Author: Janko Roettgers

This is neat: A new app called RemotePlay makes it easy to beam photos, music, videos and even documents from your mobile device to other devices in the same network. RemotePlay’s Android version launched on on Google Play Thursday, and an iOS version is close to being launched as well.

I had a chance to try both versions this week, and liked what I saw. Especially RemotePlay’s ability to bridge the divide between Android and iOS is impressive.

RemotePlay’s local group sharing features are intriguing as well: Want to show everyone in your home network the same photo or all your coworkers the same document? Then just share it with the RemotePlay app, and you’ll even be able to close it on their machines when you’re done talking about it.

Here’s a quick video demo of the app running on my iPad 2 and my Nexus 7:

RemotePlay has been developed by Piddas21, a new Taiwan-based startup that was founded last year by Quanta Computer. You may not have heard of Quanta, but there’s a good chance that you may be using one of their products. The ODM manufacturer makes Apple’s Macbooks as well as PCs for a whole bunch of other companies. Altogether, it’s responsible for the assembly of one out of three laptops in the world.

Piddas21 CEO and Founder Joe Lin told me during an interview Wednesday that the goal of his subsidiary was to find new revenue opportunities for Quanta’s customers. “80 percent of our customers are desperate for new innovations,” he said. Software and services are one of these opportunities, and Piddas21 is exploring this area by going directly to consumers. “We want to get firsthand user experiences,” Lin said.

RemotePlay is a combination of a proprietary discovery protocol and plain old HTTP for file transfer. The app is also doing some transcoding to make content from iOS devices playable on Android devices. I noticed that this process can lead to a bit of a lag when sharing videos, and Lin told me that the company is looking to add more flexibility to the transcoding process.

The company is also working on a Windows 8 version, and wants to add an easy way to share entire media collections and photo slideshows. That way, you’ll be able to literally run your presentation on your colleague’s iPads.

An ad-supported version of RemotePlay is available for free on Google Play, and the company has said that it won’t actually display any ads within the software for the first three months. A permanently ad-free version will cost users $1.99.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Tsahi Levent-Levi.

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Looks like consumer electronics makers may owe Netflix a few favors: Consumers are finally beginning to care about Smart TVs, with 30.7 percent of people in the market for a new TV with internet connectivity, according to the latest IHS Smart TV Consumer Survey. Twelve months ago, that number was still at 18.1 percent.

There is also a significant growth in the interest for 3-D, but it’s still a less important feature than connectivity. A year ago, only 6.6 percent of potential TV buyers were looking to buy a 3-D TV. Now, it’s 18.8 percent.

However, it’s worth pointing out that size is still one of the biggest drivers, and that price matters more than it did just 12 months ago. 53 percent of consumers who want to buy a new TV now say that the price tag is a main purchase driver. That’s up from 27.9 percent 12 months ago, and it also tells you a bit about why internet on TVs and 3-D are getting more popular: Even lower-priced TV sets are now connected, and 3-D isn’t that much of a premium anymore either.

And with falling prices, consumers feel like they should just get Netflix apps and possible 3-D glasses as part of the package, instead of paying through the nose for it. Whether people are actually going to activate those TVs is of course a completely different question.

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Telly, the San Francisco-based social video aggregation startup formerly known as Twitvid, released version 2.0 of its iPhone app Wednesday. The new app allows users to privately share their video recordings with friends and contacts, regardless of whether these people use Telly or not. The new version also adds some IU tweaks, including a carousel view that recently launched on Telly’s web site as well.

Telly originally launched as a social video curation service some 9 months ago, but CEO Mo Al Adham told me during an interview Monday that sharing of personal videos has always been an important part of Telly’s mobile experience as well. 5.5 percent of Telly’s iOS users upload at least one video a month to share it with their contacts on Facebook or Twitter, he said.

The company now wants to further encourage this kind of sharing by allowing iPhone users to share their clips with select groups of people. Users can either share videos directly with their contacts on the service, or send links to videos via email or text message to anyone in their address book. Recipients who haven’t signed up for Telly yet can then either watch a video on the web, or download the mobile app to participate in a IM-like conversation about the clip.

Telly’s new iPhone app UI also includes a coverflow-like video carousel. Telly Head of Product Mike Cieri told me that this UI has been a big hit ever since the company rolled it out on its website earlier this year. “The results have been staggering,” he said, adding that Telly has seen 30 percent engagement growth with the new UI. iPhone users can access the UI by turning their phone to view it in landscape mode. Turned back into portrait mode, the app will automatically switch to a newsfeed view of videos.

