All Entries Tagged With: "playback"

Amazon Introduces Audio and Video to Kindle App for iPad/iPhone

Amazon announced via a press release the introduction of a new update to its Kindle application for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The update allows playback of embedded audio and video within ebooks. The company states that already several titles such as Rick Steves’ London by Rick Steves and Together We Cannot Fail by Terry Golway are already available with said functionality.

Now, this announcement is major, considering that the company has chosen to implement this technology on a device other than its own Kindle ebook reader. Additionally, this goes to show that the iPad is capable of so much more than the Kindle. Whether or not this was a good business move by Amazon, given that folks are now going to consider the iPad a much better device than Kindle. That is if they didn’t already.

The Kindle Editions application with audio/video is available now on the App Store. The application has been optimized for the new iPhone 4 Retina Display.

Press release in the full post.

Netflix Coming to The iPhone This Summer

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced today at WWDC 2010 that an official Netflix application for the iPhone is set to arrive as soon as this Summer. Hastings stated that the application will be free. Additionally, it will feature a full catalog, an optimized UI for the iPhone, Instant Queue, and the ability to resume playback wherever you last stopped watching no matter what device or platform you’re on.

The application will also be able to stream in 3G right from the beginning. Additionally, the app will switch between networks seamlessly.

Google Launching WebM Web Video Format

Google has debuted a brand-net video format today dubbed WebM, based on On2′s VP8 video codec — a company Google acquired. According to Engadget, “The WebM container is based on Matroska, with VP8 video and Ogg Vorbis audio streams packed inside,” and it is apparently efficient enough to be run on handheld devices, netbooks, and so forth.

The format is open-sourced, and is expected to be available for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chromium nightly builds beginning today. Opera lists support for the format as “coming soon”. No word yet on when both Safari and Microsoft Internet Explorer will support the format, but given Google’s power, we’d expect them to hop on board in the very near future.

More information on this as it becomes available.

Netflix Coming to Android Devices?

If you are the paranoid kind, you can definitely add Netflix to your list of major companies attempting to take control of the planet. Why? Because Netflix is slowly taking over the world one device at a time. The service has already been integrated in a number of television, game consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, and a myriad of mobile devices like the iPad and upcoming Windows Phone 7 devices. Its next victims appear to be Android-based devices.

Google Chrome OS To Sport a Media Player

Think about what you may know about Google Chrome OS based on what you have seen thus far. Would you be able to describe it in one word? Many folks already have, particularly in the tech sector, and the most common one-word summary I have heard to date with regard to the OS is: limited.

That isn’t of course giving the operating system a fair chance — considering it’s still in early development. But we have seen it in action, and an operating system that works like a browser (using tabs) does seem limited.

But perhaps Chrome OS critics are dead wrong. A recent interview between Ars Technica and Chrome OS developer Matthew Papakipos (along with Eitan Bencuya from Google’s public relations team) mentioned a somewhat interesting potential incorporation into the operating system.

BBC iPlayer iPhone Application in the Works

In a monthly press pack released by the BBC, there apparently appears to be some evidence of a future version of iPlayer for iPhone handsets. From what we know (mind you, simply by observing the imagery), there will be an incorporated download feature, and perhaps the option to stream programming live. In the image, you may also notice the device is connected to a wireless network, and whether that’s indicative of a Wi-Fi-only requirement for the mobile app is really anyone’s guess at this point.

While the BBC has yet to officially acknowledge the application, the images speak for themselves.

iPlayer is a free-of-charge service provided by the BBC for viewers in the United Kingdom to catch up on TV programming they may have otherwise missed.

[ via: Neowin ]

First Impressions: Sony SMP-U10 USB Media Player

Are USB Media Players the future? We recently picked up a Sony SMP-U10 USB Media Player and gave it a spin to see just how good it was — and overall, we’re impressed. Let me first start off by explaining the practicality of this product. It’s geared toward the folks who live and breath by their USB sticks. People who store movies, photos, and even music will certainly get a kick out of this player for the reason that it does it all. You’re able to view photos, listen to music, and perhaps best of all, you’re able to watch the movies you’ve got stored on your USB storage stick.

Now, for this particular brief overview, I want to stress how impressed I was with video playback on this device. The player will decode WMA, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and perhaps best of all, DivX video formats, which certainly makes it useful. You have the option of hooking this device to your television via ordinary composite cables, or if you’re like me — plug it into your high-definition television via an HDMI output.

What Google Maps Needs: Street View Route Overview

Have you ever used Google maps to get directions and thought, “Wouldn’t it be so great if I could visually see the route?” I’ve thought about this dozens of times, both pre-Google Street View and now that we have this great application. Google is on a mission to image nearly all of the streets in the United States (maybe the world). It’s already beyond helpful, but couldn’t it be better?

Picture this: you enter two addresses for directions into Google Maps. Of course, you’ll get your typical aerial view with text directions, but imagine an option which would allow you to see the directions from point A to B through a streetview by taking each of the images taken by the street view car, and playing them back at a faster rate (almost like a flip book) to create an actual moving image.