Netflix customers went wanting for more than two hours Tuesday evening after an apparent glitch temporarily shut down the site's core functions, including its streaming video service. The site was operating normally again by about 10:30 p.m. ET. Netflix, which now has more than 20 million subscribers, has not revealed an exact cause for the outage, but company VP of Corporate Communications Steve Swasey told Light Reading Cable this morning that "It was a rare technical issue, since resolved." (See Showtime Cuts Netflix Down to Size.)

Adobe Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE) is grabbing a big cut of the "TV Everywhere" business from cable MSOs and programmers with Adobe Pass, an authentication platform that's already getting support from Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), Cox Communications Inc. , Dish Network LLC (Nasdaq: DISH) and Turner Broadcasting. (See Cable Adapting to Video's Streaming Future and CableLabs Tuning Up TV Everywhere Specs .)

Insight Communications Co. Inc. is reportedly on the auction block, hoping to sell its entire operation for up to US$4 billion. Reuters identifies Time Warner Cable Inc. (NYSE: TWC), Suddenlink Communications and Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC), which just bought Bresnan Communications, among the potential buyers. (See Insight Goes Private, Reports Q2 and Cablevision Goes Country With Bresnan Buy.)

Motorola Mobility LLC may be better positioned to help pay-TV providers pitch subscribers "converged media" experiences between TVs and mobile phones after inking a deal to buy Swedish IPTV software vendor Dreampark AB . (See Motorola Plays Host to Microsoft IPTV.)

Little-known tech vendor Robocast is accusing Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) of ripping off its automated browsing technology for us in iTunes, Apple TV and Front Row (media center software for Macs).

Setting the stage for a court battle between top audience research firms, The Nielsen Co. filed a patent infringement suit against comScore Inc. for allegedly stealing technology for measuring online content.

Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) is preparing for the day when 500 billion hours of video will be available on the Web.

Cablevision and ActiveVideo are taking mosaic program guides to a new level, allowing cable subs to create up to 20 "personalized" mosaics, with each displaying up to nine of their favorite TV channels as once. The demo below shows how the MSO's "Personalized Quick Views" product works. (See Cablevision Tunes Up With ActiveVideo and ActiveVideo Suit Targets Verizon.)



— Steve Donohue, Special to Light Reading Cable, and Jeff Baumgartner, Site Editor, Light Reading Cable