Thursday - July 2, 2009
The final day of reckoning in the four-year battle between TiVo and EchoStar has been pushed out a little further. Late Wednesday evening, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted EchoStar's request to stay a contempt order imposed by the U.S. District Court the day before, until its appeal can be heard. The two companies have been locked in a dispute over allegations that EchoStar, through its Dish Network, infringed on TiVo's pause, rewind and live record patents. In 2006, TiVo's assertion of that claim was upheld.
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Thursday - July 2, 2009
The world's largest commercial satellite was launched into space Wednesday, with a mission to provide phone service to cellular "dead zones" in North America. The satellite, owned by TerreStar of Reston, Va., blasted off from Kourou in the South American territory of French Guiana shortly before 2 p.m. Eastern time, carried through pink clouds.
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Tuesday - June 30, 2009
Cable TV operators won a key legal battle against Hollywood studios and television networks on Monday as the Supreme Court declined to block a new digital video recording system that could make it even easier for viewers to bypass commercials. The justices declined to hear arguments on whether Cablevision Systems' remote-storage DVR system would violate copyright laws.
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Wednesday - June 24, 2009
The cable industry's new rallying cry may indeed be "TV Everywhere," as announced Wednesday by Comcast and Time Warner executives. However, TV arguably is already everywhere -- on the Web, on your smartphone, on your Xbox 360. Perhaps what Brian Roberts and Jeff Bewkes really meant to announce was "Pay TV Everywhere."
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Wednesday - June 3, 2009
The chief executive of DirecTV is in talks to return to News Corp. to be Rupert Murdoch's second in command. Chase Carey is in "serious negotiations" to rejoin to News Corp., and talks have been going on for a while, but there's no set title for him yet, according to a person with knowledge of the negotiations.
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Friday - May 8, 2009
Lawyers for Ohio accused a pair of satellite TV companies Thursday of concocting a wild theory of business law and shopping it from court to court to escape a state sales tax imposed on their industry in 2003. In a strongly worded brief to the Ohio Supreme Court, the state argues that DirecTV and EchoStar Satellite have no legal grounds for escaping the tax.
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Thursday - April 30, 2009
Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV provider, said Thursday that first-quarter earnings rose by 6 percent as the company signed up throngs of new customers for its digital cable, phone and high-speed Internet services. The Philadelphia-based company earned $772 million, or 27 cents per share.
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Thursday - April 16, 2009
Bowing to mounting public and political pressure, Time Warner Cable said Thursday it was shelving plans in four markets to charge customers based on how much Internet traffic they generate. However, tests of metered billing will continue in Beaumont, Texas. Consumers now pay based on their download speeds, but they typically face no limits in how much video or music they consume.
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Thursday - April 16, 2009
If video killed the radio star, than Internet video may signal the demise of flat-rate broadband pricing. At least that's the suspicion of public advocacy groups who are complaining about attempts by Time Warner Cable and other providers to experiment with metered high-speed Internet usage.
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Sunday - April 12, 2009
You're watching Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," when suddenly you see a commercial for the Mustang convertible you've been eying -- with a special promotion from Ford, which knows you just ended your car lease. A button pops up on the screen. You click it with the remote and are asked whether you want more information about the car. You respond "yes."
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Friday - April 3, 2009
Job insecurity combined with financial fear-mongering has consumers slashing their budgets. Cell phone and premium TV services look like easy items to eliminate. Typically, however, those services tie users to contracts as well as three ugly words: early termination fees. Can customers break those contracts and avoid significant financial hits?
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