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If you’ve shopped for a TV in the past couple of years, chances are you’ve heard of Vizio. After all, the company, a decade old this year, has been holding its own in the US TV market against global giants like Samsung and Sony while at the same time expanding into new products like PCs and tablets. Impressive no doubt, even more so considering the company does all this with just 400 employees. At $3 billion in annual revenue, this translates to about $7.5 million per head, a number that’s over ten times that of Sony. That’s an amazing degree of productivity, especially for a company that has in no way taken the easy path of shipping me-too boxes, but instead has been one of the most progressive in adopting new technologies for the TV market such as new interfaces and smart TV.

Netflix is moving to protect itself against hostile takeovers, less than a week after activist investor Carl Icahn disclosed a stake of nearly 10 percent in the online video company. Netflix Inc. said Monday that it has adopted a shareholder rights plan, also known as a poison pill. Such a plan is designed to make it difficult or even impossible for someone to take over the company without an agreement from the board. When the provision is triggered, additional shares flood the market and make it prohibitively expensive for a takeover.

Tonight's debate between Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly infuriated many fans as a server crash left the event's live stream largely inaccessible  The debate took place at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and was available to those outside of the auditorium only via a $4.95 pay-per-view live stream.

Figuring out just how lucrative streaming services like Spotify or Apple’s iTunes Match cloud feature, which streams you songs you already own from the cloud, is tough. Mostly, that’s because there is a lack of transparency from both parties. The artists are at times reluctant to share numbers and the streaming services don’t want those deals exposed either.

One of the networks broadcasting this week's Democratic convention could be called Obama TV. The Democratic National Convention Committee is promoting "unprecedented interactive coverage" of this week's confab, built around the first-ever live-streaming of the entire event featuring interviews with delegates, President Obama campaign officials, and various celebrities.

Netflix shares rose 13% today after a the market took yesterday off due to the July 4 holiday, closing at $81.72 thanks to the company's biggest single-day gain since late January.

Sony agreed to pay $380 million to buy U.S.-based Gaikai, which specializes in streaming videogames over the Internet, demonstrating an industry shift from playing games on dedicated machines toward using any Internet-ready device.

Google has launched an online music store in the US, which will allow devices running its Android software to buy, store and stream MP3 files. EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal and 23 independent labels are providing content to create a library of 13 million songs.

Happy Cloud, a start-up which is trying to speed up game downloads and make them almost instantly playable like streaming gaming services using progressive download technology, has partnered with content delivery network Akamai to boost its performance and make games playable within a couple minutes.

Pandora shares are trading sharply lower Wednesday after CNBC reported that Facebook plans to unveil plans for a rival online music service at the upcoming F8 developers conference on September 22. My colleague Nicole Perlroth notes this morning that Facebook is expected to unveil integration partnerships with the online music services Spotify, MOG and RDIO. ...