latest
Peacock's bringing your local NBC station to Premium Plus subscribers
There are better ways to watch linear TV than this
Streaming didn't kill the TV and movie stars, but all those awesome and affordable services have certainly made a mess of our media diets. If you read Android Police, you're probably more of the on-demand type when it comes to watching news and entertainment, but you still spend time on live (or just linear) programming once in a while. Comcast is hoping to leverage those occasional urgings by offering a livestream of your local NBC affiliate as an additional perk for subscribing to Peacock Premium Plus.
Free streaming TV service Pluto TV now directly integrated into Google TV
One of two reasons Google hopes you'll get a new Chromecast
Ever since it made started making (and, somehow, still hasn't completed) the transition from Android TV to Google TV, Google has been looking for ways to entice viewers to buy a new Chromecast. Well, it has just come up with two of them.
Your YouTube TV subscription isn't losing its NBCUniversal channels — not yet, anyway
A temporary 'short extension' while negotiations continue
YouTube TV might not be a traditional cable service, but it’s still falling victim to some old-school broadcast disputes. Earlier this week, word leaked out that Google and NBC were battling over contracts — this time with a streaming twist. While channels were supposed to disappear from the service late last night, it seems a short-term agreement is keeping the status quo for now.
At the moment Google and NBCUniversal are in the middle of an old-fashioned carrier dispute, arguing over who should pay who and how much for access to NBC channels on YouTube TV. These kinds of fights are a dime a dozen with cable and satellite providers, as are the insulting "call your cable company/call the channel owners to complain" attempts to get consumers to pick a side. But according to an industry researcher, this familiar story has a new streaming twist.
Cable companies are doing their best to keep up with the switch to streaming media. Considering most traditional TV subscriptions also double as ISPs, though, it's been a fairly smooth transition. As services like YouTube TV flourish, companies like Comcast aren't ignoring modern ways to watch television. It wants to keep users consuming media through its own branded devices, and that effort starts with an all-new streaming box.
The latest Xfinity streaming app works fine on Android TV — here's how to sideload it
Because for some stupid reason it's still not available on the Play Store
Hey Comcast, y'all should really just publish your TV app on the Play Store already. This weird stuff, limiting it to Sony TVs or Amazon's Fire TV platform, just isn't cool. People are paying you a lot (just, a LOT) to watch TV, you should let them watch it on whatever gadget they want! Or else they'll find ways to do it themselves. For example, taking the Fire TV APK and uploading it to a third-party hosting site, then installing it on an Android TV device like the SHIELD.
Google TV now supports Peacock accounts as Netflix users remain in the lurch
It's a convenience thing, but that can make all the difference
Google TV, the Android user's hub for searching out and tracking streaming content, recently dumped support for Netflix content. That means if the show you're looking for is on Netflix, you'd have to tap around more to find it. But if your show is on Comcast's Peacock service instead, that's not the case anymore.
Chromecast support for Xfinity Stream app now rolling out
Live in the beta program and rolling out over the coming days
Read update
Xfinity subscribers have a reason to get excited. Nope, Comcast's still running things — sorry. But Chromecast support for Xfinity streaming content is now rolling out. It's already live on the web, and now it has started rolling out via a beta program update for the Android app as well. Chromecast streaming even works for live TV.
These new Hollywood movies are hitting streaming services early for safe at-home viewing (Update: Amazon)
Watch on-demand the same day as in-theaters starting with 'Trolls World Tour'
Following what was reported to be the worst weekend of the last 20 years for the US domestic film business, NBCUniversal/Comcast has decided to (finally) make movies available for rental the day of their theatrical release. This new policy debuts with the upcoming DreamWorks Animation film Trolls World Tour on April 10th, but on-demand releases for flicks currently in theaters, including The Invisible Man and Emma, will begin as soon as March 20th — this upcoming Friday.Details for this new "Day-and-Date" release system aren't entirely fixed, but these rentals will be available "on a wide variety of the most popular on-demand services" including Comcast and Sky with 48-hour rental periods and a suggested price of $20 per rental in the US (and the equivalent to that in other markets)."Rather than delaying these films or releasing them into a challenged distribution landscape, we wanted to provide an option for people to view these titles in the home," NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell said of the announcement. "We hope and believe that people will still go to the movies in theaters where available, but we understand that for people in different areas of the world that is increasingly becoming less possible."With coronavirus disrupting every aspect of our lives right now and forcing many of us to stay at home, at least we'll be able to watch some new flicks in some semblance of normalcy.
