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Buzz Out Loud 825: Go toward the light...It's got Wi-Fi!

Apologies in advance for the slightly dirty word toward the end of the show. Now you'll all listen, won't you? In other news, Ford wants to make sure your kids don't speed, that they wear their seat belts, and that they intensely hate your guts. And Google wants to make sure you don't send mail when you're too drunk to do math. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 825

A.M.D. to split into two operations http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/technology/07chip.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10059766-92.html

Warner … Read more

Hulu to stream presidential debates live

Update at 5:55 a.m. PDT: Additional TV stations airing the debate live have been added.

Last year, it was all about "remixing" debate footage. But this year, it's about seeing it live.

Video content hub Hulu has secured the rights to stream the remaining two presidential debates live on the Web. The next debate is set for Tuesday night.

The news was first reported by PaidContent that Hulu has launched Election '08 hub for the live debate, as well as past election-related footage. That includes footage from political satire talk shows The Daily Show and … Read more

It's the product, stupid: branding firms and industrial design

In a great essay for Core 77 ("Stepmothers of Invention: Branding Firms Enter the Industrial Design Fray"), Carl Alviani describes a trend that has been emerging for a while now: Not only do digital agencies like R/GA enter the branding domain, branding, marcom, and advertising firms also round out their services portfolio by adding product design capabilities. Alviani expects that "a lot more branding firms will be hiring product designers over the next few years, just as ID firms hired lots of media and identity specialists a decade back (and continue to do)." John Winsor … Read more

Online TV viewing on the rise

Americans are watching more video on their PCs via broadband connections than ever before, according to a recent report published by market research firm ABI Research.

Over the past year, the number of U.S. consumers who had watched a video streamed through their browser doubled over the past year, going from 32 percent a year ago to 63 percent today. ABI analysts attribute the increase to more rich content available on the Web as well as faster speed Internet connections.

While sites like YouTube that offer short clips of user generated videos have gotten a lot of attention over … Read more

Source: Universal Music Group plans 'Hulu-like' site

UPDATE 10:10 a.m. Friday: to include YouTube's response

Universal Music Group, the largest of the major recording companies, plans to launch a "Hulu-like" video portal, a source close to the company told CNET News.

The new venture would offer professionally produced music videos as well as other original programming that features the label's artists. The Killers, Mariah Carey, Kanye West, and Amy Winehouse are just a few of the company's acts. A Universal spokesman declined to comment.

Doug Morris, Universal's chairman and CEO, wants to squeeze more revenue out of music videos … Read more

Hulu cleans its room

Hulu announced Tuesday that it now has more than 900 series and movie titles in its library from over 100 content providers. So in conjunction, the video hub--started as a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp.--has done some cleanup work.

Hulu now has a "Channels" option where you can sort through its programming by genre, from "comedy" to "reality" to "anime." The site is working to beef up the latter in order to attract Japanese animation's millions of Web-savvy fans. There's also a "Web Originals" … Read more

First impressions: Sling Media SlingCatcher

Last week, the folks from Sling Media stopped by to give us a hands-on look at the SlingCatcher. Originally due in 2007, the long-delayed product looks to be finally ready to ship this fall. (The video below is Molly Wood's preview of the SlingCatcher when it was reintroduced in January 2008.)

As the name suggests, the SlingCatcher is a hardware version of the SlingPlayer software that's available for various devices. Connect the SlingCatcher to your bedroom TV, for instance, and you can access the live TV and recorded programs from your living room DVR (which, in turn, is connected to a Slingbox).

So, instead of being limited to the small-ish screens of a laptop (or even a mobile phone), you're back to watching TV on...a TV.

The SlingCatcher can access any Slingbox that you've added to your Sling.com account, but the same caveats apply to it as with the software SlingPlayers. Most notably, only one client can access a given Slingbox at a time.

Bandwidth constraints apply (streaming within a home network generally looks great, but remote Slingbox resolution will be limited by upstream bandwidth at the source location). And the Slingbox monopolizes the AV source to which its connected (if you log in to your DVR and start playing Desperate Housewives while somebody's in the living room watching football, they'll suddenly see Eva Longoria instead of Eli Manning. … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 810: A Big Mac or a Zune?

If both of them get you free Wi-Fi, which one would you rather have? Also in the news today, Google's Street View team doesn't care for a little turnabout, the patent process gets smarter thanks to the Web, and IMDB is now delivering movies and TV. Yeah, really. Maybe we're the only ones who thought it was weird. With special guest, Leo Laporte!

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 810

IMDb now serves full-length videos http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10042280-26.html

Everyone but Apple joins new 'buy once, play anywhere' group http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080915-everyone-but-apple-joins-new-buy-once-play-anywhere-group.html… Read more

IMDb now serves full-length videos

It would make sense that IMDb, the leading provider of movie and TV information on the Internet, would offer video on its Web site. After all, IMDb is a huge point of discovery of new movies for a lot of people, so the instant gratification of streaming that new movie that you just found is a big draw.

Previously, IMDb only offered videos in the form of clips and trailers. On Monday, IMDb took a step in the right direction and launched a selection of 6,000 full length films and TV episodes, available for streaming right now. All users … Read more