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New Media News Every Morning

D-Link Boxee Box Connects Multimedia Entertainment to your TV

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It looks like CES 2010 will be dominated not only by netbooks and tablet PCs, and e-book readers but also of multimedia entertainment hub that brings various content from multiple devices to home TV viewing.  We’ve covered AXAR technology and Popbox Hub recently, and now here comes another one straight out of CES 2010 announcement – D-Link Boxee Box.

The Boxee Box brings movies, TV shows, music and photos from your computer, home network, and the Internet to HDTV. Aside from this, Boxee Box also has social networking features including direct access to Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

The Boxee Box takes the popular PC, Mac and Linux software in the form of a HDTV device to bring access to a huge library of content direct from the Internet. You can also add your own content through RSS or XML feeds. Users will also have access to music sites including Pandora, last.fm, shoutcase and We are Hunted as well on photo sites such as Flickr, Picasa and Facebook.

In addition to Internet content Boxee Box also works with your digital media content that you have accumulated on your computer hard drive or home network. It finds relevant cover art, synopses, reviews, and other information about your digital content to form your multimedia libraries.Boxee Box supports various formats as well and supports Wi-Fi 802.11.

And finally, Boxee Box lets you discover multimedia content of your Facebook and Twitter friends as well as share your own multimedia list to them.

Boxee Box is expected to ship later this year.

Update: The Boxee Blog official announcement.

Originally posted on January 5, 2010 @ 8:46 am

Sony’s On-Demand Video Service, Qriocity Spotted at CES 2010

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Before we finally bid goodbye to CES 2010 and wait for another year for 2011, here’s one last nice piece of information from the said event. Spotted by Sony Insider during the gig was Sony’s latest take on getting into on-demand video service – a new Sony service dubbed, Qriocity.

Sony Qriocity is bringing home both standard definition and high definition videos to consumers.  The service will be added as a main icon to the XMB as well as a special button on many Sony remote controls that will come with Sony’s networked TVs and Blu-ray players.  The Sony Qriocity will prove a great looking interface with rich album art as you enter the store. It’s like an iTunes for Sony’s on-demand video service with options in the main menu for choosing your account, searching, finding new releases, genre and most popular videos.

The service will let you get in by using your PSN account. In addition, the service will allow you to have multiple accounts among family for parents and children with a master account controllin sub accounts to ensure that children are not accessing prohibited internet sites.

Sonny Insider also said that there will hundreds of HD and SD video available once Sony rolled out the service.  Sony has been working with Walt Disney Pictures, Lionsgate, Warner Brother and many others

No pricing or any other information on how Sony is going to implement this on-demand video service. But we’re pretty sure it’s not going to be something that will not make Sony more money.  Sony’s Qriocity is still one good new media service to watch out for this year.

 

Originally posted on January 11, 2010 @ 2:16 pm

Vimeo to Go Full 1080p HD for its Premium Vimeo Account

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Introducing Vimeo Plus! from Vimeo Staff on Vimeo.

If you’ve been paying attention to the videos that we usually embed to some of our news coverages here in 901am (I hope you’re watching these videos), you’ve probably noticed that aside from YouTube some of those came from Vimeo, a video uploading and sharing site similar to YouTube. If you’re a Vimeo user, specifically a paid Premium member, by the end of this month you can now start uploading full 1080p HD videos to Vimeo.

Wait, just hold on a second. Wouldn’t that affect online playback of your videos? Especially since HD videos demand higher and faster bandwidth? Actually, yes it does affects online video playback. So Vimeo is giving you the option whether to choose sharing 1080p videos or stick with the current HD-quality 720p resolution.

Vimeo is perhaps enabling this feature to answer the signs of the times since the influx of cheap portable videocam has made it easier to produce HD videos at 1080p resolution. And besides, YouTube has been  allowing it for quite some time now.  Since Vimeo is being touted as the best YouTube alternative, it is but logical for Vimeo to have that feature as well.

Of course, this would also give Vimeo’s $60/year Premium package more attractive to users, since 1080 video uploading feature will only be enabled to paying members.

In addition, Vimeo is also allowing premium account holders to make their uploaded videos available, downloadable and viewable on mobile phones.  And pretty soon, a native Vimeo iPhone application will be available.

So if you are not a Vimeo Premium account holder yet, now could be the best time to get the Vimeo Plus subscription.

Originally posted on January 6, 2010 @ 4:31 pm

Google Unveils the Nexus One, Plus a Mobile Phone Web Store

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There you have have it folks, as promised –  Google has officially announced the Nexus One, perhaps the iPhone’s biggest threat. And to make this product launch a little something different from just your ordinary product launch, Google is highlighting the fact that the Nexus One is just the first mobile phone that it plans to market through its mobile phone web store.

The Google hosted mobile phone web store aims to give consumers, that means us a new way to purchase a mobile phone. Specifically, Google wants to connect online users with selected Android devices, which in this case for starter is the Nexus One. Google wants to make the purchasing process simple.  Unfortunately, the first thing that will great you if you’re not from the U.S. is a note that says – “Sorry, the Nexus One Phone is not available in your country.” Common Google, are we non-U.S. folks not part of these mobile phone consumers?

Anyway, going back to Nexus One, which Google is calling as a “superphone”, true to what you’ve might have read from unofficial information, reviews and photo leaks the Nexus One will have a large 3.7-inch OLED screen with deep contrast and brilliant colors display capability, a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset, Android 2.1 OS, voice-enabled keyboard, live Wallpapers, 3D photo gallery, and Google’s own mobile phone apps such as Gmail, Google Voice and Google Maps.

And now for the most important information, how much would the Nexus One cost you?  You can either get the subsidized unit under T-Mobile for $179 or unlocked version for $529 which will ship in the U.S., U.K., Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Originally posted on January 5, 2010 @ 4:18 pm

More Users are Planning to Buy Android Phones

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Screen shot 2010-01-05 at 5.26.11 AM

In a few hours from now, Google is about to announce its Nexus One phone amidst spectators and media pundits. So, it is interesting to note ChangeWave’s December 9-14 survey of around 4,068 consumers showing that 4% of the respondents who own a smartphone are using Google Android OS and 21% of those respondents who are planning to buy a smartphone said that they will most likely get an Android phone.

Whether that Android phone is going to be the Motorola DROID or the Google Nexus phone remains to be seen. But the good news is that the Motorola DROID seemed to have successfully paved the way for the Android OS to fully roll out to the smart phone market, something which the previous Android phones failed to achieve.

Looking at the changes in the data from previous ChangeWave survey – the 21% of respondents who plan to get the Android phone equals to 15% increase from the survey in September while those who are currently using phone running on on Google Android equals to to a 3% increase from September data.

Another interesting to note from the survey results is the fact that among the smartphones, it is only the Android phone and RIM/Blackberry OS  buyers which increased from September to December 2009.  Future buyers of the iPhone, Windows Mobile phone and Palm OS/Web OS have all decreased.

And things will definitely change once the Nexus One phone is finally announced and hopefully released the soonest time possible. With the Nexus One hype rapidly building up, it is undoubtedly going to be an Android OS year, unless of course Apple comes up with something new – iPhone 4.0 perhaps?

Originally posted on January 4, 2010 @ 5:28 pm