netflix

A team of former rivals has officially won the competition to improve Netflix movie recommendations. The collaborative known as BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos took home a $1-million prize today for their winning submission from July 26, which beat out yet another rival team's matching submission by just 20 minutes.

Last week Netflix quietly introduced HD to its streaming Internet service. Netflix didn't make a big stir about flipping the HD switch, though, and it's easy to understand why. (As company spokesman Steve Swasey said, "For now, the HD offering is more of a stake in the ground.")

Just when you thought you couldn't waste enough time on your Xbox 360, Microsoft has decided to add another way to get you to stare at your tube for longer, by streaming movies and TV shows through its popular game console. The tech giant announced its partnership with the movie-rental company Netflix this week at the E3 video game convention in Los Angeles. While video-gamers were leaping for joy at the convention when Square Enix announced Final Fantasy XIII for the Xbox 360, avid movie fans were leaping even higher to hear about Microsoft's movie deal.

No, it's not free, but for Netflix fans, the new Roku set-top box should be a big hit. Netflix announced that it will begin selling a $99, hardcover-book-sized device from the California startup Roku that allows people to watch more than 10,000 titles on-demand, without waiting for those mail-order DVDs. That's about ten percent of the total Netflix library - way more than you'll get from Verizon or Comcast. The selection isn't fantastic, but there are plenty of good older movies on the list. The quasi-catch is that you must have an active Netflix account to maintain access to that library.

Netflix just announced plans to begin dispatching movies straight to televisions through an LG-Electronics-made, Internet-connected set-top box. Netflix distributes most of its content—movies, TV shows and more—the old-fashioned way: through the mail. More than 7 million subscribers take part in one of its many rental plans, sending and receiving DVDs in small square envelopes. Now, thanks to high-speed Internet connections, the company is hoping to quicken the process, and allow customers to rent movies via the Web.

Netflix has already dipped its toes into this arena, but its "Watch Instantly" program hasn't fully caught on, in part because most users had to watch the content on their computers. The LG box will change that, allowing users to watch up to 40 hours of movies and shows per month. The selection isn't as great, but it's still significant. The company's DVD library is 90,000 titles strong, and the online selection currently has more than 6,000 options.

The LG partnership is also just a first step. Netflix plans to sign deals with numerous electronics companies, and transform itself into more of a movie channel than an Internet-age Blockbuster. Will it be the leader in online video rentals? Apple might have something to say about that.—Gregory Mone

One thing is for sure: that guy at Blockbuster who yelled at me for repeatedly renting the Chronicles of Riddick is about to be looking for a new job, because the retail video rental store is officially an endangered species. First came Netflix, which started the no late-fee revolution. Well, now theres MovieBeam, a set-top box that comes pre-loaded with 100 movies and automatically swaps out the 10 oldest movies for 10 new releases every week—and some of the content will even be available in HD. Its basically your own personal pay-per-view-palooza. Heres how it works: You buy the box at your local retailer for $250 (but you get a $50 rebate) and the next day they FedEx you a unit loaded with their newest offerings. The box automatically updated itself once a week, swapping out the ten oldest movies with ten new ones via a datacasting service that uses television and radio frequencies to push lots of data to multiple destinations simultaneously. The service costs $7 a month and between $2 and $5 per movie. —Joe Brown

Tech: Online movie rentalCost: Freeâ€$30Time: Instant to three daysBeta | | | | | Final