Yesterday Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced plans to update the streaming video client for the PS3.

The update, which he expects to be available before the company's third quarter earnings are released in October, will eliminate the requirement for a disc. Besides the obvious convenience for customers, this will allow them to continually update the interface as the Netflix Watch Instantly UI is improved.

Netflix continues to grow, largely on the strength of their ever expanding lineup of offerings for streaming to computers, set-top boxes, HDTVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles & other devices.

In the second quarter of 2010 year on year subscriber growth grew to an impressive 42%, which Hastings attributes primarily to the growing popularity of streaming. Although disc shipments continue to increase, they are being replaced by streaming more quickly than Netflix had forecast previously.

Netflix also plans to expand their streaming service into Canada later this year, although they won't be giving much in the way of specifics until closer to the launch date.

Having already conquered traditional brick and mortar movie rental operations in the US, including the Blockbuster and the now defunct Movie Gallery, Netflix appears to be setting their sights on competing with the new subscription service from Hulu.

Hastings says he intends to watch Hulu Plus closely to find more areas to improve the Netflix streaming service. But ultimately he believes the bigger competitive threat are cable and satellite providers.

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Pandora has announced today that they have reached 60 million registered listeners, seeing strong growth thanks to availability on a plethora of devices.

When 2009 began, the streaming music recommendation service had 20 million users. By the start of 2010 they had 40 million. It took until April to reach 50 million, and just over 3 months from that point to tack on another 10 million registered listeners.

Pandora says the growth is mainly thanks to expansion on mobile devices. Apps on the iPhone and Android devices are regularly the most popular free apps available and Apple finally updated to mutli-tasking with iOS4, giving users the ability to stream the music in the background, via 3G or Wi-Fi.

Android users have always had that ability.

Furthermore, Pandora is now becoming a standard on set-top boxes from many different device manufacturers.

If the trend continues, Pandora will hit 100 million listeners during early 2011. Not to mention they are also finally profitable after being on the verge of bankruptcy last year.

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Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), the syndicate of technology, cable and entertainment companies has introduced their long awaited cloud-based digital locker today, dubbing the service Ultraviolet.

Consumers would create an Ultraviolet account which would allow them to purchase movies, TV shows and music and access it from any web-connected device like HDTVs, Blu-ray players, smartphones, tablets and gaming consoles.

DECE consists of Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, Cox Communications, Fox Entertainment, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, LG Electronics, Lionsgate, Microsoft, Motorola, NBC Universal, Netflix, Nokia, Panasonic, Paramount Pictures, Philips, Samsung Electronics, Sony, Toshiba, and Warner Bros.

The group expects to launch the service later this year, and any device manufacturer, entertainment producer or other company "that want to offer the UltraViolet service would have to license its technology specifications from the consortium," says IW.

Licensing requirements will be "as light as possible," however.

The two notable names missing from the list are Disney (who is creating a rival system; Keychest) and Apple, which already has iTunes as a "digital locker" for content played back on iPods, iPads, and iPhones.

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Google announced last week that HTC had shipped out the last batch of Nexus One smartphones, and the phone would reach the end of its lifespan once Google sells the remaining stock.

That day has come and Google has stopped selling the devices, effectively ending their "superphone" experiment.

Google had offered the device for $530 unlocked or $180 with contract through T-Mobile.

Would-be buyers visiting the Nexus One online store are now greeted with this message: "Sorry, folks. The Nexus One is no longer available for purchase directly from Google."

The Nexus One was supposed to "fundamentally change the way phones are sold," but it never really did. Buyers were not satisfied with the 360 degree virtual tour of the phone, preferring to feel and actually see the device before purchasing it.

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In their most recent report on the status of broadband internet in the US, the FCC has finally admitted "broadband is not being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion."

Although this is the sixth Broadband Deployment Report to be issued by the agency since 1999, it is the first to reach this conclusion. Previous reports have been widely criticized for both the benchmark by which broadband was defined and the methodology for determining service areas.

For example, in the last report, from 2008, 200kbps downstream (download) speed was still considered broadband. Additionally, a single address capable of broadband service was equated to the entire zip code being served.

In the current report notes, "Our examination of overall Internet traffic patterns reveals that consumers increasingly are using their broadband connections to view high-quality video, and want to be able to do
so while still using basic functions such as email and web browsing."

In order to more accurately reflect that reality the standard for broadband has been raised to 4Mbps downstream and 1Mbps upstream. Service areas were based on numbers from the National Broadband Plan, published earlier this year.

Using the new metrics resulted in a determination that 14 million Americans live in areas where broadband internet service isn't offered.

More information on these changes can be found in Chapter 3 of that plan.

National Broadband Plan Chapter 3 Current State of the Broadband Ecosystem

These reports, as well as the FCC's initiative for measuring the service actually being delivered to consumers, are important steps toward a rational strategy for future investment in broadband technology. But one thing conspicuously missing from all this is addressing the lack of competition.

With most markets having no more than two broadband providers, and sometimes only one, the price of high speed internet will remain nearly as big a barrier for many consumers as availability.

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Marking a first, an unemployed 31-year old has been arrested in Japan this week for sharing unauthorized TV shows via BitTorrent.

The arrest is the first ever in Japan for torrent use.

