alice, of Fort Belvoir, Va., and a brother, Bennett, of Manassas, Va.
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Michael Hart, who was widely credited with creating the first e-book when he typed the Declaration of Independence into a computer on July 4, 1971, and in so doing laid the foundations for Project Gutenberg, the oldest and largest digital library, was found dead on Tuesday at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 64.
His death was confirmed by Gregory B. Newby, the chief executive and director of Project Gutenberg, who said that the cause had not yet been determined.
Mr. Hart found his life’s mission when the University of Illinois, where he was a student, gave him a user’s account on a Xerox Sigma V mainframe computer at the school’s Materials Research Lab.
Estimating that the computer time in his possession was worth $100 million, Mr. Hart began thinking of a project that might justify that figure. Data processing, the principal application of computers at the time, did not capture his imagination. Information sharing did.
After attending a July 4 fireworks display, he stopped in at a grocery store and received, with his purchase, a copy of the Declaration of Independence printed on parchment. He typed the text, intending to send it as an e-mail to the users of Arpanet, the government-sponsored precursor to today’s Internet, but was dissuaded by a colleague who warned that the message would crash the system. Instead, he posted a notice that the text could be downloaded, and Project Gutenberg was born.
Its goal, formulated by Mr. Hart, was “to encourage the creation and distribution of e-books” and, by making books available to computer users at no cost, “to help break down the bars of ignorance and illiteracy.”
Over the next decade, working alone, Mr. Hart typed the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the King James Bible and “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” into the project database, the first tentative steps in a revolution that would usher in what he liked to call the fifth information age, a world of e-books, hand-held electronic devices like the Nook and Kindle, and unprecedented individual access to texts on a vast array of Internet archives.
Today, Project Gutenberg lists more than 30,000 books in 60 languages, with the emphasis on titles of interest to the general reader in three categories: “light literature,” “heavy literature” and reference works. In a 2006 e-mail to the technology writer Glyn Moody, he predicted that there would be a billion e-books in 2021, Project Gutenberg’s 50th anniversary, and that, thanks to advances in memory chips, “you will be able to carry all billion e-books in one hand.”
Nearly all the books are in the public domain, although a relatively small number of copyrighted books are reproduced with the permission of the copyright owner. The library includes two books by Mr. Hart: “A Brief History of the Internet” and “Poems and Tales from Romania.”
“It’s a paradigm shift,” he told Searcher magazine in 2002. “It’s the power of one person, alone in their basement, being able to type in their favorite books and give it to millions or billions of people. It just wasn’t even remotely possible before; not even the Gideons can say they have given away a billion Bibles in the past year.”
Michael Stern Hart was born on March 8, 1947, in Tacoma, Wash. His father was an accountant; his mother, a cryptanalyst during World War II, was the business manager for a high-end women’s store. The couple retrained to become university teachers and in 1958 found posts at the University of Illinois, in Urbana, where his father taught Shakespeare and his mother taught mathematics.
Michael began attending lectures at the university before entering high school and, following a course of individual study on human-machine interfaces, earned a bachelor of science degree in 1973.
Work on Project Gutenberg proceeded slowly at first. Adding perhaps a book a month, Mr. Hart had created only 313 e-books by 1997. “I was just waiting for the world to realize I’d knocked it over,” he told Searcher. “You’ve heard of ‘cow-tipping’? The cow had been tipped over, but it took it 17 years for it to wake up and say, ‘Moo.’ ”
The pace picked up when he and Mark Zinzow, a programmer at the University of Illinois, recruited volunteers through the school’s PC User Group and set up mirror sites to provide multiple sources for the project.
Shrewdly, Mr. Hart included books like “Zen and the Art of the Internet” and “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Internet” to expand the audience for the project’s books.
Today, relying on the work of volunteers who scan and proofread without pay, the project adds to its list at the rate of hundreds of books each month.
Even in the project’s early stages, Mr. Hart envisioned it in revolutionary terms. Borrowing a term from “Star Wars,” he referred to e-books as just one form of replicator technology that would, in the future, allow for the infinite reproduction of things as well as words, overturning all established power structures and ushering in an age of universal abundance.
One hurdle on the road to the diffusion of knowledge was the Copyright Term Extension Act, passed in 1998. The act, sponsored by the California congressman and former pop singer Sonny Bono, removed a million e-books from the public domain by extending the copyright by 20 years. Under United States law, the average copyright now lasts for 95.5 years.
