Nashville, TN - Those RedBox DVD kiosks are about to offer more than just overnight rentals. Redbox is joining with Verizon to combine dvd rentals with streaming movies and tv shows.
Verizon and RedBox are combining to compete head to head with Netflix and Amazon. It will be a subscription service that gives customers some combination of using the kiosks and streaming movies directly to your television and mobile devices. The rest of the details are vague. And we don’t know if the service will only be offered to Verizon customers. It rolls out sometime this summer when we’ll learn how much it will cost and how many movies and tv shows we’ll be able to rent or watch per month.
Amazon is sweetening the pot when it comes to its streaming video service. Adding tv shows from MTV, Comedy Central, BET, and Nickelodeon. The shows are available along with movies to Amazon Prime members. That service is similar to Netflix and costs 79 dollars a year.
Starbucks has rolled out a pretty cool way to send a Valentine. For the holiday, Starbucks has rolled out coffee cups that have hearts printed on them. By downloading the Cup Magic app for the iPhone or Android devices, point your phone’s camera at the cup and watch animated hearts dance around the cup.
It’s a technology called “augmented reality”, in other words, a combination of the reality you see in your phone...with digital images or information.
More and more businesses are starting to use it. Starbucks’ Cup Magic gives you the ability to send video of your magic cup to your valentine either through e-mail or Facebook.
