ZuDfunck

Can I Stream It?

Let's say you are a regular techie with a Netflix account, a Hulu account, and since you only shop online, you also have an Amazon Prime account. Now let's say you want to know if a movie you're dying to watch is available to be streamed instantly, using any of these accounts.

With CanIStream.It, you can search across all of these services and pick the one you want to use. And if the movie you're looking for is not available, just sign-up, set a reminder and voila we will shoot you an email when your chosen service makes the movie available. It's simple and fast.

CanIStream.it also searches iTunes, Crackle, Blockbuster, Youtube Movies, EPIX, Vudu, Android, and Amazon OnDemand stores; so if a movie isn't available you might still be able to digitally rent or purchase it.

Just type in the movie title you want to search for and then select "Streaming", "Rental", "Purchase", or "DVD/Blu-ray" from the menu to check for availability. If the movie is available, simply click on the icon and it will take you to the movie page, for the service you selected. If not, then sign-in and set a reminder and we'll let you know when it becomes available.

CanIStream.It is a free service created by the UrbanPixels crew for the community. We were missing a service like this, so we built it and now hope that other people find it useful too.

Contact us at info@urbanpixels.com if you have any questions or just want to tell us what you think about CanIStream.It.

Wanna see if you can stream it? Great chrome extension. I searched for Rango. What flick do you want to stream?

One of the features that immediately caught my eye about Mountain Lion was AirPlay Mirroring. As I noted yesterday, this offers a powerful presentation tool for business users as well as a great classroom addition for teachers and trainers.

Of course, it’s also a great entertainment solution and one that has some dramatic advantages over AirPlay Mirroring on the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S. Those advantages are likely to set the stage for a showdown between Apple and the entertainment industry.

Let’s start with the basics – AirPlay mirroring lets you send video and audio from your Mac to your HDTV wirelessly. In effect, it works like having a second display attached to you Mac and choosing to mirror your internal display rather add a second desktop. Anything that happens on your Mac happens on your TV.

That includes games, Keynote and PowerPoint presentations, and web pages – including web pages that show videos, most notably videos from network programs. Miss last night’s episode of The Big Bang Theory? Want to watch on your TV but not feeling so invested that you want to shell out the handful of cash to buy it via iTunes? No problem, fire up CBS.com, turn on AirPlay mirroring and watch the episode on your TV for free. The same approach will work any broadcaster’s website as well as with Hulu.

Yes, you’ll still see a couple of short ads, but you’re still watching it on your schedule and on your TV at no cost. No iTunes purchase, no monthly cable/satellite company charge for your DVR – it’s a cord cutter’s dream. And a network or cable executive’s nightmare – and that doesn’t even take into account that this will work with all manner of pirated streams as well.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that a device has let you browse the web (complete with Flash, if you must) on your TV. That was one of the hallmarks of Google TV that the search giant hyped almost two years ago. It was also easy for the entertainment industry including the major networks and Hulu to work around, however. All they had to do was use modify their sites to serve different content when the Google TV’s browser was detected in http requests – problem solved.

That strategy won’t work with Mountain Lion and the Apple TV. A browser request from a Mountain Lion Mac using AirPlay Mirroring will look exactly the same as a request from a Mac that isn’t. And it won’t matter what browser is running either. AirPlay Mirroring will work just fine with any browser (and any application, for that matter).

It's a cord-cutter's dream. Yeah, if you can afford a Mac, you can probably afford cable. But, in keeping with the theme of this blog. Another tool to use in building a cord cutting arsenal.

Last month, he seemed frustrated, tweeting out “#screwcable” when a feud between MSG and Time Warner Cable forced Mr. Wilson to consume pirated content if he wanted to see the (pre-Linsanity) Knicks. But during yesterday’s talk, Mr. Wilson seemed more convinced of the universality of the condition.

“Making everybody a criminal is not the way to do this,” he told the crowd in an impassioned speech, appearing visibly moved by the wrong-headedness of the government’s approach:

“We gotta fix the system so that the content is available legally on the internet in a way that it is available for people to consume it. As convenient as turning on your TV and watching HBO, that’s how convenient it has to be. The content industry has not made this content convenient to access on the internet and as a result everybody, and I mean everybody, is a pirate. Okay so in the world where everybody is breaking the law, you gotta look at the law. Is it the right law?”

Rather, as CNET reports, Mr. Wilson proposes establishing an independent group to develop “a black and white list.” He listed Hulu, Netflix, Rdio, Spotify, and Rhapsody under “the good guys.” (One could also add Boxee and Turntable.fm, both USV-backed companies, to that list.)

I do at times feel akin to Captain Jack Sparrow