Of course, Telly isn’t the only app that’s trying to facilitate private video sharing. Boxee launched its Cloudee app last summer, and the idea of private sharing of media is pretty much core to Google+, just to name a few. However, Cieri said that the company didn’t see a lot of adoption for any of these services, which is why Telly saw an opportunity to go into this space.

Cieri added that new apps for the iPad and Android with private video sharing are going to launch in the next couple of months.

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Roku officially unveiled its third-generation streaming device Thursday night. The streaming box, simply dubbed Roku 3, comes with a new user interface as well as a remote control that features a headphone jack for private listening. It will go on sale immediately for $100 on Roku’s website and Amazon.com, and find its way to retailers in April.

The device’s new UI should help a lot with content discovery. Finding new channels had become a bit of a challenge on existing Roku device as the company grew its number of content partners to a total of 750. Check out a demo of the new UI in this company-provided video below:

The addition of a headphone jack for the remote control is a more curious choice. Roku hopes that the feature will help consumers who want to watch TV without disturbing others — but one could argue that consumers have already made their iPads the viewing device of choice for that kind of use case.

Roku has said that the new UI will come to second-generation devices next month. Speaking of existing products: A company spokesperson told me that Roku intends to continue to sell the Roku LT, Roku HD, Roku 2 XD and Roku 2 XS devices alongside the new Roku 3 as well as the streaming stick.

The launch of the Roku 3 was a bit of an open secret: Not only had the device cleared the FCC last month, but a Roku customer service representative told gadget blogger Dave Zatz a few days ago that it was going to launch this week.

One feature still absent from the device is the ability to mirror content from PCs and mobile devices in an AirPlay-like fashion. We reported last week that Qualcomm has been touting Roku as a partner for its Miracast wireless streaming technology, with a Qualcomm spokesperson confirming that the hardware of the recently-introduced Roku Streaming Stick was Miracast-capable.

Roku didn’t want to comment about Miracast at the time and didn’t mention the technology in its Roku 3 press material. However, both the Streaming Stick and the new Roku 3 support Wi-Fi Direct, a technology Miracast is based on, so we shouldn’t be too surprised to see both get a Miracast update some time in the near future.

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Don’t like those contextual ads displayed next to your Facebook profile? Would you pay Facebook a monthly fee to get rid of them?

A patent application that Facebook filed in mid-2011 and that finally got published at the end of January suggests that the company may be willing to give up on ad space and offer users more flexibility with regards to the look of their profiles in exchange for cash.

Patent application 20130030987 is tellingly titled “Paid Profile Personalization,” and its description doesn’t exactly beat around the bush either:

“The user may select one or more social networking objects to replace advertisements or other elements that are normally displayed to visitors of the user’s profile page that are otherwise controlled by the social networking system. In particular embodiments, the user may edit elements on their profile page that are otherwise automatically generated and controlled in design and content by the social networking system. In particular embodiments, the user is billed on a recurring basis for profile personalization.”

The patent application lists CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself as well as Facebook Ads Product Director Gokul Rajaram and former Facebook Product Management Director Prashant Fuloria as inventors.

It doesn’t actually mention Facebook by name, and instead just refers to general social networking functionality — but both the language of the application and the accompanying drawings make it clear that this could one day very much become a Facebook monetization strategy.

Facebook, one has to remember, was seen as the anti-Myspace when it launched in 2004. Myspace gave users so many options to customize almost everything on their profiles to the point where many profiles made your eyes hurt. Facebook, on the other hand, tightly controlled the look of its profile pages with a unified layout across the entire site.

Now it may be willing to give up some of that control. One example specifically mentioned in the patent application is about those contextual ads on the right side of your timeline. Users could replace them with pictures of their car or other “favorite memories.”

Another example would allow users to get rid of the small about section that Facebook currently places under a user’s profile picture. Users would be offered the option to replace information like their hometown, gender and relationship status with a personalized status message.

From the patent application:

“For example, after receiving a large number of comments or “likes” on a particular status message, the user may receive a dialog box prompting the user with the text: “Would you like to personalize your profile with this status message for 10 credits a month?””

Even the list of people displayed as your friends may be up for grabs:

“For example, the user may select his closest friends for display, or his most attractive female friends as a method of self-promotion.”

To be fair, the existence of a patent application alone doesn’t necessarily mean that Facebook will actually follow through on these plans. However, Facebook has been under significant pressure by Wall Street to increase monetization – and efforts to do this through ads and sponsored messages have led to some backlash.

