Comcast is creating an app that will allow customers to bypass the cable box and get Xfinity services directly on their television sets or streaming media gadgets. It will be available next year, and will serve live TV, on demand video, and record for the DVR. By being able to return the cable boxes, customers will be able to save $10 a month from the equipment fee that they are no longer paying. Comcast hopes that they will be able to expand their new Xfinity TV Partner Program beyond Samsung and Roku. While the app is similar to others already out there, that have been downloaded about 23 million times, their new app would more closely mirror the experience that you get from your cable box. Other companies, such as Time Warner Cable, have similar apps. Comcast has done something similar to what they are doing now, when they made a deal with Xbox, however this deal only lasted a little over a year. The FCC previously voted in February to start a public discussion about changing current set-up requirements, with the Chairman Tom Wheeler wanting to give customers the option to choose between renting a set-top box from their cable company or getting another kind of compatible device on their own. The hope is to create a robust marketplace for video services that would allow customers who subscribe to multiple service to buy a gadget that is able to play all of them. The FCC is criticizing Comcast's new app,as it would only allow customer to search through Comcast content. Comcast has responded to the FCC's proposal rule change on boxes that it would, "create substantial costs ... take years to develop," and would ultimately be unnecessary in light of the success that app-based models have seen in the marketplace. Click here to read the original article.
Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, announced the Google Disability Challenge last year to which they recently announced the 30 winners that were chosen out of over a thousand applicants from 88 countries. The winners would receive an average of %750,000 each to help them develop technology that would help the disabled. Some of these projects were high tech such as 3-D printing prosthesis, creating software that helps people with Autism Spectrum Disorders practice job interviews on digital people, a device that can turn a manual wheel chair into a power wheel chair, and an on-screen keyboard that helps people with impaired moral skilled type with their hands. Not all of the products that Google selected and supported were not high tech, such as expanding the use of SMS messages to help clubfooted patients keep up with treatments. One of the projects that Google supports is Perkins School of the Blind's building of an app that crowd-sources micro-location information to identify where local bus stops are. This could be extremely benifical to the blind, as the noraml GPS today, is only accurate give or take 30 feet. For those that are blind, this was cause a problem as they wouldn't know where exactly the bus stop was. This situation happened to Joann Becker. The app will allow for a more detailed description of where things are, more speically bus stops, by asking shighted computers to share more deatiled information about bus stops they visit, such as the exact place where a bench or shelter is located. People will be motivated to share information by making it into a game or offering reward such as a discount on coffee. A final version of the app is hoped to be done next year. Perkins is not necessary working on their own to develop the app, as when they won the contest Google connected them with a team of experts to consult on their final product. This team is from Google and called Waze; they do a lot of crowdsourced clues. Click here to read the original article
Comcast is creating an app that will allow customers to bypass the cable box and get Xfinity services directly on their television sets or streaming media gadgets. It will be available next year, and will serve live TV, on demand video, and record for the DVR. By being able to return the cable boxes, customers will be able to save $10 a month from the equipment fee that they are no longer paying. Comcast hopes that they will be able to expand their new Xfinity TV Partner Program beyond Samsung and Roku. While the app is similar to others already out there, that have been downloaded about 23 million times, their new app would more closely mirror the experience that you get from your cable box. Other companies, such as Time Warner Cable, have similar apps. Comcast has done something similar to what they are doing now, when they made a deal with Xbox, however this deal only lasted a little over a year. 
The FCC previously voted in February to start a public discussion about changing current set-up requirements, with the Chairman Tom Wheeler wanting to give customers the option to choose between renting a set-top box from their cable company or getting another kind of compatible device on their own. The hope is to create a robust marketplace for video services that would allow customers who subscribe to multiple service to buy a gadget that is able to play all of them. The FCC is criticizing Comcast's new app,as it would only allow customer to search through Comcast content. Comcast has responded to the FCC's proposal rule change on boxes that it would, "create substantial costs ... take years to develop," and would ultimately be unnecessary in light of the success that app-based models have seen in the marketplace. 
