Archive for March, 2009

Yahoo's Widget Channel debuts on new Samsung Internet-connected TVs

Unveiled at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Yahoo’s “Widget Channel” for Internet-connected televisions has debuted on high end sets from Samsung, reports CNet.

Re-branded by Samsung as “Internet@TV”, the feature enables users to install mini-apps referred to as “widgets” that offer access to a range of Yahoo services — news, stock quotes, Flickr photos, weather — along with those from third-party services, such as Twitter and eBay.

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iPhone app is no big deal but Skype's ubiquity is

The tech blogosphere is buzzing with the news that an official Skype application for Apple’s iPhone will be made available tomorrow. But, as the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones rightly asks, is it such a big deal?

Firstly, it isn’t the first time Skype on iPhone (or iPod touch) has been possible, with a number of third-party apps already filling the void.

Secondly, while Skype calling is available to mobiles and landlines not just other devices running Skype, they’re only possible over WiFi not 3G, so as to appease Apple’s carrier partners.

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Gravity, a really nice Twitter app lands on Symbian S60 phones

Gravity S60 Nokia screenshot 0004At last, smartphones running the Nokia-led Symbian S60 OS have a native Twitter application. And a very slick one at that.

Gravity is supported on phones running S60 version 3, including my own Nokia E71, as well as the latest touch-friendly S60 version 5, which powers the Nokia 5800 (aka the Tube) and the upcoming N97.

The app supports a host of features, including…

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Weekly wrapup: INQ1 review (the Facebook phone), Nokia E75 hands-on, Internet TV news round-up, and more

Here’s a summary of the last 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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Mobile

Hands-on review: INQ1 a.k.a. the ‘Facebook phone’

Over the last week I’ve been playing with the INQ1, the so-called ‘Facebook phone’. Designed by the same team behind mobile carrier 3’s original “Skype Phone” (see last100’s coverage), like its predecessor, this fairly nondescript 3G candy bar slider masks plenty of innovation on the software side.

Hands-on: Nokia E75 (hardware preview and pics)

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a huge fan of Nokia’s QWERTY-touting E71 and currently use the device as my primary smartphone, along with testing a whole bunch of new handsets. That said, I’m as fickle as the next geek, and ever since Nokia announced the upcoming E75, I’ve been eying it up as a potential replacement.

Internet TV

ZeeVee’s consumer set-top box too expensive and too complicated, says company CEO

It was an interesting take on a familiar problem: how to bridge the gap between the PC (Internet video) and the TV. And yet ZeeVee’s consumer-focused set-top box never took off, selling “just a few thousand units” and has since been canned. The reason, says ZeeVee’s CEO Vic Odryna, is that the product was too expensive and too complicated.

Internet TV news: BlackBerry, Blockbuster and TiVo, Netflix on PS3?

A few Internet TV-related stories have been doing the rounds over the last few days that I’ve not yet had a chance to comment on. Here’s a quick catch-up.

Digital Music

Last.fm starts charging international users, kills third-party mobile apps

After news last week that SpiralFrog has shut its doors, another reality check for ad-supported music services. CBS-owned Last.fm has started charging users outside of the US, UK and Germany, €3 per month (approx. $4.40), to make up for the short fall in advertising revenue.

That’s a wrap, thanks for reading.

– Steve

Zatz Not Funny: New Netflix survey, TechVi interviews Boxee CEO, Cloud storage, and more

A periodic roundup of relevant news from our friends at Zatz Not Funny

netflix-survey

New Netflix Survey offers clues

Dave Zatz: Looks like Netflix is once again soliciting feedback via a branching web-based survey.

Catching up with Boxee (And introducing TechVi)

Dave Zatz: Randall Bennett, who you may recognize from Engadget and CNET, has independently launched an online video show called TechVi. In addition to hosting a panel riffing on recent tech events, Randall landed his first interview early this week with Boxee CEO Avner Ronen.

Will online streaming kill the best new show on TV?

Mari Silbey: It takes money to distribute video online – encoding, storage, management, and actual delivery – which makes short work of the dollars online advertising and download fees do bring in.

Let’s get cumulus: Your Cloud or mine?