Shuichiro Tanaka of Saitama Prefecture was arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department's cyber crimes division for allegedly uploading and sharing TV shows.

The authorities said that from June 4th to 9th, Tanaka captured the programs using his computer then uploaded them via BitTorrent.

Over the course of the year, Tanaka allegedly uploaded 165 episodes of different shows such as "Waratte Iitomo" and "Genius! Shimura Zoo."

When asked why he uploaded the shows, Tanaka plainly said: "I did it for people who missed the programs. Because there is a potential for viruses on Winny [another popular Japanese peer-to-peer file sharing program] and others, I used BitTorrent, which I heard police weren't investigating."

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Yesterday, after the market closed, Apple crushed their quarterly earnings, having its best quarter ever.

Apple reported revenue of $15.7 billion, a 62 percent jump, year-on-year (YoY). Analysts had expected revenue of $14.75 billion for the quarter.

Net profit rose to $3.25 billion a massive 78 percent jump YoY.

While the numbers were impressive, most fans were more intrigued by Apple's implication that it was releasing multiple new products by the end of the year.

Said CEO Steve Jobs: "It was a phenomenal quarter that exceeded our expectations all around. And we have amazing new products still to come this year."

Jobs stopped there, but the comments have gotten the rumor mill in full swing. Most believe the new products are a rehauled iPod Touch with multiple cameras and a completely rehauled Apple TV.

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In 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made headlines when he called Blu-ray "a bag of hurt."

At the time, Jobs said: "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace."

Two years later and Blu-ray is mainstream but Jobs is still anti-Blu. Last month he said the following: "Blu-ray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD - like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats."

This week, the BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) has responded, saying Jobs is wrong in his assertions that Blu-ray is just for a niche market and that it will soon be replaced by streaming and HD downloads.

Says the BDA: "According to market analysis, Blu-ray has a rate of adoption very similar to that of DVD at the same seniority (18 million U.S. homes with Blu-ray in Q4 '10 vs the same numbers as the penetration of DVD in Q1 of the fifth year on the market). We agree that the Internet will increase its importance (for streaming and downloads) but we do believe that physical media like Blu-ray Disc will continue to dominate for many years, due to ease of use, high durability, and certainly the ability to deliver a high definition experience and quality available anywhere."

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Google has said today that 55.5 percent of all Android smartphones are now running 2.1 Eclair.

22.1 percent of Android users are still running 1.6 Donut and 18.9 percent are still using a variant of 1.5 Cupcake.

The numbers are moving quickly, however, as in May in the figures were 37.2 percent for 2.1, 28 percent for 1.6, and a huge 34.1 percent for 1.5.

Although it has not officially released the latest software update, 2.2 Froyo, to any device besides the Nexus One, Google says 3.3 percent of all handsets are running the advanced update, likely meaning a decent portion of Droid, Incredible, EVO 4G and other owners are running rooted devices with Froyo.

Froyo has been promised, officially, for the above mentioned devices, and others like the MyTouch 3G Slide and Samsung Galaxy S by the end of the year.

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Late last month, a man sued Facebook claiming he owns 84 percent of the social networking giant.

Paul Ceglia says he entered into a contract with Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, for a 50 percent share, doing so for $1000 USD. In addition, Ceglia says the deal granted him 1 percent extra of the company for every day until the Web site was completed after January 2004.

The site took 34 days to complete.

Reads the signed contract: In return for the $1000 payment, Ceglia "would own a 50 percent interest in the software, programming language and business interests derived from the expansion of the [Facebook] service to a larger audience."

Facebook immediately called the suit "frivolous" and said it expected it to be thrown out.

This week, a lawyer for Facebook has said she was "unsure" whether Zuckerberg signed the contract, giving credibility to Ceglia's case.

Said Facebook lawyer Lisa Simpson: "Whether he signed this piece of paper, we're unsure at this moment."

The saga continues.

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Last month, AT&T killed off the popular "unlimited" data plan for new smartphone users, instead creating tiered, capped plans.

Verizon confirmed last month they were considering doing the same, and it appears they may be ready to do so before the end of the month, killing off their "unlimited" 5GB data plan in exchange for tiered plans.

Engadget has reported that Verizon will introduce the new scheme on July 29th.

Reportedly, the plan will be $15 for 200MB of data per month, and $25 for 2GB.

For those that want to keep their unlimited plans and not worry about paying expensive premiums for less data, T-Mobile and Sprint have said they have no intention of capping connections.

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Verizon official tech reps have confirmed today via Twitter that the HTC Incredible will be receiving the Android 2.2 Froyo update soon, either during the end of this month or at the beginning of August.

Says the original Tweet: "HTC DROID Incredible to be updated to Froyo end of July, early August [ link ]

Furthermore, Incredible owners will finally get 720p video recording support, 802.11n Wifi, Verizon's 3G Wifi hotspot, Amazon's MP3 store and a couple of other apps and widgets.

Although the Twitter account is not corporate, the guys behind the VZWTechSupport account say the following: "Officially unofficial. We are official technical reps but are not endorsed directly by corporate. Which may be a good thing? :)"

Additionally, the reps say the Motorola Droid will likely get the OTA update in early August, as well.

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