Lawrence Lessig, then a law professor at Stanford University (and now at Harvard), approached Mr. Hart to see if he would be interested in taking part in a constitutional challenge to the law.
He met Mr. Hart in a pizza parlor in Urbana, where, Mr. Lessig recalled in a telephone conversation on Thursday, Mr. Hart added a thick layer of sugar to his pizza while explaining that he saw the case as much more than a test of copyright law. It offered, as he saw it, a way to challenge the entire social and economic system of the United States.
Mr. Lessig, looking for a somewhat less visionary lead plaintiff, eventually enlisted Eric Eldred, the owner of Eldritch Press, a Web site that reprints work in the public domain. In 2003, in Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the copyright extension act.
Mr. Hart is survived by his mother, Alice, of Fort Belvoir, Va., and a brother, Bennett, of Manassas, Va.
How-to: Travel with your Roku Player
Ever thought about taking your Roku player along on your getaway or family vacation? Traveling with your Roku can be a snap with a little bit of forethought; we’ll show you how you can bring your favorite black box along to some of your favorite destinations.
Planning:
Broadband Internet is relatively common these days, but you should still consider the following questions:
Will there be sufficient Internet bandwidth at the place I am staying?
How will Roku connect to the Internet? Will I need a router or laptop?
What type of TV will there be?
If you are staying at a friend’s or family member’s home, you can usually rely on a stable Internet connection and the ability to plug into a router or connect over a wireless network. You should let them know ahead of time that you will be using your Roku player –then tease them for not having one already *wink.
image courtesy of MoToMo on Flickr
Most hotels offer free Wi-Fi and it’s just a matter of plugging in your Roku and connecting to the wireless network.There are some however that require authentication beyond a password–like your room number and name, etc…. To share an Internet connection, even with the authentication, I use my laptop and an older Netgear wireless travel router (a travel router is just a smaller version of a typical router, and any brand should get the job done).
You will need to clone the MAC address from your computer to your router. It sounds scary, but it’s typically a check box that you select in the router settings menu, which tells the router to use the same address as your computer. As every router is different, you should refer to the proper documentation.
If you have a Wi-Fi hot-spot, your golden wherever you go. Just make sure you have a solid connection, and connect your Roku player as you would if you were at home.
What to bring:
It’s wise to pack HDMI, component, power and Ethernet cables–and don’t forget the remote. Left your remote behind? No worries, you can find a quick fix using your iPhone (or other iOS device) or Android device here.
Made by Waterfield Designs, this travel case should do the trick.
If you travel quite a bit and don’t feel like unplugging cables from the back of the TV every time you travel, you can find spare cables in our accessory shop and create a dedicated travel pack.
A few takeaways:
Internet usage at some hotels may require authentication, but once enabled, it’s usually good for a few hours.
You can use a travel router to share the Internet connection with your Roku.
Find smartphone apps to control your Roku on our blog.
Planning:
Broadband Internet is relatively common these days, but you should still consider the following questions:
Will there be sufficient Internet bandwidth at the place I am staying?
How will Roku connect to the Internet? Will I need a router or laptop?
What type of TV will there be?
If you are staying at a friend’s or family member’s home, you can usually rely on a stable Internet connection and the ability to plug into a router or connect over a wireless network. You should let them know ahead of time that you will be using your Roku player –then tease them for not having one already *wink.
image courtesy of MoToMo on Flickr
Most hotels offer free Wi-Fi and it’s just a matter of plugging in your Roku and connecting to the wireless network.There are some however that require authentication beyond a password–like your room number and name, etc…. To share an Internet connection, even with the authentication, I use my laptop and an older Netgear wireless travel router (a travel router is just a smaller version of a typical router, and any brand should get the job done).
You will need to clone the MAC address from your computer to your router. It sounds scary, but it’s typically a check box that you select in the router settings menu, which tells the router to use the same address as your computer. As every router is different, you should refer to the proper documentation.
If you have a Wi-Fi hot-spot, your golden wherever you go. Just make sure you have a solid connection, and connect your Roku player as you would if you were at home.
