Weekly wrapup, 21-25 May 2007

It’s been a busy first week here on last100, starting with our launch — which included a generous welcome from TechCrunch! (Thanks Mike). To keep with the party mood, we also gave away over 100 invites to try out Joost (see below).

Here’s a summary of the week’s digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.

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Features

Our launch feature was an in-depth review of Joost, the online video service created by the founders of Skype and Kazaa. Whilst there’s lots to like about Joost (its peer2peer technology, social features, and full-screen interface), we concluded that picture quality could be better, and that the dearth of content available to users outside of North America is a disappointment.

In a post titled: When will Steve Jobs open up the AppleTV?, we also looked at what the future may hold for Apple’s set-top-box, using the recent plethora of hacks released for the device, as our guiding light.

Top digital lifestyle news

The big digital lifestyle story of the week was the PlayStation 3’s firmware upgrade which added media extender functionality to Sony’s next-generation gaming console. In addition to being able to stream content from a PC to the PS3, users will soon be able to access their PS3 stored media from a PlayStationPortable over the Internet (not just a local WiFi network).

In more PSP-related news, BT and Sony announced that the two companies have inked a four year deal that will see the two companies bring voice calls, video conferencing, and IM functionality to PSP users across Europe. The drawback is that the new functionality will only work on home or BT wireless hotspots because it will require access to BT’s 21 Century Network (21CN).

We also reported on Pandora’s launch of its new ‘anywhere’ platform, which will see the music discovery service being available to devices beyond the PC — both mobile and around the home. As part of the announcement, the company unveiled two new partnerships: Sonos for streaming Pandora around the home, and Sprint for mobile.

More digital lifestyle news:

Polls

We ran two polls this week (you can still vote!). First asking, Can Skype replace your landline?, and after AppleInsider reported rumors of the Mac mini’s eminent demise, we asked: Does the AppleTV spell the end for the Mac mini?

That’s a wrap for our first week! Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone.

last100 is edited by Steve O'Hear. Aside from founding last100, Steve is co-founder and CEO of Beepl and a freelance journalist who has written for numerous publications, including TechCrunch, The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb and Macworld, and also wrote and directed the Silicon Valley documentary, In Search of the Valley. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

3 Responses to “Weekly wrapup, 21-25 May 2007”

  1. morgan says:

    may i?

  2. Philip says:

    Good luck to all at last 100. An interesting first week’s news – especially the stuff about bandwidth.

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