Earlier this week, New York Times blogger Nick Bilton suggested that the social network was displaying fewer of his posts to his followers in an effort to make paid posts more appealing. Facebook strongly rejected this suggestion – but it still goes to show how suspicious many Facebook users are of ads and promoted posts on the site. Giving these users a way to opt out of some of the advertising could be a smart move – and at the same time open up new revenue streams to Facebook.

The patent application for paid profile personalization suggests as much, stating:

“Permitting such functionality improves the overall user experience while maximizing revenue to the social networking system.”

Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment for this post.

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NBC’s Los Angeles-based anti-piracy unit sent out 3.9 million takedown notices for pirated content last year, according to a Wall Street Journal report from Monday. Three years earlier, NBC sent out just 427,000 such notices.

Piracy is exploding, and NBC is barely keeping up fighting back: That’s the message of the story, which details the work of the studio’s anti-piracy unit at length. Here’s the thing about that notion: It runs counter to some of the common narrative we’ve seen with regards to piracy in recent years. Piracy was supposed to be on the decline, we’ve heard time and again, with Netflix and others offering legal alternatives that are simply more convenient.

And there’s been numbers to back this notion up: In 2010, 19.2 percent of all residential U.S. Internet traffic during peak times was caused by P2P file sharing, according to traffic management company Sandvine. In the second half of 2012, that number was down to 12 percent. Netflix traffic, on the other hand, exploded during the same time.

So what’s going on here? Is piracy getting worse, is Netflix winning or is it all just business as usual? The answer probably depends on who you ask, but here are a few points worth considering:

• BitTorrent is still growing, just more slowly. Or in the words of Sandvine: “In absolute traffic level, BitTorrent has risen in volume by over 40%, but the application continues to exhibit a steady downward trend in overall traffic share.” That means people are still downloading growing amount of movies and TV shows via BitTorrent, but Netflix and others are just growing faster.
• BitTorrent’s not the only game in town anymore. Pirates have been using one-click file hosters and streaming sites hosted in countries with more legal flexibility for some time now, and streaming sites, especially, are starting to play an increasing role for TV show piracy.
• The world isn’t flat. Sandvine’s numbers in particular have shown a significant slowdown of file sharing in the U.S., but abroad, things look very different. The existence of release windows has in many countries led to a whole generation of TV viewers who watch U.S. movies and TV shows online, something that was echoed by the WSJ piece:

“Rick Cotton, general counsel of NBCUniversal, who oversees the company’s antipiracy unit, said piracy is a particularly big problem overseas. For example, he said that revenue for its Spanish home-entertainment unit declined 62% between 2009 and 2011, mainly because of piracy, and NBC shut it down.”

• Takedowns don’t equal downloads. That’s an important point that was somehow lost in the Wall Street Journal’s story. The number of takedown notices sent out by NBC isn’t exactly the best indicator for actual piracy levels. Sure, one could argue that the growing supply of pirated sources also indicates a growing level of demand for pirated content. However, the fleeting nature of piracy makes it hard to actually quantify any of this, in part because P2P file sharing works without hosted copies of content. It doesn’t really matter whether ten or a thousand sites link to the same torrent, shared by the same number of people — except if you want to send takedowns to all of these sites.
• Curious timing, anyone? The WSJ story remarked that studios hardly ever talk about their own anti-piracy efforts, but went on to say that “NBCUniversal gave the Wall Street Journal a rare peek inside the cat-and-mouse game its security team plays with suspected pirates.” Of course, one should note that NBC’s corporate parent Comcast just implemented a six strikes copyright enforcement scheme on its own broadband service last week. In light of that step, the story reads a bit like a plea for sympathy: Look, we had to step up our game because takedowns alone weren’t working!

So what’s the takeaway from this? For one, piracy is obviously alive and well, and it’s still a huge headache for studios like NBC. But Sandvine’s numbers also show that piracy’s growth can be contained, especially in markets with compelling legal alternatives. However, expanding these efforts is hard work that takes time, money and the will to change up some of Hollywood’s rules. Expect many more stories about piracy whack-a-mole in the meantime.

Image courtesy of Flicker user Steenbergs.

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Do you have broadband cap anxiety? Then better don’t buy a PS4 when it comes out later this year. Sony’s next generation gaming console will reportedly offer support for 4K video, and the company is looking to launch a 4K video download service to give consumers access to popular fare in the ultra-high-definition video format. There’s just one caveat: 4K downloads will weigh in at a whopping 100 GB a piece, according to a report from the Verge.

