BitTorrent has been trying to shake their association with piracy by developing a new media distribution platform, and one of their initiatives will be an online news TV channel set to launch with coverage of the Republican National Convention.
- BitTorrent News will launch on July 18th as part of their BitTorrent Live video platform. The company has hired a number of television news journalists and filmmakers that include Al Jazeera English and Vice alumni to provide coverage of the upcoming convention with the requisite play-by-play commentary that you would expect from television news. [BitTorrent]
- In other news, Microsoft has released a new Skype app for Linux. The app is still early in development and doesn’t have all the features of Skype, but it does have a redesigned, more responsive interface akin to Skype on other platforms. Linux users can also make calls if you visit web.skype.com in Chrome. [Microsoft via MSPoweruser]
- You can now send and receive video messages on Google Hangouts for Android. The feature has been on the iOS version of the app for years but it’s not really a central tenet of Hangouts, which is presumably why Google just got around to adding it to the Android version. [Android Police]
- ABC is relaunching their free online streaming service with a library of classic ABC shows along with new digital shorts. The service is ad-supported so you can watch for free via various apps or ABC.com. [Variety]
Source: LifeHacker
