Segment leader Roku announces 13.4 million accounts, 1 billion hours of streaming video and music in Dec 2016

Roku Inc., the leading TV streaming platform, today announced that 13.4 million active accounts streamed a record 1 billion hours of video and music in December 2016 and that Roku customers streamed a total of 9 billion hours in all of 2016. According to Nielsen, in December 2016, Roku accounted for 48 percent of active streaming players in the U.S. For the full year of 2016, the company experienced record growth resulting in nearly $400 million dollars in revenue. The Media and Licensing segment which includes content consumption and promotion, licensing, and advertising sales on the platform exceeded $100 million in high-margin revenue in 2016.

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MCE ships fastest 1TB PCIe-based SSD for Mac Pro (Late 2013)

MCE has given owners of the Mac Pro an option to upgrade the Mac Pro with 1TB PCIe-based SSD storage which should add some life to Apple's Mac Pro. The SSD cost US $700.

he MCE 1TB PCIe-based Flash Storage Upgrade Solution for the Late 2013 Cylinder Mac Pro was designed to take advantage of the super-fast PCIe architecture present in that machine.Hit jump for specifics.

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Microsoft’s Xbox Live Creators Program is now open to all game developers

With Microsoft’s latest announcement, you can be a small indie developer and have your game available on the Xbox platform without going through the company’s existing channels. The new Xbox Live Creators Program lets any developer take a retail Xbox, which also serves as a dev kit, and use that to create and self-publish a game to the Xbox marketplace. The published game needs to be a Universal Windows App, meaning it would run on any Windows 10 device. Microsoft also reserves the right to remove the game from the store if it has “harmful or inappropriate content.” It also isn’t free as developers need to shell out a one-time fee that ranges from US$20 to $100. It isn’t clear how much developers will be charged.

Aside from those conditions, you can’t enable online multiplayer or access Xbox achievements features if you aren’t part of the ID@Xbox program. What you do have access to is leaderboards and party chat features. A downside is it looks like games published this way are kept in a separate section of the Xbox Store, which could minimize exposure of the game. The program is currently in its preview stage but is expected to open up to the public soon.

Source: The Next Web + The Verge

Netflix teases its first German show entitled ‘Dark’

In the same vein as Stranger Things, Netflix banks on the thrill of missing children with possible connections to the supernatural with its first German production. Called Dark, the show’s trailer sees children disappearing and seemingly swallowed by the earth near the town of Winden. But things don’t seem quite right. And it’s not just about the supernatural connection and the really creepy vibe the show exudes. There seems to be a pattern of when the kids are taken and as shown in the trailer, there are three significant dates shown in a diagram: 1953, 1986, 2019.

Dark is part of a US$1.75 billion wave of new projects coming to Netflix from Europe. And with Netflix expanding overseas, you can expect more foreign shows to appear on the service. Dark will premiere on Netflix in Winter of 2017.

Source: The Verge