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According to Nielsen, a large percent of American households are subscribed to at least one video streaming service.

Netflix remains the king, with a full 36 percent of American households subscribed to the $7.99/$8.99 per month service. Amazon Prime Instant Video was next at 13 percent, followed by Hulu Plus at 6.5 percent.

33 percent of all households with a streaming service subscribed to just one, 10 percent subscribed to two and 2.6 percent subscribed to 3.

Homes with at least one streaming subscription spent an average of 2 hours 45 minutes per day watching through consoles, Blu-ray/DVD players and set-top boxes.

Over the last year, total TV viewing declined by 10 percent, although those figures do not include streaming video, which has yet to be reliably counted with traditional figures. Adults still watch nearly 5 hours per day, however, even with the declines.

A federal judge has ruled that Facebook will face a class action lawsuit that contends the social media giant must pay refunds if children spend their parent's money on the website without permission.

The suit will likely have hundreds of thousands of plaintiffs asking Facebook to change the way online transactions by minors are handled. Refunds would be reviewed on a case to case basis.

Begun in 2012, the lawsuit said Facebook let children user their parent's credit cards to buy Facebook Credits and then refused refunds after complaints citing their "all sales are final" policy.

Two kids and their parents originally filed the suit. The first child said he was allowed to spend $20 to play the game 'Ninja Saga,' but he eventually spend hundreds of dollars confusing real money with in-game currency. The second child took his mother's debit card and spent $1059 without permission. Both were younger than 13 years old, the minimum age to have a Facebook account.

"We're very pleased with the decision," said J.R. Parker, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. "The difference between Facebook and other businesses is that the company is on actual notice of a user's age, but treats children the same as adult users when it comes to taking their money."

Both taxi apps Uber and Lyft were denied in their bids to have their driver's status as independent contractors rather than employees.

In both separate cases, the judges ruled that juries will determine whether the drivers are employees or independent contractors.

Drivers for both companies are seeking class action lawsuits contending that they are employees and therefore should be reimbursed for expenses (such as gas and vehicle repairs) which they now pay out of pocket.

If the juries rule that they are indeed employees, the cost to Uber and Lyft would be huge. The companies would have to pay Social Security, worker's comp and other local and state insurance costs.

Uber is the most valuable private startup in the U.S. at $40 billion and rival Lyft has also raised hundreds of millions of dollars at a valuation in the billions.

Source:
Reuters

Google's plans to bring Internet to the world via balloons has hit a new milestone.

According to the search giant, a "Project Loon" balloon can now stay afloat for six months at a time and provide 4G LTE Internet to an area as big as the size of Rhode Island, the U.S.' smallest state at about 1200 square miles.

Project Loon is not likely to launch in the U.S. first, where Internet is relatively abundant, but rather in places where it is nearly impossible to find affordable service. Google's service piggybacks on existing carrier's towers, which send signals to the balloons that can then relay the signals to Web-connected devices.

Says Google: "The main cost gain comes from the fact that you can cover a much bigger region with existing infrastructure. Telcos take their preexisting infrastructure, point them to the sky, and they get a much broader coverage. For instance, if you already have towers to cover a city, you can point part of it to the sky, and you will be able to cover the whole region through the loon balloon network."

From its humble beginnings in 2013, the Project Loon balloons have upgraded from 3G to LTE and from staying in the air for 5 days to now over 100 days on average, and 180 days in ideal conditions. The balloons can also now fly kilometers in the air compared to just 800 meters previously.

Mobile operating system maker Cyanogen has announced that Cyanogen OS 12 will use Boxer as its default email app, moving away from Google's own Gmail and its own Email app.

CEO Kirt McMaster has made it clear the company wants the operating system, which is based on stock Android, to move away from Google applications and services. In fact, McMaster has even bluntly said they want to "take away Android from Google."

Boxer will provide the foundation of the standard "Email" app that ships with Cyanogen, and the version included will have al the premium features available to the $14.99 buyers of the Boxer premium app. You can have unlimited accounts, customized quick replies, Exchange support, third-party app integration and much more. The UI will match Cyanogen 12, which is based on Lollipop.

All new devices with Cyanogen OS will shop with the Boxer email app, and existing devices like the OnePlus One will get the update in the coming weeks.

Get a taste for Boxer here:

In the wake of the announcement of their Apple Watch smartwatch and fitness tracker, Apple has removed competing fitness devices from its stores.

Apple had previously offered the Jawbone Up, Nike+ FuelBand and The Mio.

The new Apple Watch goes on pre-order April 10th, to ship on April 24th. The Apple Watch has a plethora of fitness features, and can track your steps, distance, heart rate and much more.

Liz Dickinson, CEO and founder of Mio, said Apple notified them the Mio would be removed from stores a few months ago: "They said they brought in a new executive in the marketing area who wanted to rework branding for the stores, and to make the Apple brand more front and center and clean up and minimize the number of accessories," Dickinson said. There was no mention of the Apple Watch.

It makes sense that Apple would remove other devices as it needs room for its $17,000 Apple Watch Edition.

