News

• Walmart to expand disc-to-cloud movie service to 30 countries

  Leveraging the power of 5,000 stores, Walmart plans to expand it's Vudu cloud video service from U.S. shores to as many as 30 countries beginning in June, including Eurpoean, Asian and Central and South American nations, according to reports.

• Is 'carrier bill shock' IT's problem? Absolutely

  This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.

• Netflix uses lots of cloud services -- but don't call it 'NoOps'

  Netflix's streaming-video entertainment via the Internet has become so popular it now represents almost a third of peak downstream traffic in North America. It also represents an IT support challenge for Netflix, which is trying to balance use of cloud services with traditional internal IT and data centers.

• 'NoOps' debate grows heated

  The dust-up over the term "NoOps" escalated this week, with high-profile IT executives from Netflix and Etsy issuing dueling blog posts about the evolution of IT organizations.

• Personal clouds will be on 90 per cent of devices by 2015

  Within three years the personal cloud will be ubiquitous on consumer devices, Gartner predicts in a research report released Tuesday.

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  Proposed encrypted media support in HTML5 sparks DRM debate on W3C mailing list

  A proposal drafted by Microsoft, Google and Netflix to add support for encrypted media playback in HTML5, has sparked a debate on the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) HTML public mailing list.

• Netflix settles privacy-violations lawsuit for $9 million

  Video service Netflix has disclosed it paid out $9 million last year to settle a class-action lawsuit that it violated privacy by keeping records on what subscribers watched two years after customers had canceled their plans.

• Lawmakers question proposed change to video privacy law

  Let's say you like to watch heady documentaries over Netflix's streaming service and would like to share recommendations with your friends on Facebook. Netflix would like to offer that service, but the company says a 24-year-old U.S. law is in the way.

• With Thompson in CEO seat, Yahoo may go after Netflix

  Just one day after Yahoo announced that it has found a new CEO, speculation began swirling that the Internet company may be looking to scoop up Netflix.

• Goodbye 2011 ... What a year!

  Well, as we are just a hop, skip and an eggnog away from putting on silly hats, drinking champagne, and kissing random people as we bid goodbye to the year, it behooves me to look into the digital rearview mirror and ponder what we can see rushing away from us.

• Sourcefire shipping its first two app-aware, next-gen firewalls

  Sourcefire Monday said it expects to begin shipping its first two next-generation firewall appliances later this month, entering an increasingly crowded market.

• Netflix opens door to leaving Amazon Web Services

  Netflix designed its cloud architecture so that it has the option to move to an Amazon Web Services competitor, but doesn't expect a real competitor to emerge for a few years, a Netflix executive said on Wednesday.

• HP Concludes That Bigger Is Better

  Hewlett-Packard's decision to retain its vast PC division likely offers some insight into the type of company new CEO Meg Whitman and her team want to lead.

• HP decides that being bigger is better

  In rejecting the idea of getting rid of its PC division, Hewlett-Packard Co. and its new CEO Meg Whitman, also made some decisions about the type of company they want.

• Amazon inks deal with Fox for 2,000+ streaming movies

  Amazon announced Monday that it would add more than 2,000 TV shows and movies to its streaming video services this fall in a new partnership with Fox. The new content, which includes classic movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and TV shows like the X-Files and the cult hit Arrested Development, will bring the total number of instant streaming titles on Amazon to more than 11,000.