rental

Redbox hits 1.5 billion DVD, Blu-ray rentals

Redbox is seeing strong demand for its disc rentals, the company announced yesterday.

According to the rental firm, which is owned by Coinstar, 1.5 billion DVDs and Blu-ray discs have been rented from its kiosks since it launched its service in 2004. Moreover, the company has rented 4 million video games.

To help build upon that success, Redbox said yesterday that it's rolling out game rentals to 5,000 more kiosks around the U.S. starting August 1. With those additions, consumers will be able to find games at 27,000 kiosks around the country, Redbox said.

Redbox … Read more

Paddle your way to a holiday destination

There are a great number of travel Web sites on the Internet that let you search flights, hotel listings, and car rentals, but if you want a quick way to get that info while on the go, check out the Kayak for Android app. This latest version includes a sleek interface and fast search results making it a breeze to get your travel plans in order quickly.

Instead of the older tile-like interface, Kayak has instead gone with a list view in this version that makes it easy to browse flights, hotels, and car rentals. Once you choose the type … Read more

BlackBerry Travel flies up to version 1.1

Jet-setting BlackBerry addicts now have a few more convenient travel tools at their disposal, thanks to today's update of the BlackBerry Travel app to version 1.1. After releasing the first iteration of BlackBerry Travel back in February, it appears the folks at RIM have listened to user feedback and rolled some of the louder suggestions into this newest release.

One of the splashiest new features users will find in 1.1 is Mobile Rental Car Booking. According to RIM, the updated app can now help you "book a rental car from almost any rental car agency anywhere … Read more

Redbox presses play on game rentals nationwide

As promised, Redbox has rolled out game rentals nationwide.

In April, Redbox said it would start offering game rentals in 21,000 of its 27,000 kiosks this month. The company is renting out a range of titles for the Xbox 360, Wii, and PlayStation 3, including the recently launched Duke Nukem Forever and last year's blockbuster hit Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Redbox has launched a full online listing of games available to customers. Those who find something they like can reserve a title from home and pick it up at their chosen Redbox location.

Redbox is charging $… Read more

New Dish CEO to Netflix: Watch out

Dish Network's incoming CEO Joe Clayton has some fighting words for Netflix, according to an Associated Press interview yesterday.

"If I were them, I'd be watching what's going on," Clayton told the AP in reference to Netflix and its streaming service. "I'd stay tuned. Because no one's going to have a monopoly on this and I'm sure it's not just our company that's looking at trying to take a small piece of the pie from Netflix."

Last month, Dish finalized its $320 million acquisition of Blockbuster, making it … Read more

The 404 822: Where there's too many chefs in the kitchen (podcast)

The Internet can be a breeding ground for bad ideas, and today's show highlights a few of them, like naming your kid after a Facebook button, making a fatal planking error, and replacing McDonald's cashiers with robots. There's good news today too, though--Seth MacFarlane just got the green light to reboot "The Flintstones."

The 404 Digest for Episode 822

Israeli couple names their kid "Like." Australian man planks to death...this is probably the Internet's fault. McDonald's in Europe to replace cashiers with touch-screen terminals. "The Flintstones" getting a reboot by Seth MacFarlane.

Episode 822 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

How to rent a movie on the BlackBerry PlayBook

RIM has been pushing hard to make sure consumers know that the BlackBerry PlayBook browser has Flash built in, a capability Apple's iPad is lacking. With the capability of Flash in the PlayBook's browser, the door is opened to playing video content that is designed for Flash capable devices. Enter YouTube Movies. This simple guide will show you how you can rent movies from YouTube and watch them on your PlayBook.… Read more

Microsoft buys Skype

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

Microsoft buys Skype

Google's Music Beta

Underage Facebook users

How to rent movies from Google's Android Market

Google announced today that its Android Market will now begin renting movies in the U.S. Although flicks start as low as $1.99, Google said, most of the "thousands" of titles listed rent for about $3.99 each. The news and onstage demo came from Google I/O in San Francisco this morning.

For now, you can watch these movies online and on Motorola Xoom tablets that run the latest Android 3.1 Honeycomb update. Soon, you'll also be able to watch movie rentals on your Android 2.2 Froyo and Android 2.3 Gingerbread phones. … Read more

YouTube expands its movie rentals

As part of an effort to get YouTube visitors using the site for things besides user-made videos, YouTube is expanding its professionally produced offerings as well as increasing investments in its own programs, confirming reports from last month suggesting that the company wanted to add to its exclusive programming.

In a blog post, the video site announced today that it's adding some 3,000 new movies from studios like NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, and Warner Bros.

"Today, we're going to start adding around 3,000 new movie titles for rent available to users in the U.S. (… Read more