Verizon’s FiOS TV service has quietly been adding a number of new features for its users of late, including FaceBook support (which, honestly, is fair at best) and free VOD from forthcoming pay network Epix. Now it’s elbowing further into Comcast’s territory.

The phone-company-turned-television-provider has unveiled a trial run of FiOS TV Online, letting customers view select programming from any broadband connection. For now, only TBS and TNT are included, though other providers will be added soon. (FiOS customers can sign up here.) There is no charge for the service.

Users simply need to log in using their Verizon Online user names and passwords and (assuming they’re FiOS customers) they’ll be able to watch programming on demand.

It’s part of Time Warner’s TV Everywhere initiative, one that Comcast has been touting loudly in recent months. Comcast, though, hasn’t yet opened its trial program. And when it does in the coming months, only 5,000 select customers will be invited. (No word on whether Comcast plans to offer a larger selection of programming or just Time Warner channels. Also unknown is whether the service will cost an additional fee.)

"As an industry, it's critical that we get the TV Everywhere user experience and value proposition right," said Shawn Strickland, vice president of FiOS product management for Verizon in a statement.

FiOS has gotten rave reviews from the people who have it, but the service is very limited, versus Comcast’s wide audience base. But if Verizon can expand its distribution of the service, it could ultimately become a real threat to Comcast and other cable companies. And freebies like this certainly help to convert the company’s existing customer base into evangelists for the service. 

Forget Amazon’s  Kindle or the Sony Reader. While manufacturers jockey for position, the real winner in this battle is going to be E Ink.

Market researcher DisplaySearch predicts sales of e-paper will skyrocket from $431 million this year to $9.6 billion by 2018. That’s chiefly because the vast majority of eReaders on the market use the same underlying technology – an electrophoretic display developed by E Ink that simulates the printed page.

There are roughly 20 eReaders on the market these days and the number is increasing. IREX announced earlier this week that it would launch an 8.1-inch eReader that would tie into Barnes & Noble’s catalog, making it one of the largest potential threats to the Kindle.

DisplaySearch expects 22 million eReaders to sell this year, but predicts that number will jump to 1.8 billion within 9 years.

As I mentioned in my review of the Kindle last month, it's a decent machine that does a good job of simulating the book experience, but the price is much, much too high still. Sony and IREX are leading the charge to make competing products, but so far consumers are more curious about the tech than eager to begin using it.

If e-paper sales are going to reach that level, the price either needs to start falling fast or manufacturers of eReaders are going to have to finding ways to supplement their offerings. 

It’s annoying when you buy a new gadget and can’t get it to run smoothly out of the box. If your geek fu is strong, you probably power through the inconvenience and eventually figure things out – but the rest of the buying public is generally a bit less patient.

A new report from NPD Group says 13 percent of customers return their electronics devices due to their frustration at not being able to get them to work. However, 68 percent of those same consumers say they would have held onto the items if they could have gotten adequate tech support.

Nearly three-quarters of the 1,500 people NPD surveyed said they try to figure things out themselves when they first hit a problem. (The rest call tech support straight away.)

“Even though the cost of providing post-purchase care can be high, the cost of not providing [adequate tech support] could be even higher,” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. “Bad tech support can damage a brand’s image translating into returns and high customer dissatisfaction.”

I’ll grant you it’s nice to have someone at the other end of the phone that can calmly walk you through the problem, but it sure would be nice to have him or her acknowledge that not everyone is a beginner. Not everyone needs to be told to reboot a PC when there’s a problem.

Tech support is good. Tech support people who listen instead of reading from a problem-solving manual are great. 

Magazines aren’t typically where you expect to find video ads, but CBS has found a way to make it happen.

The network will embed a video chip into the pages of Entertainment Weekly’s Sept. 18 edition (well, for subscribers in NY and LA – the rest of the country and newsstand buyers will get a version without the chip). CBS is teaming with Pepsi to co-promote the network’s Monday night lineup and Pepsi Max.

LA-based Americhip is the company behind the chip. The battery fueling each one, it claims, can run about 40 minutes of video.

It’s a fascinating step forward in advertising, though I’m curious how much it’s costing the two companies. (Are ad-supported ads really the next step in the advertising world? Shudder.) Given the limited distribution, it has to be significant.

Running the ad in the nation’s top two markets will certainly help, but as my colleague Brian Lowry noted in his blog BLTv, CBS is already seeing a surge in viewership for “The Big Bang Theory”. If Monday’s see a ratings bump at CBS, will it be due to the innovative print ads or viewer excitement built up by on-air spots this summer?

