Sean Captain

[Tom’s Guide]
Two down, one to go? Today, CBS announced that its premium-content channel Showtime will offer an online-only subscription service in 2015 — just as we predicted after HBO announced upcoming HBO à la carte three weeks ago. With a string of mega hits including Breaking Bad, AMC has earned a spot next to HBO and Showtime. But if it doesn’t follow suit with an online subscription, AMC may become — at least for the growing ranks of cord-cutters — The Walking Dead of online TV.
[Read the rest of After HBO & Showtime, Will AMC Go Online a la Carte?]

[Tom’s Guide]
No gadget is perfect, and the iPhone 6 camera needs a little handholding for best results. In certain situations, the iPhone 6 camera can suffer from three (fixable) glitches: poor white balance, low contrast and discolored skin tones. We’ve seen these results in photos from two iPhone 6 and three iPhone 6 Plus models we tested. We shared the photos with Apple to confirm that the cameras were not defective and that we didn’t make any mistakes when shooting with them.
[Read the rest of iPhone 6 Camera Quirks – and How to Fix Them]

[Tom’s Guide]
Fast forward to the selfie. The poorly framed, self-indulgent Facebook and dating-site photo is growing into one of the main picture types we take. Google’s Sundar Pichai said, at Google I/O this year, that we take 93 million selfies a day. And the selfie phenomenon is spreading beyond cellphones to regular cameras, point-and-shoots, bridge and mirrorless models, even DSLRs.
[Read the rest of Selfies Go Legit: From HTC Desire Eye to DSLRs]

[Tom’s Guide]
Panasonic is selling a new high-end, mirrorless camera, the LX100, with a large, 12.8-megapixel sensor, its latest image processor, a metal body and even the ability to shoot ultra HD (aka 4K) video, all for $899. That price includes a 24-75mm (full-frame equivalent) Leica lens. Its large max apertures, from f-1.7 (wide) to f-2.8 (telephoto) beat the kit lenses that come with Panasonic’s other mirrorless cameras. But the glass on the LX100 isn’t a kit lens; it’s the only lens, one permanently attached to the camera.
[Read the rest of New Fixed-lens Cameras Challenge DSLRs and Mirrorless]

[Tom’s Guide]
A remake of popular 1980s British drama House of Cards is one thing. But a bisexual view of life in a women’s prison (Orange is the New Black) and now the story of 70-year-old man becoming a woman is something else. That’s the premise of Transparent, one of Amazon’s new greenlit pilot shows, which will drop all 10 episodes of the show on September 26, the company announced today (Aug. 27). It’s included with a subscription to the $99-per-year Amazon Prime loyalty program.
[Read the rest of New Amazon Show Transparent Highlights Online TV Quirkiness]

[Tom’s Guide]
Surveys continually show that we watch TV while holding other gadgets like smartphones and laptops. So it’s appealing to beam a cool video or photo we’ve found on them directly to the big screen. Staff writer Marshall Honorof challenged the it-just-works claims of Miracast and WiDi. To see how universal this standard really is, he patiently attempted to pair three popular Android smartphones, an Android tablet and three laptops with four different Miracast/WiDi receiver boxes.
[Read the rest of Wireless Video Streaming: The Miracast & WiDi Disaster]

[Tom’s Guide]
On June 25, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of TV broadcasters that had sued Aereo for acting like a cable company without paying the licensing fees that cable companies are required to pay. But when Aereo offered to pay the fees this week, the US Copyright Office, which oversees licensing, said Aereo isn’t allowed to pay the fees, because it is not, in fact, a cable company.
[Read the rest of Aereo Debacle Shows Congress Clueless About Net Video]

[Tom’s Guide]
Sure, cellphone cameras are getting really good. But sorry, they still don’t cut it for images more than about 3 inches across, especially in less-than-perfect lighting. On the other hand, a DSLR or a slightly smaller mirrorless camera is a commitment. You don’t just happen to have one of those bulky gadgets in your pocket at all times. In fact, you may never fit one in your pocket.
[Read the rest of Sony RX100 III Review: Pocket Camera Could Kill Your DSLR]

[Tom’s Guide]
Many technophiles may be crestfallen today (Jun 25), learning that the Supreme Court ruled against Aereo. The service charged subscribers as little as $8 a month to stream, and record, live local TV broadcasts over the Internet. This wasn’t a narrow 5-4 ruling along ideological lines, but a 6-3 landslide. Painful as the decision is for cord-cutters, it was the right call. In fact, Aereo’s demise may be a critical political and moral boost to advocates of Net neutrality — the loss of which threatens all online TV.
[Read the rest of Why Striking Down Aereo Was The Right Decision]