Roku owners, get ready for another free software upgrade. Roku’s operating system will automatically upgrade free to OS 10.5 in the coming weeks, adding a number of clever features like: letting you dictate some passwords instead of using your remote to navigate character-by-character around an on-screen keyboard, as well as enhanced troubleshooting for bad AV syncs …

HBO Max kicked off an aggressive, half-off promotion Friday for the $15-a-month, ad-free tier of its streaming service, as it aims to woo back lost HBO members who had been paying through Amazon and were essentially disconnected en masse earlier this week. HBO pulled out of Amazon Channels Wednesday, a service of the e-commerce giant that lets people pay Amazon for multiple …

Apple‘s iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max will finally introduce options for you to buy an Apple phone with a full terabyte of storage built in, Apple said Tuesday. But these highest-end iPhones will cost more than the last generation’s, which maxed out at 512 gigabytes: The 1TB iPhone 13 Pro costs $1,499 and the 1TB iPhone Pro Max …

Users of Peacock TV, one of the only places in the US where fans can watch Premier League soccer matches, reported widespread disruptions trying to stream games live on the service on Saturday. The live-video playback appeared to start resuming service within about an hour, but not before viewers missed much of the first halves of most of the matches Peacock was …

Zoom’s first dedicated app for smart TVs will roll out later this year on Amazon‘s coming Omni series of Fire TV-branded sets — part of the first generation of Amazon-branded televisions — the retailer said Thursday.   The Fire TV Omni smart TVs are available to order from Amazon and Best Buy ahead of their Oct. 27 release date; they start …

Roku is amping up its newfound original-programming effort with its first feature film, reviving canceled TV series Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist as a holiday special that will stream free on The Roku Channel later this year, the company said Wednesday.  Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas, which picks up after the events of show’s second season, will reunite creator Austin Winsberg (who will write and …

HBO Max will launch in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Spain and Andorra on Oct. 26, widening the streaming service into Europe after it launched in the US last year and then expanded into Latin America earlier this year. HBO Max — which is owned WarnerMedia, for now a part of AT&T — will move forward to Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Portugal next …

YouTube has built up a paying subscriber base of more than 50 million accounts, the company said in a letter posted to YouTube’s blog Thursday. The members cross its music-streaming service YouTube Music and its YouTube Premium offering that includes Music as well as perks on its main video site, like watching ad-free. The 50 million figure also includes people on free trials.  …

Locast, a small, nonprofit service that streamed over-the-air channels free online to more than 3 million US viewers, is suspending operations immediately, the company said Thursday, after suffering a legal setback in its copyright battle with the country’s biggest media companies earlier this week. The decision comes one day after Locast vowed to remain “committed to its mission” of delivering …

YouTube has since February 2020 removed more than 1 million videos related to “dangerous” coronavirus information, such as false cures or claims of a hoax, Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan said in a blog post Wednesday.  Putting the number in context is difficult because of the gargantuan scale of Google’s service, the internet’s biggest source of video, with more than 2 billion …