What to bring:
It’s wise to pack HDMI, component, power and Ethernet cables–and don’t forget the remote. Left your remote behind? No worries, you can find a quick fix using your iPhone (or other iOS device) or Android device here.
Made by Waterfield Designs, this travel case should do the trick.
If you travel quite a bit and don’t feel like unplugging cables from the back of the TV every time you travel, you can find spare cables in our accessory shop and create a dedicated travel pack.
A few takeaways:
Internet usage at some hotels may require authentication, but once enabled, it’s usually good for a few hours.
You can use a travel router to share the Internet connection with your Roku.
Find smartphone apps to control your Roku on our blog.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Certificate cleanup for most personal computers
Certificate cleanup for most personal computers
Susan Bradley By Susan Bradley
A little Dutch company potentially lets a flood of problems into our Windows machines.
The company manages digital certificates; after its recent break-in by hackers, security certificates for Mozilla, Yahoo, WordPress, and other sites are now suspect.
On a daily basis, no matter what our level of paranoia, we trust the companies we work with. … Well, at least our browsers and computers do. Inside all computers, both Windows and Mac, is a collection of digital certificates that everyone on the Net has agreed to trust. On Vista and Windows 7 systems, these root certificates (definition) are updated by the issuer automatically. But on Windows XP machines, they're updated manually.
Companies doing business on the Internet buy certificates linked to a root certificate and automatically become part of the chain of trust. Because your computer trusts the vendor who provided the root certificate, it automatically trusts all online businesses with associated certificates.
This process is the foundation for secure Web transactions such as shopping on Amazon, online-banking, and e-mail.
Many updates after breaks in the chain of trust
Typically, this system works well. But on the rare occasions it fails — when the chain of trust is broken — it can instantly affect thousands of PCs.
Such is the case with that small company in the Netherlands, DigiNotar. Reports from various sites indicate that hackers compromised the firm's servers and generated rogue certificates. In a Kaspersky Lab Securelist blog, lab expert Roel speculates that as many as 200 rogue certificates were generated before the hack was discovered.
With a rogue certificate in place, a hacker can make your system think it's using a legitimate, trusted certificate from well-known companies such as Google and Yahoo. The hacker can then intercept your Internet connection with the site you intended to use and redirect you to a fake site, where you are tricked into entering personal information such as your user name and password. Your computer still thinks it's connected to a trusted site.
Fortunately for most of us, this particular attack appears to have targeted Internet users in Iran — it's the only country where these rogue certificates were spotted.
Soon after the breach, browser vendors offered updates that removed the Dutch root-certificate holder from their browsers' list of trusted certificate issuers. An August 29 Chrome Online Security blog reported that Google had disabled the DigiNotar certificate authority in Chrome 13.0.782.218.
The next day, Firefox followed suit in a Mozilla Security blog, announcing the release of numerous updates for Firefox (versions 3.6.21, 6.0.1, 7, 8, and 9), Thunderbird (3.1.13 and 6.0.1), and SeaMonkey (2.3.2) that revoked the DigiNotar root certificate.
On September 6, Microsoft released an out-of-cycle update — KB 2607712 — for Windows 2003, XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Server 2008 that not only removed all DigiNotar root certificates from the trusted list but also moved them to the untrusted-certificate store. If you find any DigiNotar certificates in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities list, I recommend you install KB 2607712.
If you do not see these certificates in your trusted-root store, you probably ignored all previous root-certificate updates. You can safely wait until the next Patch Tuesday to install the patch.
Manually removing the certificates from XP systems
Windows XP users have the option of deleting the certificates manually or merely looking over the list of certificates installed to see whether the DigiNotar cert. is there. Here's how:
Start out by clicking on the start button and typing mmc.exe. into the Run box, as shown in Figure 1. You'll see a window pop up typically labeled Console1.
Launching MMC
Figure 1. Opening up the mmc snapin
Click File, then Add/Remove Snap-in. In the Add/Remove Snap-in box, click the Add button, select Certificates (see Figure 2), and then click Add again.
Add Standalone Snap-in
Figure 2. Adding the certificate snap in
Yet another dialog box will open, with three choices. Select Computer account and click Next. Select Local computer (the computer this console is running on) and click Finish. Now close the Add Standalone Snap-in box. In the Add/Remove Snap-in box, click Okay. That returns you to the certificate-management console.