Source:
Recode

The BBC has unveiled a new microcomputer as part of its 'Make It Digital' campaign to help students learn to code.

The Micro Bit will be available to secondary schools in the UK, and the BBC says enough will be available for every Year 7 student to have one.

Similar to the Raspberry Pi, the computer is about the size of the credit card and can handle Linux operating systems.

BBC says the "Micro Bit will allow kids to learn the basics of coding as a fundamental part of their education, placing it on par with other "basics" such as math and literacy."

Sony has confirmed that is PlayStation Vue streaming TV service will launch by the end of the month in three cities.

New York, Chicago and Philadelphia will be the first places to get the service, followed by a nationwide rollout by the end of the year.

Initially, the service will only be available through the PS3 and PS4, but later on iOS devices.

PlayStation Vue was announced last year and launched in beta in November with 75 channels including majors from Fox, NBC, Viacom and more. Besides the large catalog of channels, there are also DVR capabilities, giving a leg up on rival services.

According to a new report, Apple will begin using Intel chips in 2016 for its iPhones sold in Asia and Latin America.

Reportedly, the iPhone 7 will use an Intel 7360 LTE modem, moving from the current Qualcomm chips.

Intel's spec sheet says the chip supports 29 LTE bands and up to 450Mbps downstream.

Earlier this year, notable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the same thing about the switch, predicting it would happen globally in 2015.

Rovio, who for years was the golden standard of casual mobile gaming, has a new game today as it looks to get back to the top of the iOS and Google Play charts.

Read the description: "Angry Birds meets bubble shooter in an all-new and super-addictive puzzler! Use your slingshot to match and burst colorful bubbles, save exotic critters, and topple the piggies. Strategic and intuitive gameplay make for a challenging and satisfying bubble popping experience!"

Take a look at the gameplay here:

At the Mobile World Congress event, there was a surprise hit: The Huawei Watch powered by Android Wear.

Huawei unveiled the watches, which comes in three luxury models, each with over 40 watch faces to choose from that compliment the bands.

The stainless steel watch has a 42mm circular AMOLED display at 400x400 pixels and a nice 10,000:1 contrast ratio. Under the hood is a Snapdragon 400 processor, 512MB RAM, Bluetooth 4.1, 4GB internal storage, a heart rate monitor, a six-axis motion sensor, a barometer and other sensors that can help user to count their calories burned, climbing height, steps and distance travelled.

If the leak is accurate, the smartwatch will be expensive, but in line with the low-end Apple Watch which retails for $349 in the U.S. The retailer leak has the silver model at 350 euro with the gold model at 400 euro. As always there is a chance the prices could be significantly different than one retailer's leak, but we will keep these prices as a baseline.

See more about the watches here, including high-res photos: Huawei Watch

Sony has ended PlayStation Mobile, their failed experiment to build a web store for PS classics and indie games that can played on mobile devices.

There will be no further content published past July 15th, and you will not have access to previous purchases for re-download after September 10th, either.

The service had allowed for playback on the PS Vita handheld and on PlayStation-certified Android phones but the Android side has been losing support for some time.

If you already use PlayStation Mobile, see what your next steps are here: Sony Blog

A full four months after all the other major U.S. carriers starting selling the phone, Verizon has begun selling the Nexus 6 today.

The Google flagship device will launch with Android 5.1 and will also include Verizon's HD Voice for increased clarity.

With a two-year contract, you can get the phone for $249.99.

Read our review of the GSM model, here: Nexus 6 Review on AfterDawn

Google has unveiled the second-generation model of their Chromebook Pixel, a new reference device for the Chrome OS operating system.

Starting at $999, the new base Pixel has a Core i5 processor (2.2 GHz Broadwell-U), 8GB RAM, 32GB SSD and Intel HD Graphics 5500 GPU and a near 13-inch touchscreen display with 2560x1700 resolution. the $1300 model has a Core i7 "LS" version (2.4 GHz Broadwell-U), 16GB RAM and a 64GB SSD. Battery life is rated at 12 hours.

Both weigh 3.3 pounds, significantly heavier than most high-end ultras especially the new Macbooks announced yesterday, but still relatively light compared to comparatively specced Windows machines and the MacBook Pro line.

Interestingly, Google has gotten rid of most of the ports, replacing everything with two reversible USB-C ports. The new standard was revealed for the new Macbooks this week, but the Pixel will be the first to actually have it. Charging is done through the USB-C port, which is becoming a standard and will save you from needing to carry a different cord for all your devices in the future.

Google is selling a USB-C to USB A plug for $12.99, and the accessories should be coming for other outputs, as well.

We have a small blurb today that comes with an astounding figure.

Jan Koum, founder and CEO of WhatsApp has announced today that the messaging service has reached 1 billion installs on Android, joining elite company. Other members of the club are Facebook and Google, that's it, with Google own Maps, Play Services, Google+ and Google Search each hitting the milestone individually.

Koum also noted that the team has just 5 members; "very small team, very big impact," says the executive.

Check the tweet here: