Archive for June, 2008

Disney to stream movies online – for free

by Steve O'Hear

June 10th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments1 Comment

For the first time, Disney.com plans to offer free streaming of full-length movies, reports the LA Times. The new offering will be part of a co-promotion on television as part Disney-owned ABC network’s weekly “Wonderful World of Disney” program. Every Saturday night throughout the summer, a Disney movie will be shown on ABC and then subsequently be made available for streaming on Disney’s website — U.S.-only — free/ad-supported.

The full schedule:

  • “Finding Nemo” –- currently available online through June 13
  • “Monsters, Inc.” –- airs on ABC June 14 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com June 16-20
  • “Haunted Mansion” -– airs on ABC June 28 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com June 30-July 4
  • “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen” –- airs on ABC July 5 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com July 7-11
  • “Princess Diaries 2” -– airs on ABC July 12 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com July 14-18
  • “Freaky Friday” –- airs on ABC July 19 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com July 21-25
  • “Peter Pan” –- airs on ABC Aug. 2 at 8 p.m.; available on Disney.com Aug. 4-8

Last.fm now streaming on Squeezebox

by Steve O'Hear

June 10th, 2008 | Posted in Audio | CommentsNo Comments

We’re big fans of Logitech’s line of Squeezebox streaming audio devices, and today the company announced that it had partnered with Last.fm to add the social music service to its existing bevy of online streaming options.

Owners of the Logitech Squeezebox Duet (see our coverage), Squeezebox Classic or the high-end Transporter network music systems who are based in the U.S., UK or Germany will be able to access Last.fm’s music catalog through their home stereo systems. Users will be able to listen to Last.fm Internet radio stations based on artist or genre, as well as stream personalized stations created based on their listening habits — thanks to Last.fm’s “scrobbling capability” which debuted on Squeezebox earlier this year.

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Finally, Apple takes enterprise seriously

by Steve O'Hear

June 10th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | Comments1 Comment

During Steve Jobs’ keynote yesterday, one thing really stuck in my mind. Finally, Apple is taking the enterprise market seriously.

Yes, Apple is still primarily a consumer electronics company, albeit one that builds a range of hardware — laptop computers, set-top boxes, MP3 players, Internet tablets, mobile phones — in order to create some of world’s best software.*

Yes, the company is best poised to deliver a smartphone for consumers to manage life’s business.

Yes, in typical Apple-fashion, the newly announced MobileMe web service will bring enterprise features to consumers (dubbed “Exchange for the rest of us”).

Also see: Hey handset guys! Look around: Consumers want smartphones

But, with iPhone 2.0, Apple is sucking up to enterprise like never before…

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MLB.com's At Bat brings real-time game stats and immediate video highlights to iPhone

by Daniel Langendorf

June 9th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

mlb at bat iphoneI really could have used MLB.com’s new At Bat application for the iPhone this weekend.

Our seats for the Cardinals-Astros games Friday and Sunday weren’t bad, all things considered, but we were in the outfield underneath an overhang from the deck above us at Minute Maid Park. We could not see the gigantic scoreboard, which is essential for real-time game information and knowing what the heck is going on.

To help us keep up with player names, positions, averages, and all the other stats generated by baseball, I turned to a Web-based application for the iPhone called Sports Tap. It’s a wonderfully simple app that tracks games and events in the sporting world from baseball, basketball, football and hockey to NASCAR, and Formula 1 racing. It’s sort of a mobile SportsCenter without the ESPN branding.

I tapped on St. Louis at Houston and was taken to a scoring summary, or boxscore. The user interface was a bit primitive — I had to go to separate pages to view St. Louis or Houston player statistics, and there was no wiki-like link between the two for easy navigation, but overall I could keep up with lineup changes and statistics.

MLB.com, the interactive arm of Major League Baseball, has substantially improved on Sports Tap by not only offering real time scores and statistics but also video highlights, which amazingly are available moments after a play like Lance Berkman’s towering 460-foot home run on Sunday.

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It's official: iPhone 2.0 is 3G, supports GPS, integrates with MobileMe, and is $$$ cheaper

by Daniel Langendorf

June 9th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | Comments1 Comment

3G iphoneLet’s make it official.

Apple introduced iPhone 2.0 today at the World Wide Developers Conference.

Yes, it supports 3G and faster data networks.

Yes, it supports GPS.

Yes, it has a few cosmetic changes and is thinner.

Yes, it carries a (dramatically) lower price: $199 for the 8 GB iPhone, $299 for the 16 GB model.

No, it’s not immediately available, but you can get it in 22 countries starting July 11.

As far as some of the other rumors floating around . . .

Microsoft Exchange and full enterprise support is enabled out of the box.

“Exchange for the rest of us” will be available through MobileMe and Me.com, the re-branding of .Mac.

Third-party applications and the App Store will be available in early July.

No, there does not appear to be an improved camera or video recording (including video chat) of any kind. There’s no Flash support. Or external storage slots. And still no cut and paste! What gives?

Anyway, a tour through today’s keynote.