Microsoft has been offering the free release candidate of Windows 7 for some time now, but if you’ve been putting off on grabbing a copy, it’s time to move.

The free offer expires tomorrow (8/20). Obviously, you won’t be able to use this version forever. (It will begin turning itself off every two hours starting March 1, 2010.) However, it’s an excellent chance to try before you buy – and the operating system is a whole lot faster and more stable than Vista.

Sure, the media loves its iPhone (my own review of the 3GS is forthcoming), but when you get down to brass tacks, the mighty Blackberry is holding its own just fine these days.

Fortune Magazine named Research in Motion, the maker of the Blackberry, as the fastest growing tech company in the world. The company posted an 84 percent growth in profits over the past three years, as well as a 77 percent surge in revenues.

Remarkably, this is RIM’s first time on the list – but that’s only because Fortune did not include non-U.S. firms in the past.

The Blackberry Curve actually outsold the iPhone in the first half of the year – and a follow-up is on the way, which could give the 3GS a run for its money.

Apple, by the way, came in at number nine on Fortune’s list.

A couple of nuggets about the folks at Apple today to add to the swirling speculations about the company.

While most folks were expecting Apple to announce its tablet computer before the end of the year, a pair of ‘very reliable sources’ are telling both theloop and daringfireball that the all-in-one portable machine won’t hit until sometime in 2010. 

Internet rumors are a dime a dozen, but both of these sites have historically been spot on with news of Apple products, so their rumor-busting is worth a mention. It’s not a guarantee, but if you’ve been waiting for the news, you might want to take a breath and settle in.

Meanwhile, there’s word that Apple is planning a keynote for early September with a music focus, though nothing has been confirmed yet. That would make sense as Microsoft’s Zune HD has been confirmed for a Sept. 15 launch. (The company will have both 16GB and 32GB versions available for $219 and $289, respectively.)

Apple, historically, has introduced new iPods each fall, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see Apple try to undercut the Zune HD’s debut with some upgrades to the iPod Touch. Maybe the addition of a camera this time?

A U.S, District Court judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling its popular Word program in 60 days, due to patent infringement violations.

Judge Leonard Davis, based in the Eastern District of Texas, issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the company from “selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML,” according to a statement released by attorneys for plantiff, i4i. (That would be Microsoft Word 2003 and Word 2007.)

The company was also ordered to pay $200 million in damages and another $40 million for “willful infringement” of the patent.

Microsoft says it plans to appeal the decision.

The case, which never really pinged anyone in the media’s radar before today, stretches back to March 2007, when i4i accused Microsoft of violating its patent for a system saving users from having to embed command codes in their documents to control the formatting of text. 

Despite the order, don’t look for Word (and, presumably, Microsoft Office) to disappear from store shelves. MSOffice is a $20 billion business for Microsoft and a key driver of profits.

The company announced plans last month to offer a free version of Word (and other Office tools) online beginning in the first half of next year.

Microsoft has been pretty quiet about the Zune HD since the official announcement, but as a rumored ship date gets closer, leaks are beginning to emerge.

A spy sent Gizmodo a look at Best Buy’s inventory system, with two versions of the media player priced. The 16GB model will reportedly go for $220, and the 32GB model will be $290.

And the expected September 8 launch date looks more and more accurate, as the Best Buy system lists it as well.

[Update: Actually, it now looks like the launch date is Sept. 15. Gizmodo now has shots of an in-store display showing that date - and Buy.com briefly had a Zune HD countdown that ended on that date. (The countdown has since been removed.)]

That puts the Zune well below the iPod Touch retail price, but that alone may not be enough to entice customers. Apple has plenty of time to adjust prices if it wants – and is likely comfortable enough in its leadership spot to leave things as they are.

After all, the Palm Pre had plenty of online buzz when it launched – and was often heralded as a potential iPhone killer – but so far has failed to put any sort of dent in the iPhone’s marketshare.

Your eyes are closed 15 minutes in most movies. You miss about six minutes of every episode of "24". And it’s all your body’s fault.

New research from the University of Tokyo finds that the brain pauses for up to 450 milliseconds with every blink. Put another way, our eyes are closed for up to 6 seconds per minute (meaning 15 minutes for a 150 minute film).

Researchers also found that film audiences tend to blink in unison and that our brains subconsciously control the timing of the blinks to ensure we don’t miss anything critical.

NewScientist has a complete breakdown of the study, which, while it technically may fall a bit out of the range of Technotainment’s area of focus, is still pretty fascinating. 

Image by StaR_DusT via Flickr.