media

Intel's fledgling TV business has lost one of its lead engineers, the company confirmed, potentially dealing a blow to its efforts to get the business off the ground.

Jim Baldwin, who served as vice president and general manager of engineering for Intel Media, has left the company to pursue other opportunities, an Intel spokesman said. Baldwin's LinkedIn profile, meanwhile, said he has retired from the company.

Baldwin couldn't immediately be reached for comment. The Intel spokesman said that the company has "a deep engineering leadership bench" and has taken steps internally to address the transition. &… Read more

Authorities pursuing a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing have a love-hate relationship with social media. After initially asking for help via Twitter, law enforcement later requested that social-media users be a little more conscientious about the kind of information shared (or fabricated) on social networks.

In the immediate aftermath of the dual blasts that killed three and injured dozens near the marathon finish line on Monday, law enforcement turned to the public via Twitter and other platforms for help crowdsourcing leads. On Thursday, the FBI released video footage of two young men carrying backpacks near the finish line of … Read more

When Twitter opened up its #Music app to everyone on Thursday, it was the strongest sign yet that the social-networking giant is aiming to become a media machine that dominates popular entertainment channels.

There's no doubt that many of Twitter's vast user base already have a deep interest in music, but until now there's been no structured way for artists or fans to leverage that. With the public launch of the company's new discovery service, Twitter has seemingly taken the next step to becoming an indispensable destination both for people to find new music to listen … Read more

You don't have to be the host of "American Idol" to use Twitter Music anymore.

A little more than a month after CNET broke the news that Twitter was working on a stand-alone music discovery app and a week after that app was rolled out to an invite-only group of celebrities and others -- including Ryan Seacrest -- the general public can now get its hands on the music discovery app.

Twitter officially unveiled #music on Thursday during "Good Morning America." The company later provided more details about the service in a blog post, saying … Read more

Twitter said today that it has added the ability for advertisers to target ads at people based on keywords from those users' recent tweets.

In a blog post this morning, Twitter characterized the new feature as "an important new capability -- especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent -- because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context."

To be sure, millions of people are letting the world know what they're thinking in real time by sending out tweets about what they're doing, links they've noticed, news they'… Read more

Every week, we compile the best new reviews, products, and features from the Download.com software catalog and blog, package them up in a tidy little newsletter, and e-mail it out to all of our lovely subscribers.

If you are a registered CNET member, you can sign up for the newsletter yourself (it's listed as "CNET Download.com Software Dispatch" under "Software News and Reviews"), or check back every Tuesday to read our latest roundup.

Notable New Products

Twitter has pulled the rug out from under Flattr, a service that let users send a digital thank you to anyone favoriting one of their tweets.

In a blog post today, Flattr noted that it will no longer be able to offer its service because Twitter felt it was a violation of the social networking giant's API terms.

"Recently Twitter contacted us and told us that we are violating their API terms citing [a] clause saying 'Your advertisements cannot resemble or reasonably be confused by users as a tweet. For example, ads cannot have tweet actions like follow, … Read more

As news spread of the blasts at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday afternoon, people in the area reported that phone lines were down and cell phone calls could not get through. However, smartphones enabled some to send text messages and update social media accounts.

People took to social media sites like Twitter and Instagram to notify loved ones that they were OK. Others were using Twitter as a tool to reach out and ask those in the area to post updates.

GOM Media Player for Windows handles most of the more common video formats, including MP4, AVI, MKV, and more. It comes with a sleeker, more media center-focused design and packs plenty of codecs under the hood to play just about any media format you throw at it.

The initial installation is standard, like any other Windows product: accept a couple terms, set a destination folder, and choose to opt in or out of an offer from AVG. After installation completes, GOM will guide you through an optional setup process to optimize initial use based on sound and monitor setup.

You'… Read more