Granted, many details of Sony’s plans for 4K aren’t set in stone, in part because the company hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with details about the PS4. But Sony Electronics President and COO Phil Molyneux told the Verge’s Nilay Patel that a typical 4K movie will be “100 gigabytes and plus.”

Just a quick reminder for everyone about to bust out their calculators at home: Comcast’s current cap for most of its customers is 300 GB per month, which would get you just three 4K movies, and nothing else. AT&T’s Uverse cap is 250 GB per month. Both companies charge consumers that use more bandwidth $10 per 50 GB, which would bring the bandwidth costs of a single 4K movie after you’ve exhausted your cap to $20.

Of course, Sony may be able to somewhat reduce the size of its 4K movie downloads with advanced compression technologies — but you can only compress a video so much if your goal is to make it look great in 4K on a huge TV set. Throw in something like 3D, and you’re quickly going to hit the cap, no matter what.

Consider this, for example: Streaming a 1080p 3D movie from Netflix currently consumes 4.7 GB per hour. That’s a little more than 7 GB for a 90 minute flick. Now consider that 4K comes with four times as many pixels as 1080p, and some very basic back-of-the-envelope math would suggest that streaming 4K with a Netflix-like compression would lead to at least 28 GB of bandwidth consumption per movie.

So no matter how you look at it: 4K downloads and streams are going to push the envelope on broadband consumption — and could lead to many more consumers running afoul of their caps.

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The fourth season of Arrested Development, which is coming exclusively to Netflix in May, won’t disappoint fans, said actor David Cross in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter Thursday. If anything, producing the show for Netflix, which is going to release the entire season at once to facilitate binge viewing, helped show creator Mitch Hurwitz to push the creative envelope, he argued:

“What Mitch did and how he’s able to tell the story through the Netflix model — I think it’s going to redefine what television can be and stories can be and how they’re presented.”

Cross added that the result will be “historical,” and that it will be remembered for decades.

That sentiment was echoed by Hurwitz himself when he talked about working with Netflix at the Dive Into Media conference earlier this month. Being able to ignore ratings and build story lines that strech across a number of episodes will make for more interesting TV, Hurwitz argued: “We are encouraged to make a more interesting show as opposed to flattening it out.”

Image courtesy of Flickr user mecredis.

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YouTube just released an update to its iOS app that adds the ability to send videos directly from an (iPad or iPhone) to Google TV devices. The AirPlay-like feature was first rolled out as part of YouTube’s Android app in November, but YouTube has long said that it wants to bring the technology to additional platforms to allow frictionless sharing of content in the living room.

An announcement on Google+ read in part:

“Anyone on the same WiFi can join in to control the video or add videos to a playlist (Harlem Shake marathon anyone?). This feature is also available on the YouTube app for Android, and it’s coming to more TVs this year from LG, Sony, Panasonic and others.”

The updated YouTube app allows users to browse for videos and then initiate playback on the TV screen. A key part of this is discovery: The app automatically finds compatible devices within the same network – something that’s similar to the ease-of-use of Apple’s AirPlay. Of course, the big difference is that AirPlay limits video playback to the Apple TV, whereas YouTube wants to bring remote playback to as many devices as possible.

YouTube’s remote playback technology is in part based on DIAL, an open framework for second screen functionalities that YouTube has been developing in cooperation with Netflix. Google product manager Timbo Drayson told me in November that YouTube’s ultimate goal was “to move the whole industry forward” with this kind of technology.

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San Francisco-based ambient video startup Koozoo officially launched its mobile webcam network Thursday. At the core of Koozoo’s service is an iPhone app that allows users to share live streams of their surroundings.

Users can either opt to stream short snippets, or turn their old iPhone or iPod touch into a continuously streaming webcam. Kozoo’s ultimate goal is to provide a crowd-sourced live video layer to the world, allowing people to check out what’s going on right now at popular places.

I first wrote about Koozoo in December. Back then, I argued that Koozoo is part of a bigger trend to turn on the cameras of the world and bring ambient video to the masses:

“The company’s idea is unique and their use of otherwise obsolete technology charming; but the premise of Koozoo’s app goes much further. We all have tons of cameras surrounding us 24/7. Chances are, you’re looking at a screen with a built-in camera right now, and there might be another one in your pocket. And yet, we rarely use any of them – and if we do, we tend to record clips that often remain unwatched.”

