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In 2007, Netflix changed the landscape by introducing streaming on PC, allowing customers to instantly watch shows. By 2010, Netflix video streaming became available on additional platforms, including iOS devices. Today, video streaming services Netflix and Hulu have a strong hold among combined iOS and Android Top US Apps.

These convenient apps have set the stage for a preferred entertainment delivery. A whole generation of consumers have grown up with video streaming, rather than (or in addition to) paying for cable television: cord cutters and cord nevers. Major premium cable networks, HBO and Showtime, are now after a piece of the pie Netflix and Hulu have carved out

Both HBO NOW and Showtime are taking different approaches to standalone streaming partnerships. HBO NOW has gotten more traction in part to a heavy promotion from Apple, resulting in positive metrics. Showtime’s success is less clear, being married into Hulu’s already strong performance

Today, Facebook Messenger has 800 million monthly active users – more than 100 times the number of iPhone owners when Apple launched the App Store. Messenger’s current active user base exceeds even the total number of iPhones ever sold. Messaging apps now have more active users than social networks.

If and when Facebook announces a Bot Store, it will mark the “end of the beginning” of a new era: messaging as a platform. Conversational user interfaces are about to change the way billions of users interact with the world around them.

Pavel Durov announced the expansion of the Telegram Bot Store and Ted Livingston staked out Kik’s claim to be the WeChat of the West. By the end of the year, Slack had announced the Slack App Directory, supported by an $80 million fund to fuel the growth of the ecosystem, and Google was rumored to be developing its own chatbots.

Kindly is his first effort to come up with an alternative solution. With the app, which launched quietly a couple weeks ago, users can share or receive short conversation prompts in categories like "addiction/recovery," "marriage/divorce," "work/business" and "creativity/inspiration." The app then makes use of an algorithm to try and match the person who put out the prompt with another who may serve as a good listener.

"There's a certain class of content which is only going to come onto Facebook if there's a good way to compensate content owners for that,"

"We've recently rolled out the business model for this. We'll give a revenue share on a portion of the views to content owners

To grasp the scope of change unraveling in content creation, which is increasingly fragmented, consider all the mobile apps on your smartphone.

users of the messaging app WeChat can order food, call a taxi, check their bank balance and even shop flash sales of limited-edition goods. And for the user, the experience is just like texting a friend.

Launched last week, Hanx Writer turns your iPad into an old-fashioned typewriter, offering a pseudo-analog typing experience. The bangs of key presses, hard returns and the chimes that sound when you reach the end of a new line now sit alongside modern conveniences 

Mattel unveiled its new, $300 3D Printer, the “ThingMaker,” which will allow children to print their own toys at home

While there are affordably priced 3D printers available today, the software that works with them can sometimes have a learning curve that can hinder adoption. With the new application, live now on iOS and Android, the goal was to make it easy enough for anyone to design their own toys – even younger children

The idea isn’t just to print an object and be done, however – instead, kids will print parts that can be assembled to form larger creations, like dolls, robots, dinosaurs, scorpions, skeletons, bracelets or necklaces, for example

The in-app checkout allows consumers to tap a shoppable product tag in a post, select product details like sizing and coloring prior to clicking a "Checkout on Instagram" button, and enter their payment and shipping information to complete the purchase, all without leaving the app.

By allowing consumers to check out right on Instagram, brands and retailers may be able to inspire more impulse purchases because consumers won't have to go through a laborious checkout process where they might get frustrated or just change their mind about the product.

These T-Shirts Have Customizable Digital Animations When on Camera

The animated t-shirts work by first having the user choose a graphically themed shirt to start the process. Through the 'Drawsta' app, the user can then see which animated designs come with the shirt of their choice and take videos of the animation. The videos can be used on any and all platforms that are compatible with videos -- they can be texted, put on Instagram, tweeted, vlogged and messaged. Each week a new design option appears on the app for the animated shirts -- making them fun and creative. These animated t-shirt apps are a playful way to reinterpret the t-shirt and its uses by combining GIF-like technology with this classically casual clothing.

Google Glass just got a whole lot more useful for travel. The connected headset now has official apps for Foursquare, TripIt and OpenTable.

TripIt inserts its trip updates and information in the Google Now cards that already appear on Glass. Your flight status, departure time and gate will all appear on a single card

Open Table has its own command: "Okay Glass, make a reservation...." Once you speak those words, a selection of nearby restaurants will appear, ready for you to scroll through

Google’s YouTube Kids app, which offers a walled garden of content aimed at the 5-and-under set, is the target of a coalition of consumer groups urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the service as a potential violation of rules about advertising to children

“Many of the video segments endorsing toys, candy and other products that appear to be ‘user-generated’ have undisclosed relationships with product manufacturers in v

iolation of the FTC’s guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising,

Slice Intelligence just revealed that people who bought products in mobile video games last year spent an average of $87 dollars on their “free-to-play” games. This redefines how we view hardcore gamers: people who purchase games for traditional consoles and PCs spend only $5 dollars more on average on their gaming entertainment.

The mobile game with the largest average in-app spend is Game of War, where players spend, on average, $550

A new glove will turn even the most deficient in musical talent into rockstars.

The glove works in tandem with a motion sensor bracelet, allowing you to create sounds by moving your fingertips or your entire hand. You can tap any surface and it will sound like you're playing on a keyboard.

You can then record songs in real-time, on-the-go, and trust that they'll all be saved onto the app. The glove can send recordings over WiFi or Bluetooth.

High-profile mobile money launches by Apple and Samsung may have caught the headlines

But it is the developments in payments systems in supposedly less developed nations in Africa and Asia that point the way to the probable future for wider mobile banking.

the reality remains that the mobile phone as a means of payment remains relatively niche even in developed markets.

Waverly Labs says they will soon release the Pilot, a pair of in-ear translators designed to let people who speak different languages understand each other in real-time

The technology makes use of an embedded app that does the translating, which is delivered to the earpiece that is shared by two people. The Pilot is also supposed to come with an additional earpiece for wireless streaming music and an app that allows people toggles between languages.

The company intends to develop support for European and Germanic languages first, but the Slavic Semitic, Hindi, and East Asian languages are not too far behind.

Even if I turned away and turned back, Tobii instantly picked up my gaze

Forget waving at the screen, I want my computer to look into my eyes and know what I want to do.

I was looking on screen

Sproutling promises to use wearable, sensor-driven technology to give parents insight into their child's sleeping patterns. It does this with a wearable anklet, a charging dock with a novel UI, and an app

The app uses animations, not hard numbers, to provide an at-a-glance reassurance that your baby is alive and well ("New parents aren't going to know if 130 beats per minute is better than 90, and without the medical context to understand vitals data it's just going to cause more fear and anxiety and needless calls to the doctor,"

This generation of new parents are millennials. "They grew up with a smartphone in their pocket, so they're looking for technology to solve their problems,"

When we launched ads two years ago, ads were available in just eight countries. In September, we opened for business in around 200 countries

Facebook’s global sales team was beginning to push Instagram’s advertising to small businesses, providing them with the ability to target marketing at particular users

that international expansion was a priority, with 75 per cent of its more than 400m users based outside the US

It’s part of an experiment to see if technology can help with the daunting and seemingly Sisyphean tasks of a first time parent, to find out why a growing number of people are turning to gadgets to help with one of life's toughest jobs.

Attempting to simplify parenthood with gizmos and apps has perversely made it a lot more complicated. And as for peace of mind, forget it.

The concept of the “quantified baby” has been around for some time now, and there’s a large and growing market for smart infant products from anxious or diligent or curious new parents.