The UpStream

Let's be honest with ourselves - no matter how cute or amusing they are, we all hate television commercials. They don't add value to the program, they are just in the way, right? There have been some creative ways to get around them. Many people use a DVR to record the program ahead of time and then skip trough the ads. The natural progression of any repetitive act is automation, and DISH network decided to drive the automation of removing commercials with their highly advertised Hopper DVRs.

While certainly a hit with consumers, this new DVR offering is not showing up as a positive for the networks. In fact, three of the major broadcast networks, Fox, CBS and NBCUniversal, have filed suit against DISH Network for this new product. As of right this moment, ABC Disney is the only broadcaster that has not filed suit, but based on Disney's litigious streak, my guess is it is only a matter of time.

While all of this is totally expected, DISH Network's reaction is not as much. Hit the break to find out what they have done in reaction.

The tablet market is really starting to get unforgiving, and as the competition heats up, some of the big players are getting out. The most notable and quickest exit from the market, of course, was HP, when they canceled their much anticipated TouchPad weeks after its launch. While it was not a full departure from tablets, it was an end to a new market they purchased.

Another company that seemed to end up in the tablet market almost accidentally is Cisco. A little less than a year ago, Cisco launched the Cius line of tablets, a line of Android-powered, 7-inch devices designed for enterprise. While Cisco thought they had a fix to low sales in December with a larger version, but it seems they have changed their minds. It looks like decreasing, not increasing, sales will end the Cius tablet in the same museum as the Flip video.

Why has Cisco, the biggest name in networking, had trouble gaining traction in the most networkable device ever? Hit the break for some possibilities.

Ever since seeing the GM En-V concept car at CES last year, we were wondering when we would finally see automated cars driving across the nation. We knew Google was testing out some of their own vehicles in Nevada and now we've learned the possibility of automated driving is going to happen sooner than we previously thought.

The crazy lovely state of California is known to do some strange, confusing and downright unconstitutional things, so this is pretty close to their wheelhouse. California has passed a bill that sets the guidelines and rules for automated vehicles that are driven and tested on the hill-laden roadways of the great state. Florida has also joined the ranks of states who want to see this technology developed even further.

The bill easily passed without hesitation and now heads to the California State Assembly. We have the details after the break.

It seems that Netflix's new programming announcement may have been just the ticket to get more customers to sign up for the service. Either that, or the ones that left have realized nothing better is out there and have now come back to the movie and TV-streaming company. Yeah, it's definitely more the second one. A spokesperson from Netflix said that nearly one-third of all the new customers lately were previous Netflix customers who have come back to daddy after leaving the house and seeing that the rent next store is too high and doesn't offer nearly the same amenities.

Last week we asked if Facebook's IPO could be NASDAQ's biggest bust. Our opinion was that it indeed was, and this was before we witnessed the disaster that happened this week. The social network giant was able to walk away from the IPO with $16 billion in its pockets, however the stock price has been tanking since its technically-delayed opening last week. At the time of this article, the price has dropped down below $32, which is $13 down from when it opened a week ago.

Now, we've learned that when Facebook was shopping around for investors this month, the company may not have been completely honest with all of its financial information. Facebook and a list of banks that include Morgan Stanley are being sued by its shareholders, citing that Facebook purposely hid weakened growth forecasts to investors before the IPO.

Ever since trouble started to arise for LightSquared, Sprint has been scrambling to build their own 4G LTE network. They looked to launch sometime in the next couple months. Ahead of that, Sprint had a pretty clever idea and that was to launch a line of handsets that had their new 4G LTE technology in them so customers could have the devices in their hands upon network launch day. All would seem grerat with that idea, except for the fact that one of their flagship phones, the HTC Evo 4G LTE (and AT&T's HTC One X), ran into some problems. Days before the attempted street date of May 18th for the device, customs held up the shipment on US docks because of Apple placing an ITC violation against HTC.

HTC said,

The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order. We believe we are in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with Customs to secure approval. The HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE have been received enthusiastically by customers and we appreciate their patience as we work to get these products into their hands as soon as possible.

The problem? Apple claims the dialer app and Sense UI, which comes pre-loaded on HTC devices, infringes on Apple's patents. It seems like Apple is grasping at straws lately. Nevertheless, HTC said it was working on a fix and Sprint customers would have the Evo 4G LTE in their hands shortly.

Turns out that the solution only took six days and there's more on that after the break.