With Koozoo open to everyone, we will now have a chance to see whether people are ready to embrace always-on ambient video.

Check out some screenshots of the Koozoo app below:

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Google has quietly started to switch some aspects of its premium content offerings to its open source WebM video format. Google’s WebM product manager John Luther explained during a developer Hangout Wednesday that YouTube and Google Play video rentals are now using WebM as opposed to Flash on Samsung’s Chromebooks. “We will be rolling that out on more Chrome OS devices and other platforms soon,” he added.

Luther went on to explain that Google did a lot of work on the security layer that delivers the videos encrypted to an HTML5 player. “As far as I know, we are the first to ever do that,” he said.

He added that there is a lot of interest from other content services to use this type of technology for their offerings as well because it would allow them to deliver video to a variety of platforms that support HTML5, as opposed to customizing solutions for each and every platform. “A lot of content providers really want to do HTML5,” he said.

WebM was open sourced by Google in 2010, and the company has been working on integrating the format into both real-time video communication as well as video delivery for sites like YouTube. It was meant to become an open, royalty-free alternative to the predominant H.264 video codec, but the overwhelming majority of videos are arguably still delivered in H.264. Luther replied Wednesday by saying that H.264 had the same kind of adoption curve, adding: “I’m very bullish on VP8 for the next … many years.”

Nonetheless, Google is already working on a successor to WebM’s VP8 video codec, which is unsurprisingly called VP9. “VP9 is starting to come together, and we are seeing some pretty amazing results,” reported Luther. “We are seeing huge imporvements over VP8. It’s kind of a gigantic leap forward.”

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Roku has teamed up with Broadcom to bring Miracast video mirroring to its video streaming devices. The technology will allow consumers to stream video and mirror a device’s desktop directly from their laptop or mobile phone to a Roku device, much in the same way AirPlay allows the mirroring of content from iOS devices on an Apple TV.

Broadcom first hinted at a cooperation with Roku at CES, and it highlighted the partnership at Mobile World Congress this week. Roku has been using Broadcom chips for some time, and in the past IT closely collaborated with the chip maker on the launch of its second-generation hardware, so it makes a lot of sense for Roku to add support for Broadcom’s Miracast as well.

Check out the video below for a demo of Miracast:

There is no official word yet on which devices are going to support Miracast. However, Roku’s recently introduced Streaming Stick already supports Wi-Fi Direct, the wireless networking standard at the core of Miracast’s technology that allows devices to directly communicate with each other.

I noticed that this would enable wireless video streaming when Roku first demoed the stick back in September, and Roku Director of Product Management Lloyd Klarke confirmed at the time that the company was working on bringing video mirroring to its devices. One can assume that Miracast will be added to the Streaming Stick through a firmware update, perhaps when Roku is rolling out version 5.0 of its software.

It’s unlikely that Miracast will work with Roku’s existing streaming boxes, but the company seems to be working on a hardware refresh already: Engadget spotted an FCC filing for a still-unanounced Roku 4200X player earlier this month, which likely supports Wi-Fi Direct as well.

Roku didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment for this article. A Broadcom spokesperson confirmed that the hardware used for Roku’s Streaming Stick is Miracast-capable, but declined to comment on Roku’s plans for the technology.

AirPlay-like wireless video streaming has emerged as a key strategy for connected device makers in recent months. In January, Netflix and YouTube launched a joint effort for an open second-screen protocol called DIAL, and just a few days ago, Samsung unveiled its very own media streaming device to mirror content from Samsung mobile devices on legacy TV sets.

Broadcom’s Miracast has added a number of partners in recent months, including Intel a nd Google, which integrated the technology into Android 4.2. However, hardware support for Miracast video mirroring is still somewhat spotty. For example, Miracast is supported by the Nexus 4, but not by the Nexus 7 or 10.

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Cablevision has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Viacom in New York Tuesday in an attempt to break up the bundle of channels that Viacom is selling the cable operator. Cablevision’s lawsuit alleges that Viacom is forcing the operator to carry 14 networks it and its customers don’t want, including MTV Hits and VH1 Classic.

The operator now wants to invalidate a deal the two parties struck just two months ago, and instead just get the good stuff. You know, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and maybe a little bit of MTV proper.

Cablevision sent out the following statement about the lawsuit:

“The manner in which Viacom sells its programming is illegal, anti-consumer, and wrong. Viacom effectively forces Cablevision’s customers to pay for and receive little-watched channels in order to get the channels they actually want. Viacom’s abuse of its market power is not only illegal, but also prevents Cablevision from delivering the programming that its customers want and that competes with Viacom’s less popular channels.”