Dave Zatz: At CES, I spent some time checking out the promising Pogoplug ($80) – which is both a device and a service. The small Linux device, available next month, turns any USB drive into both local and remote networked storage.

Hands-on: Nokia E75 (hardware preview and pics)

Nokia E75 early hands on review

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a huge fan of Nokia’s QWERTY-touting E71 and currently use the device as my primary smartphone, along with testing a whole bunch of new handsets. That said, I’m as fickle as the next geek, and ever since Nokia announced the upcoming E75, which also features a full QWERTY keyboard but in a very different form factor to the E71, I’ve been eying it up as a potential replacement. Earlier this week I scored a pre-production unit (on loan only) and so rather than waiting to do a full review I thought I’d post my first hands-on impressions and a few photos to go with it.

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Internet TV news: BlackBerry, Blockbuster and TiVo, Netflix on PS3?

A few Internet TV-related stories have been doing the rounds over the last few days that I’ve not yet had a chance to comment on. Here’s a quick catch-up.

BlackBerry to launch video download service

blackberryvideoResearch In Motion is close to launching a a full-episode television service for the company’s line of BlackBerry smartphones. An official announcement could come as early as next week at CTIA, reports NewTeeVee. Interesting tidbits include:

  • It will be an unlimited monthly subscription service for a fee
  • Once a user orders a program, the content will be downloaded in the background over Wi-Fi
  • Multiple broadcast and cable networks have licensed content for the service

As NTV notes, utilizing WiFi rather than 3G to deliver episodes to the phone enables RIM to bypass carriers, while at the same avoiding the inconvenience of side-loading content via a PC (iTunes style). Obviously it would be preferable to offer both options – WiFi and 3G – but that would likely mean sharing revenue, something that RIM, like Apple, is keen to avoid. As it stands, any direct paid-for content offering from RIM won’t sit well with carriers who still insist on owning the customer.

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Last.fm starts charging international users, kills third-party mobile apps

After news last week that SpiralFrog has shut its doors, another reality check for ad-supported music services. CBS-owned Last.fm has started charging users outside of the US, UK and Germany, €3 per month (approx. $4.40), to make up for the short fall in advertising revenue.

“While we would like to provide the same service for users of all countries – the world is a huge place and it’s not cheap to deliver music over the Internet”, Last.fm’s Owen Parry explained on the company’s blog.

That’s no understatement.

More bad news has since slipped out. Following an update to the service’s public API, which allows third-party developers to build applications based on Last.fm, the company is no longer tolerating unofficial mobile clients, such as Pocket Scrobbler on Windows Mobile or the Symbian S60-based Mobbler, which I run on my beloved Nokia E71. Both of these apps were free to download, which can’t be said for FlipSide, a Last.fm client for BlackBerry that will also soon be silenced. Ouch.

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ZeeVee's consumer set-top box too expensive and too complicated, says company CEO

It was an interesting take on a familiar problem: how to bridge the gap between the PC (Internet video) and the TV. ZeeVee’s original consumer-focused solution, the Zv100 set-top box, utilized a home’s regular cable wiring to send video content from a PC to any number of TVs by effectively creating its own closed circuit HD television channel.

However, the product never took off, selling “just a few thousand units” and has since been canned. The reason, ZeeVee’s CEO Vic Odryna tells NewTeeVee, is that the product was too expensive and too complicated. When the “ZvBox” was first announced, I noted that its $499 price tag was much higher than competitors, all of which use WiFi or Ethernet to shuttle content around the home, rather than coaxial in ZeeVee’s case.

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Hands-on review: INQ1 a.k.a. the 'Facebook phone'

Over the last week I’ve been playing with the INQ1, the so-called ‘Facebook phone’. Designed by the same team behind mobile carrier 3’s original “Skype Phone” (see last100’s coverage), like its predecessor, this fairly nondescript 3G candy bar slider masks plenty of innovation on the software side.

Integrated into the handset, for example, is Facebook, Skype and Windows Live Messenger, along with various widgets, such as Yahoo Weather. Just don’t call it a smartphone, says the company. Instead, the INQ1 is billed as a low cost device, designed to appeal to a broader and, perhaps, younger market than existing smartphones from the likes of Apple, RIM, Nokia and HTC.

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