Archive for May, 2009

One more thing: Flip Mino HD playback on the PlayStation 3

Sony PS3 and Flip Mino HD

Sony PS3 and Flip Mino HD

Since publishing my hands-on review of the Flip Mino HD ‘point and shoot’ camcorder, I’ve discovered a really neat feature: the ability to play High Definition video shot on the Mino on a PlayStation 3, directly from the camera itself.

Simply plug the device into one of the PS3’s USB ports via the Mino HD’s flip out USB connector, and any videos stored on the camera show up in the PlayStation’s XMB User Interface under ‘Video’. From there it’s just a case of selecting the video you want to watch and hitting play. No need to worry about cables, networking or transferring files to the PS3 beforehand. Instead, you can pretty much instantly watch your home made movies on your High Def TV via the PS3 (unedited of course, unless you’ve saved your final edit back onto the camera’s internal flash drive).

Hat tip: I discovered this feature after talking to a PR rep from Western Digital who make their own High Def media player. Apparently, the Mino HD and the WD TV HD Media Player (review coming soon) also play nicely together.

Are Netbooks running out of steam? sales down 26% in Q1

Netbooks were undoubtedly one of the hit products of 08, seemingly bucking the trend as the economy took a turn for the worse and with it a fall in PC sales. However, moving into 09, Netbook sales aren’t fairing quite as well, dropping 26% according to figures published by market watcher DisplaySearch (via The Register). And while that’s broadly inline with the overall PC market, it could suggest that the current generation of Netbooks may be running out of steam.

According to the researcher, 5.9m netbooks were shipped worldwide in Q1, down 26 per cent from the 8m shipped in Q4 2008. In Q1, netbooks accounted for around a fifth of the total sales of portable PCs, some 30.3m units in all, including regular laptops.

Notebooks shipments were down 25 per cent sequentially.

Acer performed best, shipping 1.8m machines. While Asus, who pioneered the whole Netbook product category, took second place, shipping 900,000 devices. This was followed by HP on 700,000, Dell on 400,000, and Toshiba and Lenovo selling 200,000 units each. The rest of the market – Samsung, MSI and Fujitsu – managed to shift just 900,000 Netbooks.

Of course, comparing Q4 (the holiday season) with Q1 isn’t nearly like for like, the figures do point to the Netbook losing its crown. And if that is indeed the case, I’m not entirely surprised.

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A glimpse into the Nokia N97's Facebook app (screen shots)

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Six months prior to its scheduled release, influential tech blogger Robert Scoble dubbed Nokia’s upcoming N97 the “ultimate Facebook phone“. And as impressive as the device promises to be, that seemed just a tad premature, especially as the handset maker was reportedly still working out how deeply it should integrate a rival’s web service into its flagship phone. The competition wasn’t going to stand still either.

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Amazon to Apple: keep your hands off our iPhone Kindle eBook revenue

iPhone Kindle app

iPhone Kindle app

At first glance it seems innocuous enough: Amazon has launched a version of its Kindle eBook store optimized for the iPhone’s web browser to make it easier for users of Apple’s device to purchase new eBooks for the iPhone’s Kindle application. “The most common feedback we heard from customers was that they wanted a better experience for purchasing new Kindle books from their iPhones”, says Ian Freed, vice president of Amazon Kindle operations.

In the updated iPhone Kindle app, a “Get Books” button opens the phone’s Safari web browser and takes users straight to the new iPhone-friendly site. Any new purchases made then show up in and are downloadable from the iPhone Kindle app itself.

See also: What Kindle on iPhone says about Amazon’s eBook strategy

The result of which is that Amazon has made it relatively simple for users to purchase Kindle content in a way that replicates the iPhone’s upcoming ‘in-app purchases’ feature, all without giving Apple its 30% cut or, presumably, breaking any terms of service.

