Technology, Cable | featured news

Google Fiber has a lot going for it, both as an ISP and a pay-TV platform. There was was one gaping hole in the service though: no HBO. Lets be honest with ourselves, its the big geeks that are looking to hop on that 1Gbps service first. And what do geeks love almost as much as blazing-fast Google-branded internet? Game of Thrones. Now Kansas City (and soon Austin) based nerds will be able to watch Joffrey become an even bigger monster live, rather than wait for some torrent site to get an illegal copy of it up (or, if they're smart, mooch off of someone's HBO GO account). Alongside HBO, Google Fiber has also added Cinemax: Home Box Office's less cool sibling. The branded families of channels are both available today for $20 a month or $10 a month respectively. Or, if you're a real premium TV fan, you can get both, plus STARZ and Showtime for $40 a month. Hit up the source for a few more details.

A top executive with the owner of the Fox broadcast network on Monday threatened to convert the network to a pay-TV-only channel if Internet startup Aereo Inc. continues to "steal" Fox's over-the-air signal and sell it to consumers without paying for rights.

Part of the enduring appeal of YouTube is the sheer random nature of it all -- the way videos of a South Korean pop song or a doped-up kid after a dentist visit can go from obscure to internationally known in a matter of days. But increasingly, the Web's leading video site has also been working to become the Internet's cable provider, mixing channels of its own original content, often in partnership with established stars, into the mix.

Consumers who dream of watching HBO hits like "The Sopranos" or "Game of Thrones" by streaming to TVs using their Netflix accounts shouldn't hold their breath.

Fox News says it has fired an associate producer after learning he was the "Fox Mole" hired by the news blog Gawker. The network said Joe Muto, who worked on "The O'Reilly Factor" and said he had been working at Fox News since 2004, was identified and fired. Fox said it was "continuing to explore legal recourse against Mr. Muto and possibly others."

As part of a federal effort to get more U.S. homes connected to broadband, cable companies will offer Internet service for $9.

Google has been in talks with the major TV networks and the major cable and satellite distributors, but it announced only a few concrete partnerships on Monday.

Facebook, the most visited site on the Internet, may also be the most despised: A new poll says the site scored 64 on a 100-point scale, which “puts Facebook in the bottom 5 percent” of private sector companies.

Today is another sobering day for the tech and media world. We've heard multiple reports of significant layoffs at Current TV taking place today.

Motorola is exploring a roughly $4.5 billion sale of its business making set-top boxes and other equipment for cable and phone companies, the latest chapter in the struggling tech giant's effort to turn itself around.