In the left-hand pane of the console, you should now see Certificates (Local Computer) with a small + next to it. Click on the + to expand your selection. You'll now see numerous folders, starting with Personal and including Third-Party Root Certification Authorities, as shown in Figure 3.
For more information on what folders you might typically see, check out the superuser post, "What are the Windows system certificate stores?" (In my example, the Windows XP system is a client of Windows Home Server and thus has a WHS certificate folder you probably will not see on your XP machine.)
Console Root certificates
Figure 3. Reviewing the list of certificate types
Now expand the Trusted Root Certificate Authorities folder and click on the certificates folder underneath. You should now see a list of certificates in alphabetical order (see Figure 4). Find any DigiNotar Root CA certificates and remove them from your computer.
An alternative way to remove certificates is through Internet Explorer. In IE, click Tools/Internet Options/Content and then Certificates. Click Trusted Root Certificates. Find the listings for DigiNotar Root CA (there are two in Figure 4) and remove them by clicking the Remove button. Click Yes to the warning that removing these certificates may prevent Windows from working properly. Then click Close and Okay.
Removing the DigiNotar root certificate
Figure 4. Removing the DigiNotar certificate.
If you don't see these two certificates in your trusted-certificate store, it's because you've probably used the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule of updating and thus ignored previous root-certificate updates. (I found one system without the DigiNotar certificate, and when I installed the latest root certificate — KB 931125 — the rogue certificate appeared.)
Think you're safer running the Apple platform? Guess again! Apple also included DigiNotar in its trusted root certificate program. In Apple it's a little more complicated to remove this rogue cert — a FairerPlatform blog has the details. Apple will most likely release a patch for its platform soon.
This issue exposes the vulnerable underbelly of trust of certificates, a process we may really need to start questioning. The listing of certificate authorities includes companies from countries that aren't always friendly to one another — and companies that have already been in the news for security breaches. If one small certificate authority in the Netherlands can be used in this type of potential spoofing attack, I hate to imagine what mischief can be done with a larger organization.
Needless to say, I may recommend holding off on future root-certificate updates until they have been examined more closely. In some cases you might be better off editing your existing root certificates rather than blindly adding updates.
Bottom line. If you have the DigiNotar certificate in your trusted-root certificate store, I recommend installing KB 2607712. On XP and Server 2003 systems, this will force a reboot — so plan accordingly. If you do not have the DigiNotar certificate in your trusted-root certificate store, simply wait for the next Patch Tuesday and apply it then.
Susan Bradley By Susan Bradley
A little Dutch company potentially lets a flood of problems into our Windows machines.
The company manages digital certificates; after its recent break-in by hackers, security certificates for Mozilla, Yahoo, WordPress, and other sites are now suspect.
On a daily basis, no matter what our level of paranoia, we trust the companies we work with. … Well, at least our browsers and computers do. Inside all computers, both Windows and Mac, is a collection of digital certificates that everyone on the Net has agreed to trust. On Vista and Windows 7 systems, these root certificates (definition) are updated by the issuer automatically. But on Windows XP machines, they're updated manually.
Companies doing business on the Internet buy certificates linked to a root certificate and automatically become part of the chain of trust. Because your computer trusts the vendor who provided the root certificate, it automatically trusts all online businesses with associated certificates.
This process is the foundation for secure Web transactions such as shopping on Amazon, online-banking, and e-mail.
Many updates after breaks in the chain of trust
Typically, this system works well. But on the rare occasions it fails — when the chain of trust is broken — it can instantly affect thousands of PCs.
Such is the case with that small company in the Netherlands, DigiNotar. Reports from various sites indicate that hackers compromised the firm's servers and generated rogue certificates. In a Kaspersky Lab Securelist blog, lab expert Roel speculates that as many as 200 rogue certificates were generated before the hack was discovered.
With a rogue certificate in place, a hacker can make your system think it's using a legitimate, trusted certificate from well-known companies such as Google and Yahoo. The hacker can then intercept your Internet connection with the site you intended to use and redirect you to a fake site, where you are tricked into entering personal information such as your user name and password. Your computer still thinks it's connected to a trusted site.
Fortunately for most of us, this particular attack appears to have targeted Internet users in Iran — it's the only country where these rogue certificates were spotted.
