An organization representing four-dozen major online-based companies has reached out to president-elect Donald Trump, congratulating him on his victory while proposing digital policy planks for his administration to consider. “The internet industry looks forward to working with you on policies that encourage this kind of growth, innovation, and consumer choice,” the Internet Association said in the letter posted Monday to its website. The association’s membership includes Facebook Inc., Netflix Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Twitter...
A potential merger between AT&T Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. highlights a move by United States-based companies toward vertical integration, just as developments in Canada suggest the opposite is happening north of the border, according to an analyst. “While the U.S. is becoming more vertically integrated, Canada is moving in the other direction,” Jeff Fan, an analyst at Scotiabank, said in a note Monday. The deal, which would see AT&T acquire Time...
A Friday morning denial of service (DDoS) attack has taken down or slowed the websites of some of the Internet’s biggest companies, according to reports. The attack targeted Internet...
Amazon.com Inc. has launched a stand-alone music streaming service in the United States. While it has offered music streaming for its Prime customers since 2014, the new Amazon Music Unlimited is available to...
VMedia Inc. has rolled out live TV to Canadian users of Roku Inc.’s devices, Roku said in a press release Friday. Canadians can “watch up to 20 live TV channels, including Canadian and US networks such as...
Twitter Inc. has launched apps that allow viewers to access its live-streaming video through Apple Inc.’s Apple TV, Amazon.com Inc.’s Fire TV and Microsoft Corp.’s XBox One. The Xbox and Apple TV apps...
BCE Inc. announced Monday it is buying out its fellow investors in Q9 Networks Inc., a data centre operator in which it currently holds a 35.4-per-cent stake, in a move that analysts said comes as investment and competition in the data centre space increases. Bell said in a press release it will acquire the stakes “in a transaction valued at approximately $675 million, including Q9 net debt but excluding Bell's existing ownership interest.” The release said the deal “supports Bell's ability to compete against...
Subscription video-on-demand service (SVOD) revenues will double by 2021, as broadcasters and TV network providers look to enter the market amid a trend in cord cutting and shaving, according to a new report. Juniper Research...
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says Canada should follow the example of the European Union and countries like New Zealand and Australia in requiring over-the-top (OTT) services to pay...
Millions of people tuned into live broadcasts of the electronic entertainment expo (E3) this week on Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube and Amazon.com Inc.’s Twitch.tv. It’s an event whose...
Amazon.com Inc. has launched Amazon Video Direct, a new “self-service program” that will allow video creators to distribute their content to Amazon customers. The company said in a...
Amazon.com Inc. will now allow customers to subscribe to its Amazon Prime streaming service month-by-month, the company said Monday. The Amazon Prime video service was previously bundled with its Amazon Prime shipping service, which costs $99 U.S. a year. On Monday, Amazon introduced a video-only membership that will allow customers to pay on a...
Major tech companies have filed documents with the U.S. courts in support of Apple Inc.'s position against creating a workaround for investigators to access encrypted information on an iPhone connected with the Dec. 2 attack...
Amazon.com Inc. announced Tuesday it is launching an over-the-top (OTT) streaming subscription program for video providers to reach out to Amazon Prime members, and will also allow Prime members to add other video subscription...
Audio and video traffic — or real-time entertainment — now accounts for more than 70 per cent of download traffic on fixed Internet networks during peak periods in North America, with Netflix Inc.'s share now 37.1 per cent, an increase from 36.5 per cent a year earlier, according to a report released Monday...
Shopify Inc. announced Thursday it has partnered with Amazon.com Inc. to allow Amazon Webstore owners to migrate their online stores onto the Shopify platform. Shopify said in the press release that after migrating to the Amazon platform, Shopify customers will be able to log in and pay with their existing Amazon customer account. The release added that Shopify merchants will be able to use Amazon warehouses located in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan to ship their products around the world faster and at a cheaper rate. “We strive to help merchants grow...
Amazon.com Inc. announced Thursday it will release a new Fire tablet, priced at $49.99 US. Amazon said in the press release that the tablet’s operating system, Fire OS 5 Bellini, has an updated user interface and screen-sharing capabilities for when users need to get in touch with customer care or tech support. The tablet includes 128 GB of...
Seven technology companies announced on Tuesday a new alliance to develop next-generation media formats, codecs and technologies to meet demand for better video, audio, imagery and streaming quality across all platforms and...
Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video members in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Austria will now be able to download movies and TV shows for easy offline viewing at no additional cost, the company said in a press...
In North America, Netflix Inc. now accounts for 36.5 per cent of peak period, downloaded network traffic, a new report from network management provider Sandvine Inc. said, up from 34.9 per cent...
DHX Media Ltd. said Thursday that revenue for its third quarter ended March 31 almost tripled from a year earlier to $85.6 million from $29 million, thanks to a major acquisition and gains in its distribution and production businesses. The broadcaster and TV-content producer said in a press release that much of that gain came from the acquisition of Family Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior from BCE Inc., which was announced in November 2013 and closed last year. The DHX Television unit created by this purchase contributed $20.4 million to quarterly revenue. David Regan, DHX's...
Amazon.com Inc.'s Canadian unit on Monday announced the launch of an online shop for wearable technology. The company said in a press release that customers can now go to www.amazon.ca/wearabletechnology to shop for the...
Nielsen Co., the which measures viewership for TV shows, will start assessing audiences for online streaming services such as Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime this year, according to a Bloomberg report. “That...
Amazon.com Inc. said Thursday its Canadian division, Amazon.ca, is making Kindle Unlimited available in Canada. The company said in a press release that Canadians will have unlimited access to more than 750,000 e-books for $9.99...
Canadian video streaming service Shomi said Thursday it has secured the Canadian rights to original content made for Amazon.com Inc.'s Prime streaming service in the U.S. Shomi, a joint venture of Rogers Communications Inc....
The latest report on Internet usage from Sandvine Inc. shows average monthly data downloaded on fixed-line Internet accounts in North America was up about 30 per cent in the second half of 2014 compared to a year earlier. The...
Amazon.com Inc. said Monday it is introducing a new over-the-top streaming device called the Fire TV Stick. The device is just a few inches long, plugs directly into a television’s HDMI port and picks up a home's WiFi...
BlackBerry Ltd. launched a new smartphone, the Passport, on Wednesday, as well as an app that brings content from BlackBerry smartphones to computers and tablets. The Passport, revealed at a launch event in Toronto that featured...
Online retailing giant Amazon.com Inc. has acquired game-streaming site Twitch Interactive Inc., Twitch CEO Emmett Shear announced Monday, with the deal coming in at just less than $1 billion US. Twitch.TV, which allows gamers to...
Amazon.com Inc. said Friday it has launched a monthly e-book subscription service in the U.S., giving users access to all they can read for $9.99 US a month. The product is called Kindle Unlimited, and will provide subscribers access to more than 600,000 different books, including bestsellers such as the Harry Potter series, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, Amazon said in a press release. Audiobooks are also available through this service, which feature titles such as The Handmaid's Tale and Life of Pi, the company said. Free 30-day trials...
BlackBerry Inc. has laid off 65 employees, “primarily” in its Global Alliances and Ecosystem group, the company confirmed Tuesday. A BlackBerry spokesperson said in an email Tuesday that the company “is working...
Amazon.com Inc. unveiled its first smartphone on Wednesday, adding the new device to its lineup of Kindle tablets and e-readers. The 4.7-inch screen Amazon Fire smartphone includes a feature called Firefly, which can scan...
BlackBerry users will gain access to several applications this fall, including Netflix, as a result of making Amazon.com Inc.'s Appstore part of the BlackBerry 10.3 operating system that becomes available this fall, BlackBerry...
Amazon.com Inc. announced Thursday the launch of a new music-streaming service in the United States. It said in a press release that the product is called Prime Music and is available at no extra cost to existing U.S. customers...
Almost 150 U.S. technology companies, such as Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp., have written a letter to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission calling its proposed net-neutrality rules a “grave threat to the Internet.” The letter, dated Wednesday, is a response to proposed new rules, due to be discussed at an FCC meeting on May 15, that would allow Internet service providers to charge content providers for faster and more reliable connections to end users. “The Commission intends to propose rules that would enable phone and cable Internet...
Time Warner Inc.'s HBO pay-TV service has signed a multi-year licensing deal with online retailer Amazon.com Inc. to bring its back catalog of shows, including critically acclaimed hits such as...
Online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. announced a new television set-top box at an event in New York on Tuesday, pledging to improve the over-the-top (OTT) experience for customers frustrated by the limitations of rival offerings...