Over the last few years, robocalls have quickly grown into one of the most universally despised issues among mobile phone users in the US. The seemingly exponential growth of spam calls has us heading toward a time where a majority of the phone calls made are spam. Today, T-Mobile, Comcast, and telecommunications company Intelliquent are announcing a technical milestone in the war on robocalls — the first call routed across three networks using an end-to-end implementation of the FCC recommended STIR/SHAKEN cryptographic security framework.
Congress has told voice service providers to shut down robocallers and instate call blocking by default. The FCC has mandated just the same. Now, 12 voice service providers have agreed to a series of principles drawn by attorneys general from all 50 states and the District of Columbia that include offering that call blocking to consumers for free, implementing STIR/SHAKEN across their networks, and cooperating in investigations.
If you happen to be in the somewhat curious position where bundling all your TV, internet, and phone services with one company aligns with your best interests, you may have considered joining Xfinity Mobile at some point to complement your other Comcast services. But up until now, if you wanted to bring an Android phone over to use, there was no way to do so except to trade in and buy one from the carrier. Today, the MVNO has finally expanded its BYOD program to include several major Galaxy phones though there are three massively disappointing omissions to the list.
After taking over 21st Century Fox, Disney's buying streak continues to burn. This time around, it may end up fully owning video streaming platform Hulu — and with a new agreement signed today with Comcast, it may be able to do so as early as 2024 at a cost of at least $27.5 billion.
There are numerous options for automating your digital life, but there's one fewer today. Stringify, which was purchased by Comcast in 2017, is closing its virtual doors in June. The company isn't technically shutting down, but it will focus on developing technology as part of Comcast. That means no more consumer automation app or service.
After distributing its beta version to American S9 and S9+ devices at the end of November and updating international versions of the phone earlier this month, Samsung is now releasing Android 9 Pie and One UI to Comcast’s Xfinity S9s. That's a bit of a coup for Xfinity, as we're not accustomed to seeing a smaller carrier's version updated first, especially not before unlocked handsets.
Two Movies Anywhere tidbits for you today, including its addition to Comcast's Xfinity and support for 4K streaming in the Android app. Subscribers with Xfinity On Demand or the Xfinity Stream app will now be able to take advantage of the huge catalog of blockbuster films.
Comcast's Xfinity Stream app, one of the cable company's main plays for a digital audience, offers customers access to live TV and on demand content (plus DVR recordings, for X1 or Instant TV Cloud subscribers), from their Android, iOS or Amazon device. In the recent 5.0 update to the platform, the company added the ability to watch and download rentals to the app, as well as the option to rent and buy directly through the app. A few other upgrades came along with 5.0 as well, but so far the update hasn't stemmed the poor to middling reviews for the service.
Using a single router is so 2014. Now, everyone is into mesh WiFi systems like Eero and Google Wifi. Not to be outdone, Comcast has its own mesh system that connects to the Xfinity Internet Gateway. The new xFi Pods are now available as a three-pack for $119.
Comcast's switch from XFINITY TV to XFINITY Stream about a year ago was met with lots of criticism for a number of reasons, and based on the latest Google Store reviews, users still aren't very happy. But here's something that might cheer you up: fingerprint authentication has been added for parental controls.
When it comes to online automation platforms, IFTTT is the name most people know and trust. It's a little limited, though. We've covered Stringify a few times, citing it as a more powerful alternative that can plug into IFTTT. The company apparently caught the eye of Comcast recently, which just had to have it. So, Comcast owns Stringify now.