Soon after the breach, browser vendors offered updates that removed the Dutch root-certificate holder from their browsers' list of trusted certificate issuers. An August 29 Chrome Online Security blog reported that Google had disabled the DigiNotar certificate authority in Chrome 13.0.782.218.
The next day, Firefox followed suit in a Mozilla Security blog, announcing the release of numerous updates for Firefox (versions 3.6.21, 6.0.1, 7, 8, and 9), Thunderbird (3.1.13 and 6.0.1), and SeaMonkey (2.3.2) that revoked the DigiNotar root certificate.
On September 6, Microsoft released an out-of-cycle update — KB 2607712 — for Windows 2003, XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Server 2008 that not only removed all DigiNotar root certificates from the trusted list but also moved them to the untrusted-certificate store. If you find any DigiNotar certificates in the Trusted Root Certification Authorities list, I recommend you install KB 2607712.
If you do not see these certificates in your trusted-root store, you probably ignored all previous root-certificate updates. You can safely wait until the next Patch Tuesday to install the patch.
Manually removing the certificates from XP systems
Windows XP users have the option of deleting the certificates manually or merely looking over the list of certificates installed to see whether the DigiNotar cert. is there. Here's how:
Start out by clicking on the start button and typing mmc.exe. into the Run box, as shown in Figure 1. You'll see a window pop up typically labeled Console1.
Launching MMC
Figure 1. Opening up the mmc snapin
Click File, then Add/Remove Snap-in. In the Add/Remove Snap-in box, click the Add button, select Certificates (see Figure 2), and then click Add again.
Add Standalone Snap-in
Figure 2. Adding the certificate snap in
Yet another dialog box will open, with three choices. Select Computer account and click Next. Select Local computer (the computer this console is running on) and click Finish. Now close the Add Standalone Snap-in box. In the Add/Remove Snap-in box, click Okay. That returns you to the certificate-management console.
In the left-hand pane of the console, you should now see Certificates (Local Computer) with a small + next to it. Click on the + to expand your selection. You'll now see numerous folders, starting with Personal and including Third-Party Root Certification Authorities, as shown in Figure 3.
For more information on what folders you might typically see, check out the superuser post, "What are the Windows system certificate stores?" (In my example, the Windows XP system is a client of Windows Home Server and thus has a WHS certificate folder you probably will not see on your XP machine.)
Console Root certificates
Figure 3. Reviewing the list of certificate types
Now expand the Trusted Root Certificate Authorities folder and click on the certificates folder underneath. You should now see a list of certificates in alphabetical order (see Figure 4). Find any DigiNotar Root CA certificates and remove them from your computer.
An alternative way to remove certificates is through Internet Explorer. In IE, click Tools/Internet Options/Content and then Certificates. Click Trusted Root Certificates. Find the listings for DigiNotar Root CA (there are two in Figure 4) and remove them by clicking the Remove button. Click Yes to the warning that removing these certificates may prevent Windows from working properly. Then click Close and Okay.
Removing the DigiNotar root certificate
Figure 4. Removing the DigiNotar certificate.
If you don't see these two certificates in your trusted-certificate store, it's because you've probably used the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule of updating and thus ignored previous root-certificate updates. (I found one system without the DigiNotar certificate, and when I installed the latest root certificate — KB 931125 — the rogue certificate appeared.)
Think you're safer running the Apple platform? Guess again! Apple also included DigiNotar in its trusted root certificate program. In Apple it's a little more complicated to remove this rogue cert — a FairerPlatform blog has the details. Apple will most likely release a patch for its platform soon.
This issue exposes the vulnerable underbelly of trust of certificates, a process we may really need to start questioning. The listing of certificate authorities includes companies from countries that aren't always friendly to one another — and companies that have already been in the news for security breaches. If one small certificate authority in the Netherlands can be used in this type of potential spoofing attack, I hate to imagine what mischief can be done with a larger organization.
Needless to say, I may recommend holding off on future root-certificate updates until they have been examined more closely. In some cases you might be better off editing your existing root certificates rather than blindly adding updates.
