According to the Sony blog, the company has unveiled new subtitle glasses that provide closed captioning for hearing impaired film fans.
“The glasses wear just like any other theater accessory, such as 3D movie glasses, but a projector along the top of the frame will display closed captioning in sync with the film,” reports Digital Trends. “This effect, according to Sony, will make the subtitles appear as if they are naturally on the screen.”
Text size can be adjusted by the individual wearer and the glasses will fit on top of regular eyeglasses if necessary.
The BBC reports that the first trials may begin in the UK. No word yet on U.S. availability.
“The necessity to program the dialogues of each movie into the glasses before airing the film might mean similar technology may not yet be available in a home entertainment sector, but if the subtitle glasses gain popularity, you never know,” suggests the write-up.
Shazam is teaming with NBC to “enable TV viewers in the U.S. to interact with one of television’s biggest events: the London Olympics, spanning NBC, NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, Bravo and CNBC,” according to Lost Remote.
Viewers who tag the broadcast with their Shazam app will have access to information about athletes, polls, schedules, results and more, all sharable with a click to their social media sites.
“Our collaboration with NBC around the London Games marks an exciting milestone for Shazam for TV. As the leader in second-screen interactive television, we’re proud to work with NBC to make their coverage of the London 2012 Summer Olympics an even more engaging and interactive social experience,” explains Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher.
“Shazam will also promote NBC Olympics’ apps for video coverage and a more in-depth interactive experience,” indicates the post. “The partnership spans programming between the the Opening Ceremony on July 27 through the Closing Ceremony on August 12.”
Apple plans to completely overhaul its iTunes music service by the end of the year, reports Bloomberg. The changes will include closer integration for iCloud file storage and better sharing features.
“With an increasing amount of content available on the store, the overhaul is intended to improve how people manage all their files,” notes the article. “That includes changes to how users find new material and how they access what they already own on different Apple devices.”
Critical to Apple’s success, iTunes — which offers more than 28 million songs, 45,000 movies, and 650,000 apps — accounted for $1.9 billion of the company’s revenue last quarter.
“One of the main ways Apple will attempt to improve discovery is by making it easier for people to share songs, a popular feature of Spotify Ltd.’s music-subscription service,” explains the article. “Apple has been negotiating with major record labels for rights that would let a user listen to a song sent to them from a friend for free, one person said.”
The company also announced tighter integration of Facebook and Twitter in iTunes, to encourage additional sharing.
Yahoo and Clear Channel have announced a multi-year deal through which “Yahoo will begin using Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio platform as its digital radio service and the station will promote both companies’ content,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The joint venture means Yahoo will have exclusive access “to various concert series and other music events, including the two-day iHeartRadio Music Festival in September at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas,” says the report.
According to CNET, 45 million unique listeners tune to iHeartRadio each month and the iHeartRadio app has been downloaded 80 million times. Clear Channel boasts more than 237 million listeners per month in 150 markets on terrestrial radio.
In an attempt to revamp the brand, Yahoo has been seeking content relationships with ABC News and CNBC, putting into focus its online ad business.
“We like the direction Yahoo is going and by working together we can accelerate growth for the both of us,” says Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman.
“This partnership will expand our ability to provide consumers and advertisers with the best premium content available and provide Clear Channel with unmatched digital reach,” adds Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.
Satellite radio provider Sirius XM has announced plans to bring all of its programming to Google TV, joining a growing list of partners including Amazon.com and Netflix.
The Sirius programming includes Howard Stern’s programs and live sports. Google TV will offer the programming through a new app that “will let listeners pause and play back up to five hours of content,” reports Reuters.
Sony, LG, and Vizio have built Google TV into some of their models. The service “allows consumers to access online videos and websites on their TVs, as well as to download and play with specialized apps such as video games,” according to the report.
The satellite radio provider will become Google TV’s largest contributor. In 2010 ABC, CBS, and NBC all blocked online versions of their programming from coming to Google TV. “Last fall, Disney said a handful of its movies and shows would be available to rent through YouTube on Google TV,” notes the article.
Sirius XM’s 22 million subscribers will have access to the app later this summer, which will include additional channels that subscribers cannot access in their cars.
Competitors such as Pandora Media and Slacker Radio currently have apps on Google TV.
There are signs of a possible trend reversal that suggests the manufacturing of consumer electronics is returning to the U.S.
Google’s new Nexus Q wireless home media player, for example, is being manufactured in California — and other American companies are doing the same.
“While many of those companies have been small, like ET Water Systems, there have also been some highly visible moves by America’s largest consumer and industrial manufacturers,” reports The New York Times.
“General Electric and Caterpillar, for example, have moved assembly operations back to the United States in the last year,” notes the article. “Airbus, a European company, said Wednesday it would build jets in Alabama.”