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Weekly wrapup, 2-6 June 2008 (pre-WWDC 2008 special)

by Steve O'Hear

June 8th, 2008 | Posted in last100 weekly wrapup | CommentsNo Comments

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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Pre-Apple WWDC news and analysis

Sifting through iPhone 2.0 wish lists, predictions, prognostications, forecasts, prophesies

With Apple’s World Wide Developer Connference just around the corner, for our own amusement, and yours, we’ve sifted through wish lists and predictions to come up with what we think will happen, what may happen, and what’s still to come for iPhone hardware, features, and applications.

Will Apple develop MobileMe as my own personal cloud?

A lot is being made of cloud computing these days, especially in light of Microsoft’s Mesh initiative and the various online products and strategies cooked up by Google. With the rumored changes coming to Apple’s .Mac product, could a revamped MobileMe or Me.com — whatever it is ultimately called — eventually become my personal cloud?

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SanDisk kills off TakeTV and Fanfare

by Steve O'Hear

June 7th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments3 Comments

SanDisk kills off TakeTV and FanfareIt was a simple idea: create a device that enabled premium and ad-supported online video content to be shuttled from a PC to TV, without the need for a home network. That was the promise of SanDisk’s TakeTV device and accompanying video download service Fanfare, which, reports NewTeeVee, was shut down on May 15th.

The official party line is that TakeTV was no longer a priority for SanDisk as the company focuses on being at the hub of mobile entertainment. Translation: No one bought the device. It’s easy to understand why; SanDisk was outgunned and outnumbered on this set-top bet.

NewTeeVee’s Chris Albrecht offers up a number of reasons why Sandisk’s offering didn’t resonate with consumers, namely that the overall solution was kludgey: “You had to plug a USB device into your PC, download content, then put that USB device into another device that hooked up to your TV”. There was also a lack of compelling content available through Fanfare, and the service faced huge competition from Apple, Sony, Microsoft, TiVo etc., not to mention various IPTV offerings from incumbent Telcos.

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Interview: zintin CEO talks iPhone, Android and mobile future

by Steve O'Hear

June 6th, 2008 | Posted in Mobile | Comments2 Comments

Interview: Zintin CEO talks iPhone, Android and mobile future“Smartphones have historically been oriented towards business users. The iPhone is more of an entertainment platform”, notes John Jersin, CEO of mobile startup zintin. “Its not that there won’t be serious business applications on the iPhone, but the apps will have exposure to a different audience, and developers are very aware of that fact”, he says.

The brainchild of three Stanford computer science graduates, Silicon Valley-based zintin, like hundreds of other new startups, is exploring the new Internet frontier: Mobile. Described as a mix of social networking, media sharing and location awareness, zintin will debut first on the iPhone later this summer, while at the same time the company has already began porting the application to Android, Google’s open-source mobile operating system.

In an email exchange with last100, Jersin talked about the opportunities for developers that both iPhone and Android represent, how the two platforms differ in their approach to openness, and what the mobile landscape may look like in 12-18 months time.

Excerpts from our Q&A edited for space and clarity, follow after the jump…

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Sifting through iPhone 2.0 wish lists, predictions, prognostications, forecasts, prophesies

by Daniel Langendorf

June 5th, 2008 | Posted in Comms, Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

wwdcBy now, everybody in the known universe has offered up their iPhone 2.0 predictions, prognostications, forecasts, and prophesies. We even think that NASA’s Phoenix Lander may have found an iPhone wish list on Mars, but we’re not sure.

As you can imagine, iPhone 2.0 speculation has reached a fever pitch again — just like iPhone 1.0 did last June — with ideas ranging from the obvious “duh” to “out there”, just like Mars.

For our own amusement, and yours, we’ve sifted through wish lists and predictions to come up with what we think will happen, what may happen, and what’s still to come for iPhone hardware, features, and applications.

You’ll be able to judge the pundits on Monday, after Steve Jobs delivers the keynote speech at the Worldwide Developers Conference. Until then, if you see something missing, add it to the comments. Because there is one thing we’ve learned: Everybody has a special feature or application they’d like to see on the new iPhone, and we can’t predict ’em all.

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Live TV on PC: Zattoo and LiveStation showing steady growth

by Steve O'Hear

June 5th, 2008 | Posted in Net TV | Comments2 Comments

Zattoo Manage ChannelsWhether or not you’re convinced that in the age of on-demand there’s an appetite for live TV over the Internet, two services that deliver just that are claiming impressive growth.

“Zattoo is growing nice and steadily”, the company’s UK and Ireland Country Manager, Alexandra Illes, told last100 in an email. “We have reached over 2.4 million [users] and are now available in over eight countries.” Zattoo delivers live streaming of existing ‘over-the-air’ and cable channels, with various channel lineups depending on country.

IIles was writing to tell us about the latest Zattoo software update which adds features including new channel management functionality. “With a channel line-up that’s getting bigger and bigger, we thought it important to allow users to arrange channels in self-defined groups and change the order of the line-up. The idea is that each user can customise the Player to suit their viewing habits.”

In a press release put out on the same day, LiveStation, a similar service to Zattoo that streams a number of television and radio news stations, boasts that their users “have already spent seven years watching live news on their PCs.”

Whatever that means.

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