Microsoft, Netflix and some very good news for couch potatoes |
Register here for our next TechFlash Live networking event, March 23, featuring an expert panel discussing the future of online advertising.
Microsoft, Netflix and some very good news for couch potatoes
Yeah, sure, Microsoft impressed people with its "Project Natal" motion-sensing technology for video games this week. And the company's new Bing search engine got lots of attention, lighting up the Space Needle and everything. But the company's best news of the week, without question, was a change in the way it will deliver Netflix on-demand movies over its Xbox 360 game console.
The ability to stream Netflix movies is one of the most popular features of Microsoft's Xbox Live online service. However, as it's currently set up, the system prevents users from updating their on-demand Netflix queues from the Xbox 360 itself.
It's not exactly the promise of the digital age fulfilled. But starting in a couple months, it will change.
At the E3 video-game convention earlier this week, Microsoft said it would update the technology in August to allow people to add titles to their Netflix instant queues from the console. It may have gotten overlooked it in the crush of news this week, but it's worthy of note.
It's not the biggest advance in history of technology, but in terms of practical impact, it's a big improvement. In my case, for example, the current situation means I need to get up and go to to a completely different part of the house, wake up my computer, browse to the Netflix site, find what I want to watch, add it to my queue, then go back to the living room and select it on my console.
Suffice it to say I'm eagerly awaiting that August update.
About Todd Bishop
Todd Bishop is co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash. He has covered Microsoft and the technology industry for more than five years, most recently as a daily newspaper reporter and blogger based in Seattle.
READ FULL BIOGRAPHYRecent Sponsor Posts
Seattle University Software Engineering
Chinwe Okeke (MSE’08) pursued her graduate degree while working as a developer and technical analyst for the Boeing Company. She picked the SU-MSE program for small class sizes and real world learning opportunities offered through the academic service-learning and capstone projects.
The MSE program at Seattle University is geared for working professionals with classes offered in the evenings. The program builds upon the computing experience of its students and offers courses in a variety of technical and management areas of software engineering, with an emphasis on teamwork and a disciplined approach to problem solving.
Marchex is one of Seattle’s largest ad technology companies with 300+ employees providing call and click based performance marketing products, and managing over $100m in ad budget for tens of thousands of advertisers. Our customers range from local businesses to the Fortune 500.
Our talented and creative product engineering group is hiring.
If you are an innovative software design engineer interested in solving difficult problems at scale, across a wide array of technologies from Lucene to Hadoop to Asterisk and SIP then we’d love to hear from you!
Apply now.
Technology Tax Planning – Did You Take The Deduction?
Technology companies require professional advisors who can assist in all aspects of the business. The BDO Technology Practice provides a full range of services tailored to help address the changing needs of domestic and international companies. In addition to core audit and tax services, BDO professionals can assist technology companies with:
· Revenue recognition
· Business combination accounting
· R&D tax credits
· Compensation and benefits
· Business valuations
Backed by 38 national offices and an international network in 110 countries, we have the domestic and global footprint to serve growing technology companies. Contact sphilpott@bdo.com (audit partner), mreeves@bdo.com (audit partner), psmith@bdo.com (tax partner), tzambito@bdovaluation.us.com (valuation), tfiscus@bdo.com, Director, 206.624.2020
Job Listings
- Software Development Engineer - Display Advertising
- Business Services Company
- Director Enterprise Architecture - IT
- Starbucks Coffee Company
- Senior Program Manager - External - 713665
- Microsoft Corporation
- Quality Improvement Specialist
- HCR ManorCare
- Senior Software Development Engineer - eXtreme Computing Group - 708427
- Microsoft Corporation
