Gizmodo is all giddy about Vudu allowing its users to extend a downloaded movie’s expiration date (typically you have 24 hours to watch a movie after you hit play) by forking over an extra $2 for HD content and $1 for standard definition. Giz says, “The option is available for a week after the flick expires, and then you have another 30 days to start watching, and 24-48 hours after you hit play. Downside is you can only extend a movie once.”

I don’t know about you guys, but my take is that services like Vudu should charge people a one time fee for downloading a single flick and then allow people to watch their movie selection as often as they want for a week. If Vudu wants to compete with brick and mortar stores, which generally allow members to keep a movie disc rental for about a week (and has no restriction on how many times you view it), it seems like competing digital services should do the same to winner over customers.

According to Time Warner Cable’s Chief Executive, Glen Britt, speaking at the Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York, the company is planning on releasing a network enabled TV set-top box, along with a specialized wireless cable modem, that will give people access to “Internet TV.” No specific details on how the set-top/modem combo will accomplish this, or who the partner providers may be, but subscribers can look forward to getting previously untapped content directly to their TV without the need of a PC and be able to easily network their other Internet enabled devices. Britt suggests that it will probably take two years to popularize the tech to his mainstream consumer base.

It’s been revealed that Amazon will soon be launching a new streaming video service in addition to its current service offering. The buzz from Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, is that the service will operate on a pay-per-view basis.

Unlike their other video service, Amazon Unbox, the new service will not require the user to download a rented or purchased video. Instead, the new on-demand service will stream the Amazon video instantly. No word yet on whether the new streaming service will still rely on the same proprietary Windows XP/Vista desktop player or if the service will play videos through a browser, which would increase Amazon’s customer base by including Mac and Linux users.

When this new service debuts, Amazon will enter into a market already dominated by rival services like NetFlix and free services such as Hulu. [via]

Social networking technologies, web mashups, multicore and hybrid processors and cloud computing are amongst the ten most disruptive technologies[1] that will shape the information technology (IT) landscape over the next five years, according to research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc. MORE »

Automated Home reports that Apple has selected home automation technology company iControl to receive part of the $100 million in Venture Capital set aside for the iFund. The new Home Security 2.0 product from iControl will be ported and expanded to operate on the iPhone.

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So the public finally got a glimpse of what people may soon be seeing in the next version of Windows, dubbed presently, Windows 7 at the All Things D conference. Overall, it’s a big departure from the standard UI we’re all accustomed to seeing. The main difference being multi-touch & touch gesture navigation, migrated from Microsoft’s Surface platform, and a revamped application dock. Expected time of arrival: 18 months from now. Gizmodo and the Windows Vista Team Blog have a few extra details.

D-Link put out a teaser press release today on an upcoming product called the D-Link DXN-221 Coax Ethernet Adapter Kit that will be available in the third quarter of this year (MSRP $199.99). The MoCA certified kit is designed specifically to handle HD media streaming, music sharing, and multi-player gaming data transport needs over coaxial cabling. The DXN-221 includes two Coaxial F-type bridging adapters that connect to your intended device and your network router. Users can also purchase additional adapters individually (DXN-220 | MSRP $109.99) for other rooms and even connect a network switch (sold separately) to an adapter to support multiple Ethernet equipped devices. Unfortunately, there’s no hard data on what the transfer rates actually are, but we do know the adapters operate in the 800-1500MHz range, so there is no interference with other products such as cable TV transmissions. MORE »

So you want to use Apple TV to surf the web like in the days of WebTV? Well, you can always hack it yourself. That idea scares you to death? Well, you can plunk down $60 for the aTV Flash from Apple Core. This flash drive will make all the changes that the hacks will, without voiding your warranty or leaving you a quivering blob of nerves. Simply plug in the drive to your Apple TV with TAKE 2 software and the installation wizard walks you through the rest. MORE »

There has been a lot of buzz lately surrounding the streaming of Netflix’s Watch Now movies to your HTPC and Xbox 360. With just a small registry tweak, you can now watch those movies on unlimited machines. MORE »

Arcosoft Inc. has launched a new edition to their TeVeStream product line, TeVeStream CaptionSeeker. Back in April of this year we brought you the news of their CaptionSaver software product that will convert recordings made with Windows Media Center to WMV and SAMI. In doing so, captions are preserved with the recording instead of being lost. The new CaptionSeeker software allows you to index and search recorded media like never before. MORE »