Weekly wrapup, 12-16 May 2008

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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Competition: Win a HP HDX Dragon 20inch notebook

Internet TV news

HBO offers six shows on iTunes; even with higher prices, savings are considerable

For the first time Apple is allowing variable pricing for content on iTunes in the United States. Six of HBO’s most popular shows are now available for purchase on iTunes, ranging from $1.99 to $2.99 an episode. In the past, Apple has been so adamant about fixed pricing that NBC decided to pull its shows from iTunes at the end of last year after a loud, public dispute over, in part, variable pricing demands.

Just like version 1 of NBC Direct, version 2 will leave you screaming in frustration

NBC opened a second beta trial of NBC Direct, its Web-based video-on-demand (VOD) download service. The new-and-supposedly-improved Direct is now powered by peer-to-peer content distribution from Pando.

Mobile news

Apple working on Atom-based Internet tablet? Let’s hope it’s more open than the iPhone

To really be a game changing device, an Apple tablet would need to be as extensible as the Mac, else much of Atom’s power will go to waste.

It’s like Christmas in July: Google announces winners of Android Developers Challenge

Google announced the 50 round-one winners in the worldwide search for the best Android-developed applications. For using Google’s open-source mobile operating system, each winner will receive $25,000 to further fund their apps.

Mobile OS wars heat up as Verizon joins LiMo Foundation, a Google-Android rival

Here’s an interesting jab at Google and its mobile operating system Android: Verizon, the No. 2 U.S. carrier, is joining the LiMo Foundation because it has software and phones available, Google does not.

iPhone who? Opera Mini gets speedy update

When Opera released version 4 of its Java-based Opera Mini browser last June, we suggested that features such as ‘desktop view’, tiled zooming, and the use of a proxy server to speed up browsing, meant that it went along way to addressing any iPhone-envy. With the release of version 4.1, Opera isn’t resting on its laurels.

iSlsk brings filesharing to the iPhone and iPod touch

Developer Errrick has created iSlsk, a new filesharing client for jailbroken iPhones that works with the Soulseek network, by basing it on open source versions of the client for the Mac.

Feature post

How-to: Stream media from a Mac to PlayStation 3

Apple and Sony are fierce competitors, but that hasn’t stopped the PlayStation 3 playing nicely with Mac OSX computers. Thanks to some great third-party software, and Sony’s decision to add support for the UPnP AV standard, the PS3 has, in some ways, become a better solution than Apple’s own offering to the problem of streaming content – audio, video and photos – from a Mac to the TV.

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.

One Response to “Weekly wrapup, 12-16 May 2008”

  1. Abhijith says:

    Who is the winner of the HP HDX Dragon?

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