Apple bans iPhone apps related to BitTorrent

drivetrain

Drivetrain for iPhone

It’s not a fully fledged BitTorrent client, but Apple has rejected Drivetrain from the iPhone App Store nonetheless. The software, developed by Maza Digital, turns the iPhone/iPod touch into a remote control for the popular PC BitTorrent client Transmission (Mac and Windows). After a slightly longer review process than other iPhone apps, Apple turned down Drivetrain on the grounds that anything BitTorrent related “is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights.” Of course, while the P2P protocol can be used for downloading pirated content, such as the latest DVD releases, it’s also a legitimate way for copyright holders to distribute large files, while sharing the bandwidth ‘costs’ with users.

In terms of functionality, Drivetrain enables the monitoring of BitTorrent downloads, including being able to pause, resume or cancel them altogether, as well as providing a web browser so that new torrents can be searched for and remotely downloaded. It’s the latter feature that probably set off the red light at the iTunes Store HQ.

(via iLounge)

Google, Android and the future of Netbooks

According to a flurry of reports, a number of established PC manufacturers – and new entrants – are planning to release a Netbook running Google’s Android operating system. However, recent comments made by the search giant’s CEO Eric Schmidt, suggest that Google isn’t particularly interested in seeing Android running on a Netbook – at least not yet, anyway – but is excited by the opportunities that these low-cost sub notebooks present.

Not only are Netbooks sales making Google take notice, their primary use case – surfing the web and accessing other Internet applications – fits perfectly with the company’s own ‘cloud computing’ vision (think Google Docs, Gmail and other Google services). “Keep an eye on this space”, attendees at a recent Google press event were told by Schmidt. So if not Android, what exactly does the company plan to bring to the Netbook experience?

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Weekly wrapup: Palm Pre and Facebook, LG Arena review, Vudu IPTV, Boxee app challenge, 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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Palm Pre aiming to be THE Facebook phone – social networking still mobile’s killer app

I’ve written many times before that social networking, and Facebook in particular, is the killer application for mobile phones. It’s what’s driving take up of mobile data and the adoption of higher end so-called smartphones. On that note, a leaked photo taken of the set for an upcoming Facebook television ad campaign puts Facebook at center stage.

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BBC iPlayer stats: 12.5 GBs per second, 14 different versions, iPhone usage peaks at midnight, and more

BBC iPlayer uncovered

BBC iPlayer uncovered

Regular readers of this blog will know that I’m a huge fan of the BBC’s iPlayer; that’s why I named it as one of the top ten Digital Lifestyle products of 08.

And I’m not alone.

In a fascinating interview conducted by CNet UK’s Nate Lanxon, the BBC’s iPlayer head honcho Anthony Rose reveals that, at its peak, the service delivers 12.5 gigabytes per second of video, totaling about 7 petabytes of data transfer a month!

Other key stats…

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Survey: Consumers warm to Internet widgets on the TV

Yahoo and Intel's 'Yahoo Widget Channel'

Yahoo and Intel's 'Yahoo Widget Channel'

Take this for what it’s worth considering who paid for the research, but according to a recent survey 76 percent of US consumers who are in the market for a new HDTV would value having access to Internet widgets on their television. The research was carried out by the Diffusion Group on behalf of Intel, who in partnership with Yahoo are pushing the idea of Internet-connected televisions in a big way through the launch of the Yahoo Widget Channel (see video below), a platform designed to make it easy for developers and television manufacturers to add a ‘widget bar’ to HDTVs.

Unsurprisingly, of the 2,000 respondents who took part in the online survey, more than half (54.8 percent) said they “value being able to link to TV program websites while watching a favorite show so they can simultaneously interact with Web-based content while viewing the show.”

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Palm Pre aiming to be THE Facebook phone – social networking still mobile's killer app

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(Credit: Jamie Gonzalez via twitpic)

I’ve written many times before that social networking, and Facebook in particular, is the killer application for mobile phones. It’s what’s driving take up of mobile data and the adoption of higher end so-called smartphones. The mobile networks have taken notice and jumped on the social networking bandwagon, heavily promoting access to Facebook as a key feature, and handset makers are doing the same.

RIM has been targeting consumers with an ad campaign that features the Blackberry’s Facebook application.

Ditto Apple with the iPhone.

And there’s INQ, a new entrant whose first device, the INQ1, has been dubbed ‘the Facebook phone‘ based on its deep integration with the social networking site.

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