A Viacom spokesperson sent us the following statement in response:

“At the request of distributors, Viacom and other programmers have long offered discounts to those who agree to provide additional network distribution. Many distributors take advantage of these win-win and pro-consumer arrangements. Reflecting the highly competitive cable programming business, these arrangements have been upheld by a number of federal courts and on appeal. Viacom will vigorously defend this transparent attempt by Cablevision to use the courts to renegotiate our existing two month old agreement.”

The lawsuit also alleges that Viacom threatened “massive financial penalties” if Cablevision refused to carry the 14 lesser-watched channels in question. The operator is asking for a permanent injunction that would bar Viacom from bundling its lesser-watched channels with its more popular core offerings.

On paper, this lawsuit is an interesting challenge to the cable bundle, which has been largely dictated by the broadcasters. Operators have long said that they would like to sell their customers smaller and more flexible bundles. Broadcasters have made this impossible by either directly bundling all their channels into one big package, or by other conditions that make sure operators can’t sell bundles without certain channels.

However, it’s unlikely that this lawsuit will be fought out until the bitter end. Because at the core, this is about something else: Broadcasters have in recent years significantly increased the carriage fees for their fares, leading to a number of nasty fights that left consumers without their favorite channels for weeks. In the end, content owners always won, and carriers caved in, agreeing to pay more before their customers have yet another reason to cut the cord.

Cablevision and Viacom negotiated a last-minute carriage agreement in late December. Details of that deal were not made public, but it’s obvious that Cablevision wasn’t happy with the outcome. Now it wants to get a better deal, and threatening the bundle is the biggest asset it has in this fight.

Image courtesy of Flickr user  nyghtowl.

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Lots of startups have tried to take the videos your friends share on Facebook and turn them into some kind of social video programming, but no one has quite done it like Social Studios. The Los Angeles and Israel-based startup has teamed up with actress Noa Tishby  to actually produce an Entertainment Tonight-like show that features videos, status updates and photos from your Facebook timeline.

Your Show, which launched Monday night, may not have the most compelling title, but the idea behind it is interesting: Social Studios CEO Anat Amibar told me Monday that she got the inspiration for the show when a colleague of hers bought a smart TV a little more than a year ago. They tried out the TV’s Facebook app and immediately thought that this concept can be done better. “Facebook on a smart TV is like an old mobile version of Facebook stretched to 55 inches,” Amibar said.

Check out the company’s video demo:

At the core of the company’s offering is a Facebook app that takes data from your news feed, mixes it with pre-produced segments featuring Tishby, and spits it out as a video lasting around seven minutes. Videos shared by your friends are teased, and Amibar told me that viewers always have an option to watch the entire clip, or jump to a post to dive in deeper.

She also said that the company has already recorded dozens of clips with Tishby to give the show a different look and feel every day, and added: “Of course, the content itself is different every day.”

So how does watching Your Show feel like? I got to play with the latest episode, personalized to my news feed, on Monday, and have to say that I couldn’t quite make up my mind about it. The novelty factor was fun, sure, but I can also see this getting annoying pretty soon. And do I really need a human host if all she does is segue in vague terms to some photo my cousin posted online?

However, I could see this kind of programming become part of something bigger. What if the show actually presented you with real entertainment news, only to mix in some personal news every now and then? Or what if you got a news program that’s interrupted by curated hyperlocal videos?

As for Social Studios, Amibar told me that the company is already thinking about additional show formats, but she wouldn’t tell me what those will be about. She did reveal that her team is currently working on an iPad app, and that there are plans to bring the Your Show experience to smart TVs, possibly with help from outside partners.

This story was corrected 9:45pm to clarify that Noa Tishby is not an employee of Social Studios, but rather an advisor to the company and contributor to the show.

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Mobile and tablet video viewing has seen huge growth in 2012, but it’s still a small piece of the overall cake: That’s one of the key takeaways from Ooyala’s 2012 Global Video Index report, which the video platform provider published late Monday.

Based on hours viewed, tablets saw their usage grow 110 percent in 2012. Mobile phone video viewing grew 87 percent in that same time period. However, both device classes together still only accounted for 8.25 percent of all video viewing hours in December of 2012, compared to 4.15 percent at the beginning of the year. In comparison: Desktop viewing was still just shy of 90 percent in December.