Bottom line. If you have the DigiNotar certificate in your trusted-root certificate store, I recommend installing KB 2607712. On XP and Server 2003 systems, this will force a reboot — so plan accordingly. If you do not have the DigiNotar certificate in your trusted-root certificate store, simply wait for the next Patch Tuesday and apply it then.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
PlayOn Thoughts Four Weeks Later
PlayOn Thoughts Four Weeks Later
Posted by mike on July 12, 2011
It’s been about 4 weeks since I used PlayOn to get my Daily Show fix. Since then, I’ve signed up for a month more of PlayOn service to keep getting this and a few other shows like Burn Notice and White Collar without paying for Amazon Instant Video. My feelings about the service have shifted some in that time.
PlayOn Better With Tweaking
I’m still finding that PlayOn gets the job done. With some tweaks to the various providers, it seems to get the job done quite admirably most of the time. It’s been a delightful bridge to get Hulu on my TV via my Roku box and has brought some unexpected benefits like closed caps on the Roku box. A few tweaks that have proven quite nice:
Turn on Hulu closed caps: In Hulu, go to Privacy & Settings and click the “Automatically turn on closed captions if available.” checkbox
Use the Hulu queue: To avoid navigating the crazy-large menus, use the Hulu website to queue up shows then go directly to your Hulu queue for quick viewing
Places To Improve
It’s not all roses, however. The interface, in general, is still clunky. For channels that don’t have queues, it’s downright painful to navigate on my Roku. I’ve used the PlayOn iPad app, and that is manageable. I’m holding out hope that the upcoming Roku refresh will give PlayOn both the motivation and the technical ability to make a more robust Roku interface. I’ve also, on occasion, had playback issues. PlayOn will spontaneously reset the video feed to the beginning of the show (yes, before the first advertisement) during some Hulu viewings. I blame my increasingly erratic internet connection (AT&T, your number’s up), but I’ll still be sending in a support request to see how PlayOn responds.
PlayOn Is A Recommend
After a month of use, PlayOn has a place in my setup. I’ll finish out my current month subscription and, if we get this Hulu video reset under control, pick up a year of service for $39.99.
I do have one aside on the PlayOn pricing. I like a good deal, but I think that the annual subscription is the best deal in the package. Because of how MediaMall structured the annual service, with each extra year costing $19.99, I have a hard time recommending the lifetime subscription. Looking at the pricing:
8 Months 1 Year 2 Years 3 Years 5 Years
Monthly Rate
($4.99 / mo) $39.92 $59.88 $119.76 $179.64 $299.40
Annual Rate
($39.99 first year)
($19.99 second+) $39.99 $39.99 $59.98 $79.97 $119.95
Lifetime Rate
($79.99) $79.99 $79.99 $79.99 $79.99 $79.99
If you’re going to use the service beyond dabbling with it, the breakeven point for the annual service is around 8 months. Subscribing to the annual pass and getting 33% off after 1 year seems like a no-brainer to me when I like the service. It takes more than 3 years to break even on the lifetime rate and, in this industry, that is a lifetime. In the end, pick what works for your household budget and run with it.
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Posted by mike on July 12, 2011
It’s been about 4 weeks since I used PlayOn to get my Daily Show fix. Since then, I’ve signed up for a month more of PlayOn service to keep getting this and a few other shows like Burn Notice and White Collar without paying for Amazon Instant Video. My feelings about the service have shifted some in that time.
PlayOn Better With Tweaking
I’m still finding that PlayOn gets the job done. With some tweaks to the various providers, it seems to get the job done quite admirably most of the time. It’s been a delightful bridge to get Hulu on my TV via my Roku box and has brought some unexpected benefits like closed caps on the Roku box. A few tweaks that have proven quite nice:
Turn on Hulu closed caps: In Hulu, go to Privacy & Settings and click the “Automatically turn on closed captions if available.” checkbox
Use the Hulu queue: To avoid navigating the crazy-large menus, use the Hulu website to queue up shows then go directly to your Hulu queue for quick viewing
Places To Improve
It’s not all roses, however. The interface, in general, is still clunky. For channels that don’t have queues, it’s downright painful to navigate on my Roku. I’ve used the PlayOn iPad app, and that is manageable. I’m holding out hope that the upcoming Roku refresh will give PlayOn both the motivation and the technical ability to make a more robust Roku interface. I’ve also, on occasion, had playback issues. PlayOn will spontaneously reset the video feed to the beginning of the show (yes, before the first advertisement) during some Hulu viewings. I blame my increasingly erratic internet connection (AT&T, your number’s up), but I’ll still be sending in a support request to see how PlayOn responds.
