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.
E3 Coverage
This week’s last100 coverage was dominated by the E3 Media and Business conference, the annual event for the gaming industry. As the battle for the living room continues at a pace, both Microsoft and Sony made big announcements…
Netflix is finally coming to Xbox 360, which is getting a dashboard makeover and Mii-like avatars
Long rumored, finally here. Netflix is coming to the Xbox 360. Xbox 360 owners and Live Gold members who are also Netflix subscribers will be able to stream online movies to their consoles at no extra cost. Microsoft also announced that the Xbox 360’s dashboard will be getting a total overhaul this fall. New features will include fancy Mii-like 3D avatars popular on the Nintendo Wii game console and an improved emphasis on community with IM, video chat, and photo sharing.
Xbox Live Video Marketplace gets content from NBC, Universal and other E3 tidbits
Microsoft’s deal with Netflix and the Xbox 360’s impending makeover wasn’t the only news from the E3 Media & Business Summit Monday. A few other tidbits include Microsoft, Universal, and NBC; hard drives; and a new Wii controller.
Sony to open its PS3 and PSP video download service tonight
Sony unveiled its own movie/TV show on-demand download service for its PlayStation line of products at the E3 Media and Business Summit. Sony made a point to note that the service will feature more than Sony-produced content, including movies and TV shows from Fox, MGM, Lions Gate, Warner, Disney, Paramount, Turner, and Funimation.
Nintendo seemingly plays it “safe” with “Wii Music” and other casual games
The maker of the world’s best selling games console, the Wii, and the leading portable game device, the DS Lite, introduced even more products aimed at a wider audience, if that’s even possible. Nintendo’s announcements included a multiplayer community game “Animal Crossing: City Folk,” “Wii Sports Resort” (a sequel to the hit “Wii Sports”), and “Wii Music.”
No PlayStation 3 video store in the UK until sometime next year
Sony’s launch of its online video store for the PlayStation Network feels like playing catch-up as it is. But for those PS3 owners in the UK or anywhere in Europe, the wait will continue.
More Internet TV news
No more downloads, Amazon moves its online video store to the cloud
With the gradual roll out of Amazon’s new video service, starting today, the company hopes to have fixed everything that was holding back adoption of its original “UnBox” video download store.
Video: YouTube finally arrives on TiVo
Although announced back in March, it’s only this week that TiVo users can finally access YouTube through their set-top boxes — and a minority of TiVo users at that. The new feature is made possible because of YouTube’s decision to re-encode its library of content to H.264 video, a format that only TiVo Series 3 and HD models can support.
Once again, this isn’t a last100 give-away but our good friend Dan Rayburn over at Streaming Media is up to his old tricks, this time giving away a Vudu set-top box (see our early review).
I’ve jumped on the Netbook bandwagon (MSI Wind U100 / Advent 4211 review)
Ever since Asus debuted its first Eee PC, I’ve been fascinated by this new category of mobile device, dubbed the Netbook by chip maker Intel. The form-factor is a notebook but these devices are purposely cut-down in terms of price – the Eee PC 701 sells for under $300 – as well as size and weight, and to some extent features. While designed primarily as a way of accessing the Internet on-the-go, Netbooks don’t have any pretensions of putting the Internet in your pocket, and instead look to keep the screen size and keyboard small enough to still be extremely portable, yet large enough to be that bit more productive.
Episode 4 of RWW Live was devoted almost entirely to the iPhone. I was joined by ReadWriteTalk host Sean Ammirati, ReadWriteWeb editor and founder Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb writers Bernard Lunn and Marshall Kirkpatrick.
That’s a wrap! Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