While there may not be a single reason responsible for the emerging trend, the article explains that “rising labor and energy costs have made manufacturing in China significantly more expensive; transportation costs have risen; companies have become increasingly aware of the risks of intellectual property theft when products are made in China; and in a business where time-to-market is a competitive advantage, it is easier for engineers to drive 10 minutes on the freeway to the factory than to fly for 16 hours.”
A new Gartner study predicts that by 2016, consumers will store a third of their digital content in the cloud. This compares with only 7 percent in 2011.
“Gartner believes consumers’ affinity for mobile devices such as smartphones and cameras — particularly those with high-end camera apertures — will help drive this increasing need for digital storage,” reports Slashdot.
The average amount of data stored by households will increase from 464GB last year to 3.3TB by 2016.
Consumer cloud services are now available from Google, Microsoft and Apple. Business services are also proliferating such as Google Apps, Microsoft Office 365, Salesforce and Oracle.
“As we enter the post-PC era, consumers are using multiple connected devices, the majority of which are equipped with cameras. With the emergence of the personal cloud, this fast-growing consumer digital content will quickly get disaggregated from connected devices,” writes Shalini Verma, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Cloud storage will grow with the emergence of the personal cloud, which in turn will simplify the direct-to-cloud model, allowing users to directly store user-generated content in the cloud.”
Google is engaged in a war on many fronts with large rivals, suggests Om Malik. Google’s Android, YouTube, Books, Music, Google+, Google Ads, Nexus 7 and Google Wallet compete with comparable products from Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and others.
Moreover, Google no longer has a monopoly on top talent, as many Googlers are being lured away to work in start-ups.
By trying to expand into so many areas, Google may be risking its core search business.
“As Google tries to expand into new territories it is leaving its core search vulnerable — not to another rival’s technology, but to end-users,” writes Malik for GigaOM. “The injection of Google+ into search results seems to be a growing point of dissatisfaction.”
“In my years of following the company, I came to understand that what separated Google from many of its competitors was its audacity,” notes Malik. “When I look at the first day of Google I/O, I am left impressed by Google Glass. The product itself is too nerdy and it still has ways to go before it becomes an everyday product. Nevertheless, it represents a bit of old Google. It represents the kind of things the company needs to do in order to leap forward of its rivals.”
At its Google I/O developer conference on Thursday, the company announced that Gmail now has 425 million users, including government agencies in 45 states and 66 of the top 100 universities in the U.S.
“Google also announced that over 5 million businesses have now ‘gone Google.’ This, says Google, includes a number of large companies, including Roche, KLM and others,” reports TechCrunch.
Sundar Pichai, SVP Chrome and Apps, says Google Chrome now has some 310 million users, compared to 160 million last year. “Pichai says there’s every indication that Chrome is now the biggest browser in the world,” notes AllThingsD.
The company demonstrated Chrome used across multiple devices while retaining the same settings, bookmarks, and tabs. Chrome will be available on the iPhone and the iPad.
Google Drive is being used by 10 million users. The demonstration highlighted the ability to scan through documents with OCR, and showed Google Drive apps for diagramming, faxing and creating presentations. Users can access the same document on a smartphone, tablet or Chromebook, and documents can be edited offline. Beginning today, it will be available for Chrome OS and iOS.
In a move to compete with Amazon, Google announced Compute Engine to provide infrastructure as a service by accessing Compute Engine’s virtual machines. In one example, a customer was able to access 771,886 cores for their app. The company claims this will provide 50 percent more computing per dollar than other providers.
Yahoo and Spotify have agreed to partner in a deal that will bring Spotify’s music library to Yahoo’s Media network. Spotify will also promote Yahoo’s app on the Spotify platform.
The deal will override a four year partnership between Yahoo and music service Rhapsody.
“The deal will see Spotify first rolling out to Yahoo Music. Later it will also start appearing in other verticals within the media network, including Yahoo Movies and omg!” reports TechCrunch.
A related post from AllThingsD explains that “Yahoo users will see Spotify links on their site, but will only be able to play music if they’ve already downloaded and opened up Spotify’s software (new Spotify users will still have to sign up for the service using their Facebook login).”
Yahoo will receive a commission if a Yahoo referral results in a paid subscription for Spotify. The two companies will not share any advertising revenue.
The deal will help Spotify gain exposure, as it looks to grow its 10 million users. Yahoo claims to reach 700 million people, so the deal will certainly get Spotify in front of more eyes.
A report from the Pew Internet & American Life project notes that 17 percent of adult cell phone owners access the Internet more frequently on their phones than on desktops, laptops, or tablets.
“That’s the number for all cell phone owners in the U.S, including those with feature phones,” reports TechCrunch. “Just looking at those who already use their phones to go online (55 percent of all cell phone owners), a whopping 31 percent now say they mostly use their phones to go online.”
