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New Media News Every Morning

Hulu Plus Embraces PlayStation, Ditches Invite System

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It looks like users everywhere will now have a new distraction online (as well as via mobile) as Hulu has just announced that their premium service will finally be available to the masses (with some great news for PlayStation lovers).

To make it easier for people to try out Hulu Plus, you no longer need an invitation to subscribe. In the next week, all PS3 owners with a PlayStation Network account, which is free, will be able to download and subscribe to Hulu Plus. This will also coincide with an updated PS3 application that incorporates some of the feedback we’ve received to date. (Official Hulu Blog)

When Hulu Plus first launched (via beta), there really was not that much content available and after a few months I cancelled the service due to the site’s lack of scifi content.

Now it seems as if Hulu has dramatically increased their inventory, with some even suggesting that Hulu Plus could make cable irrelevant (although I’m highly skeptical of that with Google TV around the corner).

The inclusion of Hulu Plus for PlayStation should also increase its appeal in the US (as the console is very popular in the states), and combined with their iOS app (for iPhone and iPad), Hulu could gain enough traffic to challenge YouTube for advertising dollars.

Originally posted on November 4, 2010 @ 12:53 pm

Google To Android: Place Search Reviews Now Included

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After gracing the world with Place Search for Mac and PC lovers, Google is now porting the feature for Android fans everywhere.

Lately, we’ve been working on giving you even better ways to find nearby places with Google Maps for Android, such as the Places icon and rich Place pages. Today, we are launching Google Maps 4.6 with a new design for Place page reviews, more options to filter search results, and a Google Latitude real-time updating option. (Google Mobile Blog)

There is still no word on whether Google will consider porting Place Search for Blackberry fans as well as webOS users (especially now that Palm Pre 2 is out in the wild).

Although I would love to see this feature released for the iPhone, Google will probably create a web app version instead rather than add this feature within Google Maps (as since the latter is heavily tied into iOS which means updates have to come from Apple).

Thus far the feature is available for Android fans running 1.6 and above (which should be the vast majority of users), although for those of you seeking Google Latitude integration you’ll need to be sporting version 2.2 of Android.

Originally posted on October 28, 2010 @ 4:15 pm

Dear Gmail, We Need A Native iPhone App

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Taking a cue from the YouTube team, the boys and girls at Google recently updated their mobile Gmail web app in order to make it behave more like a native iPhone app.

Go to gmail.com from your iPhone and you’ll notice two improvements we’ve rolled out over the past few weeks. First, scrolling is snappier: the speed of scrolling reflects the speed of your swipe gesture. This is helpful for long conversations where a few quick flicks will get you to the information you need much faster than before. Second, the toolbars stay on screen while you’re scrolling rather than moving down into view after each scroll. Being able to access your toolbars from any point on the page should make it easier to triage your email and move around the app. (Official Google Mobile Blog)

While the web app is much better than its predecessor, it still has all of the short comings of an iPhone web app, chief of those being the inability to upload content (like images) into a message, something our Android brethren can do via Chrome.

Despite the fact that Apple already provides users with a default mail app, truth be told it’s rather clunky and inefficient (especially when it comes to “starring” emails via IMAP).

Hopefully Google is seriously considering creating an official native Gmail app as that would allow users to check their messages while on the go, regardless of how strong their carrier’s signal is.

Originally posted on October 28, 2010 @ 1:52 pm

Another Day, Another Android Lawsuit (Google)

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With Android poised on supplanting iOS as the dominant mobile operating system in the west, it looks like another company has come forward with a lawsuit against the search engine giant (who is currently in the midst of battling Oracle).

Gemalto NV sued Google Inc. and phonemakers HTC Corp., Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., claiming the Android mobile-phone operating system used its technology without permission.

The manufacturer of digital-security technology filed the patent-infringement suit against the companies in Texas federal court on Oct. 22, according to the complaint. Gemalto said the development platform for Android improperly includes its Java Card technology, which allows software written in Java and other “high-level programming languages” to run on mobile phones. (Bloomberg)

Although it’s not surprising that Germalto NV is suing Google (who truth be told receives a lot of lawsuits in the US, many of them frivolous), Germalto NV’s strategy of suing manufactors seems to be aimed at thwarting Android’s expansion by scarring off potential partners.

Germalto NV surprisingly isn’t going after other manufacturers (like Dell) who also make Android smartphones (although truth be told HTC, Motorola and Samsung are the top 3 selling Android devices in the US).

While it’s doubtful that this legal squabble will thwart Android’s path towards global domination, Germalto NV’s latest lawsuit could slow down adoption by smaller manufacturers (the latter who probably lack the money to burn on patent attorneys).

Originally posted on October 25, 2010 @ 4:22 pm

RIM Offering Free Blackberry Playbook’s To Developers?

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After rebutting Steve Jobs for dismissing Blackberry as a serious mobile contender, Mike Lazaridis (co-CEO of RIM) made a surprising announcement after publicly demoing the Blackberry Playbook abilities (which appears at the end of this video).

RIM President and Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis showcased some amazing BlackBerry PlayBook apps yesterday at the Adobe MAX conference with Kevin Lynch, CTO of Adobe. The above video highlights some of what Mike and Kevin demoed during the keynote, such as the BlackBerry PlayBook’s multimedia capabilities (including web based videos using Adobe Flash), multitasking and the eUnity healthcare application. All apps demoed during the keynote were built by developers working with the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR as part of an early access program. (Blackberry Developer Blog)

Although this move may help the company acquire some developer mind share, its still unclear whether consumers themselves will leap at the chance of owning a Blackberry Tablet, despite the fact that it supports flash (unlike the iPad).

While allowing developers to keep a Blackberry Playbook is a smart move for RIM (as it will help grow RIM’s anemic app store), the company may want to consider allowing developers to “borrow” a Playbook in order to test out their apps (as simulations can only take you so far).

Either way it’s great to see RIM actually demo the device in public, although only time will tell whether the Playbook will help revive RIM’s app store (which currently pales in comparison to Apple’s iPad app store).

Originally posted on October 26, 2010 @ 1:59 pm