There are a few things worth pointing out: The data for the report comes from Ooyala’s 150 biggest clients. Ooyala’s client roster includes names like Rolling Stone, ESPN and Vice (and yes, also GigaOM, check the bottom of this post for a disclaimer), and it claims to reach 200 million monthly unique viewers.

However, the company doesn’t have any relations with Netflix or YouTube, which are two of the biggest video traffic sources on the internet. That means that Ooyala’s data may be more reflective of the way we use video from big web publishers, as opposed to video services like Netflix.

Still, even with that caveat, it’s interesting to see how mobile is growing, and when: Ooyala reported a temporary spike of 73 percent for tablets on Christmas day alone.

Disclosure: GigaOM has a commercial relationship with Ooyala for the delivery of its video content.

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LG is buying HP’s troubled mobile operating system webOS, according to reports from CNET and the Verge. However, the company doesn’t want to put the system to use in any of its phones: Instead, LG plans to use webOS to power its smart TVs. That could be bad news for Google, which has been cooperating with LG on getting Google TV into the hands of consumers.

The deal between LG and HP includes the webOS source code, documentation, websites and what’s remaining of the webOS team. Cloud components such as the webOS app store technology as well as all of the patents will remain with HP, but are going to be licensed to LG. There’s no word on the purchase price.

Most of LG’s smart TVs have been powered by the company’s own app platform, which was originally called NetCast and has been ripe for a refresh for some time. The company also has an ongoing partnership with Google to sell Google TV devices, and in fact has been expanding this partnership in recent months.

LG started to sell two high-end Google TV sets in 2012. In 2013, it will come out with a total of seven models. But consider how LG CTO Skott Ahn announced these models at the company’s 2013 press conference:

“We will continue to serve our Android fans with an extended lineup of Google TV.”

In other words: LG’s Google TVs are, at least for now, niche products for enthusiasts, and LG apparently doesn’t think that will change anytime soon. That’s why the company is looking to replace its own smart TV operating system with webOS, instead of relying 100 percent on Google TV.

That’s bad news for Google TV, but it also shows how Google’s living room play has been changing over recent months. Google originally courted a number of big TV manufacturers for Google TV, with the idea of having the system embedded in a wide variety of TV sets. Sony was one of the first to make Google TVs, LG came on board for the second generation, and Samsung seemed to be ready to go Google as well by early 2012.

A year later, things look very different: Samsung’s Google TV never materialized. Sony stopped selling Google TV sets and instead opted for a companion box. And now, LG is buying its own smart TV operating system.

Does that mean Google TV is doomed? Hardly. The platform has seen some significant adoption in recent months: Asus, Netgear, Hisense and TCL all showed off new Google TV devices at CES, and WD is apparently working on its own Google TV box as well. Earlier this month, a total of 20 hardware partners came together in Seoul to collaborate on the future of Google TV.

But it looks like Google TV settling into a role as a companion box solution, as opposed to a default smart TV choice for the big manufacturers.

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Gracenote officially unveiled its developer program at Music Hack Day San Francisco, giving developers access to a number of APIs and SDKs as well as its mobile client to jump-start the development of new music apps.

Developers can make use of these resources to identify music through audio fingerprinting, access additional metadata about music and even retrieve the cover art for CDs. Gracenote’s music database contains information about a total of 130 million songs, which are classified by more than 2,000 musical genres.

“The company has a history of supporting innovation,” Gracenote President Stephen White said during a phone interview Thursday. Gracenote’s original CD database used to offer developers free access for non-commercial applications, but White said that Gracenote moved away from some of these principles when the company got acquired by Sony. Now Gracenote wants to reclaim its place in the music tech developer ecosystem.

Gracenote’s developer program soft launched at the Stockholm Music Hack Day last month, and 300 developers have already signed up to make use of the company’s resources. One of them is an iOS app called Stream That Song that uses Gracenote’s music recognition to identify a song that’s playing in the background (think Shazam) and then adds it to a user’s Spotify or Deezer library.

Resources of the program are limited to non-commercial app development. White argued that this gives developers a chance to start working on their app and apply for a commercial license once it’s proven to be successful. “There’s no need to strike licenses before you start working,” he said.

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BitTorrent is launching a new tool to send large files from person to person: The software, dubbed SoShare, allows users to share file bundles of up to 1 TB for free. SoShare combines BitTorrent file transfer technology with cloud caching, making it possible for recipients to access the files even when the sender is offline.

