Netflix secures your streams, Hulu insists everybody pays, proving Bill Gates stole the source code, play 2,000 Amiga games on the Internet Archive, and watch Google mercilessly trolling Apple.

Netflix Enables HTTPS Encryption

Having already enabled HTTPS encryption to protect its users' data, Netflix is now also working hard to encrypt every video streamed by its users. What this means in a nutshell is that streams will be secure as they travel from local servers to customers' devices, offering an extra dose of privacy and security.

The company has outlined its methods for delivering this level of security to every single one of its 80 million+ customers in two papers -- Optimizing TLS for High–Bandwidth Applications in FreeBSD and Improving High–Bandwidth TLS in the FreeBSDkernel -- , but only the nerdiest of you should venture down that particular rabbit hole. The rest of us can just focus on the fact that Netflix expects to offer HTTPS encryption on most streams by the end of 2016.

HTTPS is rapidly becoming the standard across the whole of the web. YouTube recently boasted that 97% of its traffic is encrypted, with the percentage only set to increase over time. Netflix is therefore playing catch-up, which is understandable given the enormity of the task, but it's clearly spending significant amounts of time and money making its service safer for its customers.

Switch From Hulu Free to Yahoo View

Hulu is giving up on giving content away for free. Instead, Hulu is transitioning into a purely paid offering, and licensing its free content out to Yahoo. So, if you have been using the free version of Hulu for the past few years you should now point your browsers at Yahoo View instead.

The free version of Hulu will be shuttered in the next few weeks, with current users having the choice of upgrading to Hulu with Limited Commercials or Hulu with No Commercials. Or, if they want to continue watching recent episodes of TV shows made by ABC, NBC, and Fox, they can switch to using Yahoo View.

Hulu is clearly getting serious about streaming, deciding to dump those watching for free in order to provide a better service to those actually paying for the privilege. The company is also rumored to be launching a live television streaming service in 2017, but no details have yet been officially unveiled.

Prove Microsoft Ripped Off MS-DOS

You could earn yourself a cool $200,000… if you can find irrefutable proof that Microsoft copied the source code of CP/M in order to create the first version of MS-DOS. Why? Because a man named Bob Zeidman, who it's fair to say is somewhat obsessed with the subject matter, is putting up the prize money as a way to entice people to get involved in the search for proof.

Zeidman is convinced there's some truth to the longstanding rumors that Microsoft ripped off CP/M when creating MS-DOS. However, having failed to uncover any evidence of wrongdoing himself he's outsourcing the job to you and I.

Zeidman is offering $100k to anyone using "accepted forensic techniques" proving MS-DOS was copied, and a further $100k to anyone able to find the "Kildall copyright function" (a copyright notice citing the name of CP/M creator Gary Kildall.

For those of you who are both interested enough and convinced this will be time well spent, there are comparisons of the code of both operating systems, plus a host of reference materials, available to download from the Zeidman Consulting website.

Play Classic Amiga Games on Your PC

The Internet Archive has added more than 2,000 classic Amiga games to its vaults. And while they're not all "classic" in the sense of brilliant, they're all "classic" in terms of being old and able to serve up a hearty dose of nostalgia to those over a certain age.

Just like the MS-DOS games and collection of classic arcade games that have been added to the Internet Archive previously, these Amiga titles are all free to play right from within your browser. Which means you don't even have to mess around with emulators and ROMs to revisit your childhood spent playing geeky games.

Google Trolls Apple Over iPhone Storage

And finally, Google, Apple, and Microsoft occasionally let their corporate professionalism slip, and prod each other over dumb decisions or messy mistakes. It's rarely hardcore fisticuffs, with these corporations choosing to gently prod the competition with a blunt stick just to keep things interesting.

You can see Google engaging in some gentle prodding in this video, which is a commercial for Google Photos. It showcases Google Photos' ability to "Free Up Space" by backing up every photo to save you having to store it locally. And it does this by using an iPhone that's forever running out of space at crucial moments. Burn!

Your Views on Today’s Tech News

Are you pleased to see Netflix securing its video streams? Are you upset at Hulu killing its free service? Should Bob Zeidman let Microsoft off the hook already? Will you be playing any old Amiga games on the Internet Archive? Should Google be trolling Apple in such an obvious way?

Let us know your thoughts on the Tech News of the day by posting to the comments section below. Because a healthy discussion is always welcome.

Tech News Digest is a daily column paring the technology news of the day down into bite-sized chunks that are easy to read and perfect for sharing.

Image Credit: Yuri Samoilov via Flickr