The BBC took a “simple low cost brainwave reading headset” and developed a “Mind Control TV” prototype for its iPlayer streaming service, Cyrus Saihan, head-business development, said Thursday in a blog post. It allows users to open an “experimental version” of iPlayer and choose a TV program to view “using nothing but their brainwaves,” Saihan said. For now, it’s an “internal” BBC prototype designed to give program creators, technologists and others “an idea of how this technology might be used in the future,” he said. In its first trial run, 10 BBC staff members all were able to launch iPlayer and start viewing a program “simply by using their minds,” he said. Though it was “much easier for some than it was for others,” all who tried it “managed to get it to work,” he said. BBC researchers envision using the technology “to help users with a broad range of disabilities who cannot easily use traditional TV remote controls or other conventional interfaces,” he said. For example, people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis “may increasingly be able to use brain-computer interfaces to get a better experience of digital and media services than they currently do, potentially opening up the online world of information and experiences that the rest of us now take for granted,” he said. “Our proof-of-concept is only an experiment and just a toe in the water, but it helps our initial understanding of how we might be able to control devices using our brainwaves in the years to come.”

Netflix added audio description tracks to several additional TV shows and movies and created a home page link for easier access to titles with description service, a company blog post said Tuesday. Netflix also plans to add its first title with Spanish audio description later this year, the post said.

A little more than a month after Spotify became available on PlayStation devices through PlayStation Music, the music-streaming service has had more than 5 million downloads, the company said in a blog post Wednesday. Spotify called it the "quickest launch adoption rate in PlayStation history." The company said that PlayStation Music, including Spotify, is scheduled to be released this summer in Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador.

Pandora began offering mobile programmatic advertising, a company news release said Tuesday. It said the program, which has been in beta stage since March, offers Pandora's display inventory across mobile device and tablet platforms, letting advertisers more effectively reach target audiences. Since its release in beta, the program has "been leveraged by such brands as Ford and agencies including Essence," said the streaming music company.

Consumers are increasingly staying connected through the use of devices such as cellphones and personal computers and are more likely to download content, said research findings released by Limelight Networks Tuesday. The survey also discovered that individuals, especially millennials, expect "a seamless and consistent experience" when downloading content, Limelight said. Some 49 percent of millennials surveyed by Limelight said they were more inclined to download content than they were a year prior, and 42 percent of all consumers polled identified the cellphone as the device they use most to download content -- with their personal computer coming in a close second at 39 percent. Limelight also said 32.5 percent of consumers surveyed chose Google as their No. 1 source for frequent digital content downloads, such as e-books, games and movies -- compared with the 24 percent who chose Apple.

Australia-based media provider Multi Channel Network (MCN) and AOL Platforms teamed up to launch a private, data-driven TV marketplace called MCN Programmatic TV, said an AOL news release Monday. The program officially rolled out last month, said an AOL spokesman, and since then four companies representing six advertising entities have begun using it. Plans for the platform began in October, and it now gives clients more efficiency and yield and an increased ability to drive value for marketers, AOL said.

Universal Pictures joined the UHD Alliance as its fifth major studio member, following Disney, Fox, Sony and Warner, the alliance’s website shows. ARRI Group, which bills itself as the world’s largest supplier of professional motion picture equipment, also has joined, as have Taiwanese chipmaker MStar Semiconductor and Nanosys, which has partnered with 3M on quantum-dot display technology, it says. DTS and Nvidia also are listed as new members.

A market modification should mean that TV stations wanting to be carried by satellite in that new territory must either be forced to be included as must-carry or must negotiate a new retransmission consent agreement, Dish Network said in a notice posted Friday in docket 15-71 regarding the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization Act. In a meeting with staff, Dish executives raised the argument that market modification proposals before the FCC could create situations where satellite companies are forced to carry two stations affiliated with the same broadcast network in the same geographic area, with the best fix being to abandon the approach of letting a station whose market has been modified choose between retransmission consent or must-carry. Dish also reiterated its point that satellite companies should be allowed to say whether a proposed market modification is technically or economically doable without having to provide confidential business or market information. Similar, separate conversations with the FCC about market modification raise the point that satellite companies aren't required to provide evidence regarding areas they don't serve, so "it would be anomalous to require detailed showings for modified markets when such showings are not required for unmodified markets," DirecTV said.

Since May 2014, Spotify has doubled its number of paid subscribers -- now more than 20 million -- the music-streaming service said in a blog post Wednesday. The company has more than 75 million active users and paid out $300 million in royalties to artists in the first three months of 2015, it said.

Gannett's board finalized a plan to split the media conglomerate into two publicly traded entities -- Tegna and “new” Gannett (see 1504210034) -- the company said in a news release Monday. Tegna will be a broadcasting and digital organization, while “new” Gannett retains all publishing outlets and related digital services. Gannett’s current $4.4 billion in debt will shift to Tegna upon the separation, which is expected to occur June 29. Shareholders will keep any shares of Gannett stock, which will be renamed Tegna, and receive one share of “new” Gannett stock for every two shares they previously held.