tivo

Is the time of TiVo behind us? It's been 10 years since Sarah Jessica Parker gushed about the device on daytime TV. Best Buy's Insignia Connected TV would like to suggest otherwise as it licenses the TiVo interface, if not the functionality. The Insignia Connected TV E859A11 offers a decent array of on-demand services, but picture quality takes a back seat to out-and-out features.

Read the full review of the Insignia Connected TV series.

Michael Robertson, founder of such companies as MP3.com and Lindows, appears to be daring big radio and music companies to challenge him on copyright again.

Robertson's latest company DAR.fm, billed as a TiVo for Web radio, is expected to announce tomorrow that the service will enable users to capture the radio shows they record instead of just streaming them to their PCs or Web-connected devices. In the future, DAR.fm users can record talk shows and music and download them to iPads, iPhones, or Android devices, Robertson told CNET today. Not surprisingly, DAR.fm users can store their recordings at Robertson's digital-locker service, MP3tunes.com.

The new feature is available for free for the first series, which means that if you listen to say, NPR's "All Things Considered," DAR.fm will record it and download it daily for free. For more series, up to 10, a user must pay $39.95 a year.

So, how is this different from subscribing to a podcast?

Remember that not all radio shows offer a podcast. Fans of Rush Limbaugh must pay a yearly subscription. Some shows post their podcast three days after they air and some offer only highlights. Robertson promises that DAR.fm can record any show on the Web, period.

The download feature will certainly be reviewed closely by the big radio companies, such as Clear Channel and CBS Radio ( which shares the same parent company as CNET), as well as record companies. "Yes, it's hard to imagine that the record labels are going to be excited about this," Robertson conceded. … Read more

Carol Bartz is out at Yahoo and the stock is up, which has got to hurt. They're still raking in the cash, but shareholders hate nothing more than a plateau. Plus, Netflix swears that at least this time, its jerk move (restricting users to only one stream at a time) was a total accident, and they're definitely not doing that. Promise. Plus, Groupon's IPO roadshow is off and the IPO itself may be off for good, and the Droid Bionic has finally arrived. Hooray!

The four-tuner Tivo Premiere Elite makes its debut, Netflix cracks down on people who stream more than one video at the same time, and Yahoo's board fires CEO Carol Bartz after less than three years on the job.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

On today's show, Apple responds to the Mac Defender concerns with a support forum and a promised OS X update, Google may announce mobile payments via NFC as early as tomorrow (Thursday), and Facebook might launch a music service with Spotify (but no, not in the U.S. -- yet). Also, TiVo makes tons of money from suing people and Brian Tong bids a teary farewell to Oprah. --Molly

The last straw broke last month, when, after a DSL outage, I could no longer connect to the TiVo service.

I got the dreaded N17 error message that says, "Failed while negotiating." The only support guidance TiVo offers is (I'm not joking) to unplug the TiVo and plug it back in. Nothing helped. I trolled forums, restarted my modem, changed my router DNS settings, rebooted over and over, even switched to another TiVo, and connected to a Sprint Overdrive, just to troubleshoot and get guide info. I just couldn't get it working. I tweeted TiVo for … Read more

Twitter shines in another moment for citizen journalism and the internet. And then there's that guy who live-tweeted the whole raid, without knowing about it. Sony officially apologizes for the PSN outage and they're giving back to the users, but is it enough? And we "Like" what the BOL Menu is serving.

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Facebook asks permission to change its privacy policy

Skype tweaks Skype To Go, letting you make international calls as local ones

Sony drops the price of the PlayStation Portable to $129.99

A Chinese version of Groupon is announced

Motorola sues TiVo for alleged patent infringement in its DVRs

Motorola is sued for using the name Xoom on its new tablet

New York Sen. Charles Schumer wants HTTPS to be the default security setting on major Web sites

A man in Florida is arrested for allegedly planting viruses in Whac-A-Mole arcade games

A … Read more

How long before we can paint a display on our walls? Is Apple's Retina Display really at the limits of human perception? And what's up with those Sharp four-color TVs? These and other display issues get addressed in this episode with CNET's Eric Franklin and DisplayMate CEO Ray Soneira.

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Show notes and talking points… Read more