PlayOn Is A Recommend
After a month of use, PlayOn has a place in my setup. I’ll finish out my current month subscription and, if we get this Hulu video reset under control, pick up a year of service for $39.99.
I do have one aside on the PlayOn pricing. I like a good deal, but I think that the annual subscription is the best deal in the package. Because of how MediaMall structured the annual service, with each extra year costing $19.99, I have a hard time recommending the lifetime subscription. Looking at the pricing:
8 Months 1 Year 2 Years 3 Years 5 Years
Monthly Rate
($4.99 / mo) $39.92 $59.88 $119.76 $179.64 $299.40
Annual Rate
($39.99 first year)
($19.99 second+) $39.99 $39.99 $59.98 $79.97 $119.95
Lifetime Rate
($79.99) $79.99 $79.99 $79.99 $79.99 $79.99
If you’re going to use the service beyond dabbling with it, the breakeven point for the annual service is around 8 months. Subscribing to the annual pass and getting 33% off after 1 year seems like a no-brainer to me when I like the service. It takes more than 3 years to break even on the lifetime rate and, in this industry, that is a lifetime. In the end, pick what works for your household budget and run with it.
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PlayLater Beta DVR on your computer
PlayLater: Cool, But Why Do I Want It?
by mike
A little while ago, I got a chance to take MediaMall Technology’s PlayLater for a spin as part of their public Beta. PlayLater reuses the PlayOn technology (of which I’m a huge fan) to DVR online TV shows and movies, recording them on a computer for later playback. Let’s take a look at it.
PlayLater Basics
PlayLater allows users to record streaming video from a variety of internet sources like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and many others. Users can then watch the video at their convenience, even if the internet is down. From the PlayLater website:
PlayLater is groundbreaking new technology that gives you the freedom to record your favorite online videos and enjoy them on your schedule, even if you aren’t connected to the internet. As more and more of you are getting your favorite shows online, we felt that it was time the rest of your entertainment technology caught up. After all, the same reasons that apply to recording TV shows and movies in the old world apply to the new world, right? Convenience, access, and frankly — sometimes you don’t have an Internet connection available and that shouldn’t bar you from watching your favorite shows. The future of entertainment is online and now you can record the future.
The PlayLater installation is quite painless and went without a hitch. I was quickly hunting for the Daily Show and downloading videos. I was able get some downloading going. One thing that quickly caught my attention was that PlayLater really was a DVR platform. After living with the internet a while, it didn’t even cross my mind that PlayLater would take 30 minutes to record a 30 minute TV shows. It could download it faster, right?! Unfortunately, not so much. The technology under the hood re-encodes the video as it plays, so it’s just like my TV in that the show has to play in real-time to record it.
The 30 minutes aside, PlayLater delivered on what they claimed. I managed to record and later watch a Daily Show on my PC. At the time of my review work, PlayLater could only play back on a PC. They have since merged the technology with their PlayOn platform to allow videos to stream to any PlayOn compatible device.
Although PlayLater did deliver on the main claim, this is obviously a beta product. It seems like a lot of careful thought has been put into the DVR technology, but the user interface is less than ideal. This is definitely not a Tivo. Resizing the main window causes visual artifacts. A list view of shows where the description would seem when I hovers over the name would be great to allow fast queuing.
All little things, but Apple has shown that polish matters. These are user interface issues that can easily be squeezed out before the beta closes. The core technology appears solid and is ripe for building up upon. All of this doesn’t answer the more fundamental question: why do I want it?
But Why Would I Want PlayLater?
I have yet to understand what niche PlayLater is serving. It’s cool technology, but what problem are they solving? Their stated reason for bringing this out is summed up by:
After all, the same reasons that apply to recording TV shows and movies in the old world apply to the new world, right?
The problem is that the same reasons don’t apply. I originally got a DVR because my favorite TV shows came on at a specific time that was inconvenient for me. I was tired that night, or my daughter wasn’t going to sleep and I was in her room, or it’s a daytime show and I’m at work. None of these apply to streaming video. Daily Show episodes two weeks back are available on Hulu at my whim. I can watch them when I want. Anything on Netflix is available when I want it. The only reasons I’ve come up with to justify PlayLater are:
I’m about to travel or take my computer somewhere without the internet and I want to watch a show. This seems legitimate but strikes me as a very small market.
