Hulu Adds ABC Content
Hulu is taking another step in becoming the online hub for TV content with the announced availability of content from Disney’s ABC on the online video site. Initially announced a few months ago, the first episodes from one of ABC’s shows are now live on the site. The first snippet is made up of several episodes of the network’s popular primetime drama Grey’s Anatomy with other shows coming soon.
“Today marks the official start of a new relationship: the launch of ABC content on Hulu. Things kick off with five episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, the primetime drama set at Seattle Grace Hospital, where surgical interns try to navigate the challenges of romance and friendship as they scrub in for complicated medical cases,” Rebecca Harper wrote on the Hulu blog. “We have more ABC titles on the way, too,” she added.
The growing popularity of Hulu prompted Disney, which owns ABC, to join the site in April this year with each of the three big networks now owning a reported 27 percent of it. Since the announcement though things remained quiet and only today has ABC content become available. The network plans to add even more content in the coming two weeks, following the Grey’s Anatomy episodes with shows like Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Scrubs, and I Survived a Japanese Game Show. Read more
NBA 2K Goes Online and Moves to China
2K Sports has always held the second place in the sports games race, which has been dominated by EA Sports. So, it needs to offer some pretty good and innovative concepts in order to gain ground on the dominating force of the market.
One such innovative idea has just been announced, as the company is saying that NBA 2K10, its fully-licensed basketball simulator, is being brought to China and the larger South East Asian market via a partnership with Tencent Holdings. And as if this wasn’t enough, the game is also being offered online.
Ben Feder, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Take Two, declared that “I’m pleased to announce our first strategic move in what is now the fastest growing online game market in the world. Given the universal appeal of sports, specifically NBA basketball, we believe that our partnership with Tencent to make NBA 2K Online is the perfect entry point for Take Two into this market. NBA 2K has revolutionized the basketball gaming genre and we are confident that its best-in-breed pedigree can be fully leveraged in China with the support of our valued partners at Tencent and the NBA.” Read more
Google to Allow Free Music Downloads in China
On Monday, Google Inc. has announced that it has begun offering free and legal downloads of licensed music on its Chinese servers, after the American company reached an agreement with the four largest music producers and distributors in the world – Sony Music, Warner Music, EMI and Universal Music. Google will pay for the songs by sharing some of its advertising revenues with the music companies, one of the first attempts made by the music industry to cash in on the large Chinese market.
In China, the most popular search engine is not the leader of the market, but trails behind giant Baidu.com Inc., which has the most visitors and registered searches per day. The President of Google for greater China, Lee Kai-Fu, said that one of the main reasons why the company lagged behind Baidu was the fact that Google offered no music downloads. “We are offering free, high quality and legal downloads. We were missing one piece – we didn’t have music,” Lee stated. Read more
NBC Olympics Coverage on Windows Media Center
The 2008 Summer Olympics takes place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24. With a free download service1 called NBC Olympics On The Go,2 you can catch up on TV coverage from NBC Sports. Select your favorite sports and NBC Olympics On The Go will automatically download the right events to your Windows Media Center-based PC. You can watch your selected events in up to HD quality, even when offline, and you can pause, rewind, or fast-forward the video.
Download NBC Olympics On The Go
To get NBC Olympics On The Go, start Windows Media Center and scroll to the Online Media menu. You’ll see an NBC Olympics graphic. Read more
ZoHo Online Office
Have you seen the price of a decent office suite? Why bother when you can get everything you want for free, and much more besides. ZoHo is the latest online office suite to hit the headlines and this one really piles it on thick with a very well specified word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, Wiki tool, note taker, groupware mail client, project management program, CRM (Customer Relations Management) software, web conferencing, online database, organiser and chat facility. There’s also a website monitor, viewer and lots more besides and it’s all free.
Love the Web or Love on the Web?
Being single for the Holidays ultimately sucks as many know. It brings that emptiness feeling of turning your head when you’re passing under a bouquet of mistletoe, and there’s nobody there to kiss, that just wears you down and leaves you with a bitter memory of what should have been the most joyous time of the year.
Enter the online dating sites that match you with somebody in your vicinity, who is also single and perhaps it won’t be so sad after all. It won’t be a match made in heaven, but it will be a match nevertheless. The popularity of these sites is soaring around the Holidays, for the reason I said above, and they are ready to welcome the traffic. After all, they make a living out of it.
The sites vary in what they offer and in many aspects, so I’ll just write about some of the more popular ones and their features; so here it goes: the most interesting one I’ve found is True.com that niches on safety in online dating. What it does is that it screens its members and boots off those that have criminal backgrounds. Not only that, but it also turns them in to the Feds and to their state parole boards. How about that? Oh, not to mention the married folks that pose online as singles who also get the boot. Read more
Top Taches Online
It’s been a while since featured a really pointless Top Tip, so here’s one, that’s also a lot of fun. It’s called petmoustach.com and the idea is you upload a portrait then use the tools on the website to create an eye-catching, soup-straining lip cosy. You can choose the colour style and shape, and use the Tonic, razor and wax tools to trim it into shape and apply a few finishing touches, and throughout you’ll be regaled with some lively western banjo music. When you’ve finished you can save the image, so if you’ve ever wondered what you, or your nearest and dearest would look like with a wild walrus or handsome handlebar, give it a try y’hear, y’all…