SoShare keeps copies of files available for up to 30 days, unless a user opts to take them down beforehand. Users need to install a plugin to upload or download files, but it’s not necessary to register in order to access shared files.

BitTorrent launched a first alpha version of SoShare a year ago under the name Share. While testing Share, it discovered that photographers, videographers and musicians were most in need for this kind of service. “No one is designing media delivery for the media industry. We saw an opportunity to build a reliable solution for this user group,” said Catherine Meek, Director of Product Management at BitTorrent, adding:

“There are 3.34 million Americans employed in creative industries. They work in large file formats – photo, audio, film. And their work is dependent on being able to send and deliver these large file formats to collaborators and clients. Right now, doing so is costly and difficult.”

Speaking of costs: SoShare is absolutely free during its public beta test, but a BitTorrent spokesperson told me that the company may be looking at different options to monetize the service down the line.

SoShare is one of a number of new products developed by BitTorrent as parts of its BitTorrent Labs effort. Just last month, BitTorrent announced a new file syncing app that competes with traditional syncing services like Dropbox and Sugarsync.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Carlos Maya.

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WD may be the next company to jump on the Google TV bandwagon: The company started to look for a software architect for “Android based IP set top boxes” late last year, and the job offer suggests that WD may be looking to replace its existing line-up of streaming boxes with Android-based products. A WD spokesperson declined to comment when contacted for this story.

The job description includes the following snippet:

“Work with internal and external teams to architect, design, develop, and deploy IP set top boxes based on the Android operating system. This would include Android TV and Google TV solutions.”

It goes on to list the following requirements:

• Architect an interactive, set top box framework on top of the Android platform
• Create an app centric architecture for 10 foot user interfaces
• Develop specifications and APIs for TV platform framework
• Integrate premium services into platform
• Design framework to support playback and management of videos, photos, music over both local and wide area networks
• Design framework to coordinate 2nd screen functionality with other WD teams

Google has signed on a number of new partners supporting the Google TV platform in recent months. At CES, companies showing off Google TV products included Netgear, Haier, Hisense, TCL, LG, Sony, Vizio and Asus. And just last week, some 20 partners came together in Seoul for a closed-door meeting to plot the future of Google TV.

WD has been in the market for streaming boxes for a couple of years. It currently sells three different products to bring online video services to the TV: The WD TV Live combines streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus with support for local files. The WD TV Live Hub adds an internal 1 TB hard drive to the mix, and the newly-introduced WD TV Play offers a simpler UI and a clearer focus on online services.

The WD TV Live Hub was first introduced in late 2010, followed by the WD TV Live in late 2011. Both could be up for a refresh this year, based on the typical release cycles for these kinds of devices.

Check out our review of the WD TV Play, which came out this month, below:

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Intel may only have fessed up to building its own TV service this week, but the offering is already being tested by several hundred employees of the company. Intel Media boss Erik Huggers, whose unit is in charge of the service, told me on the sidelines of the Dive into Media conference in Dana Point, California this week that the friends and family test began in recent weeks, and that it was one of the reasons for breaking his silence on the project now.

Huggers said on stage at the conference Tuesday that his company is building a set-top box that will be fueled by a service that combines live TV, video on demand and a catch-up component  similar to the BBC’s iPlayer. U.K. viewers can use the iPlayer to watch anything that aired on the BBC within the last week, and Huggers was in charge of launching the project for the broadcaster. “American audiences have not yet experienced a proper catch-up service,” he told me.

Intel Media is preparing to launch the service in the U.S. before the end of the year through a mix of retail partnerships and direct sales to consumers. A lot of details are still under wraps, including the name of the service, the exact programming available, as well as its eventual price. However, Huggers said on Tuesday that his goal was neither complete unbundling nor undercutting cable. “We are not a value play,” he said, adding: “We are a quality play.”

There was some backlash Tuesday about Intel’s announcement, namely that the device would come with a camera that would be able to identify viewers and service personalized ads. In talking to me, Huggers tried to put it in perspective by comparing it to other consumer electronics products, asking: “How many millions of homes have a Kinect device?” Of course, one could argue that people might be much less accepting of the Kinect if it was being used to identify individual users and relay that information to Microsoft.

Intel Media is run as an independent unit within Intel, overseen by a separate board, and many folks within Intel didn’t even know what the unit was up to until this week. That separation also included a lot of outside hires, and even some cooperation with small, external companies, as we first reported in January. “We are not following the playbook of Intel,” acknowledged Huggers during our interview. “We are trying to do something that is rather left field for Intel.”

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