The streaming channel is about to drop the show and I want to record it for later. This requires a lot of foresight for the instant gratification crowd.
I can’t help but think that MediaMall is dangling this out there to see if something emerges.
Conclusions on PlayLater
PlayLater delivered on what they set out to do. They created a DVR system for online videos. The technology has potential once the rough edges are sanded down. What’s missing is PlayLater’s reason for existence. Streaming video is based on the “cloud” holding the videos until I’m ready to watch, and that’s in place right now.
I can’t wait to see what the PlayLater team will do as they exit beta and put a polished product into the market.
by mike
A little while ago, I got a chance to take MediaMall Technology’s PlayLater for a spin as part of their public Beta. PlayLater reuses the PlayOn technology (of which I’m a huge fan) to DVR online TV shows and movies, recording them on a computer for later playback. Let’s take a look at it.
PlayLater Basics
PlayLater allows users to record streaming video from a variety of internet sources like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, and many others. Users can then watch the video at their convenience, even if the internet is down. From the PlayLater website:
PlayLater is groundbreaking new technology that gives you the freedom to record your favorite online videos and enjoy them on your schedule, even if you aren’t connected to the internet. As more and more of you are getting your favorite shows online, we felt that it was time the rest of your entertainment technology caught up. After all, the same reasons that apply to recording TV shows and movies in the old world apply to the new world, right? Convenience, access, and frankly — sometimes you don’t have an Internet connection available and that shouldn’t bar you from watching your favorite shows. The future of entertainment is online and now you can record the future.
The PlayLater installation is quite painless and went without a hitch. I was quickly hunting for the Daily Show and downloading videos. I was able get some downloading going. One thing that quickly caught my attention was that PlayLater really was a DVR platform. After living with the internet a while, it didn’t even cross my mind that PlayLater would take 30 minutes to record a 30 minute TV shows. It could download it faster, right?! Unfortunately, not so much. The technology under the hood re-encodes the video as it plays, so it’s just like my TV in that the show has to play in real-time to record it.
The 30 minutes aside, PlayLater delivered on what they claimed. I managed to record and later watch a Daily Show on my PC. At the time of my review work, PlayLater could only play back on a PC. They have since merged the technology with their PlayOn platform to allow videos to stream to any PlayOn compatible device.
Although PlayLater did deliver on the main claim, this is obviously a beta product. It seems like a lot of careful thought has been put into the DVR technology, but the user interface is less than ideal. This is definitely not a Tivo. Resizing the main window causes visual artifacts. A list view of shows where the description would seem when I hovers over the name would be great to allow fast queuing.
All little things, but Apple has shown that polish matters. These are user interface issues that can easily be squeezed out before the beta closes. The core technology appears solid and is ripe for building up upon. All of this doesn’t answer the more fundamental question: why do I want it?
But Why Would I Want PlayLater?
I have yet to understand what niche PlayLater is serving. It’s cool technology, but what problem are they solving? Their stated reason for bringing this out is summed up by:
After all, the same reasons that apply to recording TV shows and movies in the old world apply to the new world, right?
The problem is that the same reasons don’t apply. I originally got a DVR because my favorite TV shows came on at a specific time that was inconvenient for me. I was tired that night, or my daughter wasn’t going to sleep and I was in her room, or it’s a daytime show and I’m at work. None of these apply to streaming video. Daily Show episodes two weeks back are available on Hulu at my whim. I can watch them when I want. Anything on Netflix is available when I want it. The only reasons I’ve come up with to justify PlayLater are:
I’m about to travel or take my computer somewhere without the internet and I want to watch a show. This seems legitimate but strikes me as a very small market.
The streaming channel is about to drop the show and I want to record it for later. This requires a lot of foresight for the instant gratification crowd.
I can’t help but think that MediaMall is dangling this out there to see if something emerges.
Conclusions on PlayLater
PlayLater delivered on what they set out to do. They created a DVR system for online videos. The technology has potential once the rough edges are sanded down. What’s missing is PlayLater’s reason for existence. Streaming video is based on the “cloud” holding the videos until I’m ready to watch, and that’s in place right now.
I can’t wait to see what the PlayLater team will do as they exit beta and put a polished product into the market.
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