Audio and video

Grooveshark has been on a roller coaster ride at the Google Play store.

The Android music app is once again no longer available through Google Play after being allowed back into the store earlier this week.

The app has been through this routine before -- initially debuting on Google Play, then getting kicked off more than a year ago, reappearing, and now again missing in action.

Why the back-and-forth hijinks?

The Grooveshark app lets you freely listen to online music stations based on your favorite genres. A special feature called Grooveshark Anywhere allows you to play any song you choose … Read more

BERLIN -- Sony announced a lower-cost $4.99 monthly option for Music Unlimited, a plan it hopes will increase adoption of the streaming-music service.

Sony announced its Sony Entertainment Network's $9.99-per-month music plan a year ago at the IFA consumer electronics show, letting customers tap into a library of 16 million songs using personal computers, PS3 game consoles, and Android devices. This year at the show, it announced the cheaper alternative, which offers the same library but which doesn't work on mobile devices.

"It's going to bring new customers in, that's for sure," … Read more

Google has won an interesting patent related to online video.

Dubbed "Automatic large scale video object recognition," the patent describes a method by which the company's technology will identify objects in a video without the need for the user's input. So, if a person is taking video of a globally famous landmark like the Eiffel Tower or a product like the Porsche 911s, Google's technology might be able to identify it.

In order to determine what different objects are -- both famous and seemingly inconsequential, like a chair -- Google will have an "object … Read more

Popular music-streaming service Spotify is expanding to Canada, a new report claims.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that it has obtained a filing made by Spotify Technologies, the music service's holding company, claiming that it will launch its service to Canada. In addition, the company says that it will expand into "countries in Asia and South America."

According to the Journal, Spotify filed its plans in a management note in April. That note became public this month.

Spotify made its name in Europe, offering a streaming-music service that customers in the U.S. were dying … Read more

Netflix can now count 1 million subscribers in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Membership ranks hit that number just seven months after the video service debuted in the two countries. Combined, that earned them a record for the fastest growth among all regions worldwide, according to Netflix.

Users are spending more time catching TV shows and movies online, says a YouGov survey commissioned by Netflix. A full 10 percent of people in the U.K. spend at least two hours each day watching their favorite shows via the Internet.

Comedy and drama are the top hits among Netflix members in … Read more

iPhone, iPad, and Android users looking for the new Seinfeld Web series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" can now watch it in their car via Crackle's latest mobile app.

Crackle is a free app for iOS and Android that offers a tiny selection of movies and TV shows. We're not talking Netflix or Amazon here, but there are some interesting choices.

Its movie selection includes Monty Python's "And Now for Something Completely Different," "The Fifth Element," "Groundhog Day," and the unforgettable "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living … Read more

For more than three years, Skype has worked to improve online audio through involvement in a project now called Opus. But perversely, Skype's new owner, Microsoft, is undermining Opus just as a Web standards effort is poised to carry it into the mainstream.

Opus is an audio "codec" -- technology to encode and decode media streams for efficient transmission over the Internet or storage on computing equipment. Opus backers besides Microsoft's Skype division include Google, Opera, and Mozilla.

Opus has a lot of potential to improve online audio, something that's increasingly important as more communications … Read more

Hulu has found itself in some legal hot water over a law that was enacted long before its business model was even conceived.

According to The New York Times, Hulu has been hit with a lawsuit filed in a California federal court over claims that it violates the 1988 law, the Video Privacy Protection Act. The Times, which obtained the court documents, says unidentified plaintiffs have called on the law in their suit, charging Hulu with violating their privacy by allegedly sharing their viewing history with advertisers.

Though it's not often cited nowadays, the Video Privacy Protection Act was … Read more

Looking for your favorite movie or TV show online but not sure where to find it? Verizon's Viewdini can pull that rabbit out of the hat.

Previously available as a mobile app for Android only, Viewdini recently made its debut on Apple's iOS platform. Through the free app, you can search for any movie or TV show. In return, Viewdini points you to Web sites where you can watch, rent, or buy it.

Viewdini covers the usual suspects such as Netflix, iTunes, and Hulu Plus. But it also searches ABC, Crackle, Funny or Die, Vimeo, and Verizon's … Read more