Notably, 45 percent of adults ages 18 to 29 who use the Internet on their phones report using the devices as their primary Web browsing tool.
The report also shows that African-Americans and Latinos are more likely than others to report that they mostly use their phones for Web browsing — 55 percent of African-Americans and 52 percent of Latinos reported “cell-mostly” use, while only 24 percent of whites fell into this category.
People in the “cell-mostly” category reported that they prefer cell phones for browsing because “they are more easily available (64 percent), fit their usage habits better (18 percent) and are simply good enough to perform basic online activities (7 percent)” explains the post.
Steve Wozniak this week criticized the U.S. government’s handling of the Megaupload case, suggesting many used the site for legitimate purposes and closing it was not necessary.
“You don’t just shut down the whole street because somebody is speeding,” said the Apple co-founder, in response to the government mandated freeze of all user accounts.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has worked to defend Kim Dotcom, Megaupload’s founder and CEO. (Wozniak helped fund the formation of the EFF.)
While Wozniak recognizes that Dotcom may not be as legitimate as he contends, Wozniak questions the authorities’ treatment of Dotcom. “It’s just kind of ridiculous what they did to his life,” he says, labeling the piracy case as “hokey” and suggesting the actions are an impediment to Internet innovation.
“Wozniak believes that people should pay for content, but also says the Internet should be open and shutting down sites like Megaupload is futile,” reports The Verge.
“If you’ve got a huge steamroller coming, instead of trying to stop it, you should get out of the way,” says Wozniak.
Sony has announced development of a small, lightweight, rugged HD action camera intended to target the extreme sports market and compete with the popular GoPro 11-megapixel HD Hero2.
Sony’s blog on Tuesday posted an early look at its upcoming “action camera,” not providing a formal name just yet.
“Sony’s developing a new type of hi-def wearable video camera for POV and action sports,” reads the post, “and we’re giving you — our stellar fans — the first look at the device!”
“Specs are scant at this point, though the company offers a few bits of information — vital for such a device, Sony’s SteadyShot image stabilization technology is included. It also incorporate an Exmor R CMOS image sensor and an ultra-wide angle Carl Zeiss Tessar lens,” reports Digital Trends.
“That means, whether you’re shredding major powder, jumping out of a plane, or kayaking through an epic waterfall, you’re capturing super high-quality video of it to show off to your family and friends,” explains the Sony post. “And there’ll be ruggedized and waterproof housings available so the camera can do its job in even the most extreme environments.”
Vizio announced its Co-Star this week, a Google TV-based set-top box priced at $99. The product aims to compete with the Apple TV media box and similar products from Roku and Sony.
The Co-Star provides access to the Google Play App Store, live gaming, and a Bluetooth remote control with a a touch sensitive trackpad, QWERTY keyboard and game controls. It comes preloaded with Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and iHeartRadio.
The product also features 802.11n support, one USB port, HDMI in/out ports, and an option to use a wired Ethernet cable.
“One big advantage the device has over other Google TV set-top boxes is its support for cloud-based gaming service OnLive, which lets you stream popular video games to other platforms,” reports VentureBeat. “Essentially, this makes the Co-Star a legitimate game console competitor.”
Availability has yet to be announced, but pre-orders start next month. The post features a collection of detailed images.
Google kicked off its I/O event in San Francisco yesterday with news that it has activated 400 million Android devices, up from last year’s 100 million. The company claims to now be activating one million devices per day.
Android 4.1 (“Jelly Bean”) was introduced. Highlights: triple buffering of graphics pipeline allows parallel performance of CPU and GPU resulting in 60fps performance, voice typing works offline, and voice searches receive spoken answers.
Google Play has more than 600,000 apps and games, with more than 1.5 billion downloaded each month. Apps are available in more than 132 countries.
The Nexus 7 is a 7-inch tablet manufactured by ASUS that runs Jelly Bean and includes a 1280 x 800 display, Tegra 3 quad-core CPU plus 12-core GPU, front facing camera, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and 9 hour battery life. The $199 tablet can be ordered online for mid-July delivery.
Nexus Q is a new social streaming device and the first CE product Google has completely built from the ground up. The $299 Android device is controlled with your smartphone or tablet and features a Galaxy Nexus processor, HDMI, dual-band Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Bluetooth, and supports NFC.
The keynote also included an astounding demo of Google Glasses with live streams from skydivers via Google+ Hangouts. Glasses have camera, processor and “a lot of memory to store information.” The product also has a gyro, accelerometer, compass, touchpad, microphones and speaker.
Google Glass Explorer Edition is available for pre-order only to U.S.- based developers who are physically at Google I/O at a cost of $1,500. It’s expected to ship early next year.
