Samsung and Cineplex Entertainment have teamed up to create a new app that “folks in Canada using Samsung’s Smart lineup of home theater equipment” can be excited about, reports Engadget.
The two companies have created Cineplex Store, a video-on-demand app that allows owners of “select models of Samsung’s Smart TVs, Blu-ray players and home theater systems” to buy or rent videos with a click from their couches.
Pricing ranges from $3-$5 for 48-hour unlimited play rentals. Buying the movie in full will cost between $10-$20. There is no monthly subscription fee.
Whether renting or purchasing, users will be able to store content in a “digital locker” and earn “Scene” points with Cineplex.
Just as Netflix and others are considering further European expansion, a group of companies in Germany — the largest television market in Europe — is preparing to launch its own video on demand service, called Gold GmbH, “that hopes to become the Hulu for Germany,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
There are 17 companies that make up Gold, including some commercial operators owned by public broadcasters, independent producers and rights groups.
“The group represents a wide span of the German production landscape, with programming ranging from reality shows such as ‘Undercover Boss’ (MME) to high-end series including Tom Fontana’s ‘Borgia’ (Beta) and Aussie teen show ‘H20 — Just Add Water’ (ZDF) and a large archive of documentaries, children’s programming and German feature films,” notes THR.
Gold is scheduled to launch later this year and will attempt to finance itself through ads, subscriptions and pay-per-view fees.
Philips new PicoPix 2480 projector is capable of projecting images up to 120 inches, according to the manufacturer.
The $480 compact projector uses light-emitting diodes and has an integrated MP4 player and built-in speaker. The device is ideal for use with laptops, smartphones, cameras and tablets.
“Compact enough to fit in a small bag, the PicoPix 2480 has USB, HDMI, VGA, component and composite connectivity, an SD/SDHC slot and 2GB of internal memory,” reports Pocket-lint.
“With two hours battery life you might want to have a power source nearby if you’re projecting a feature-length film, for example, but for boring — we mean showing — your friends and family your holiday snaps blown up, it should do the job,” adds the post.
According to Philips, the PicoPix 2480 uses LED tech for 854 x 480 resolution and 1000:1 contrast ratio at its maximum projection of 120 inches.
Market research firm IHS iSuppli predicts that ultrabooks priced in the $700 range will not directly compete with Apple’s MacBook Air, since they will have smaller displays and hard-disk drives instead of solid-state drives.
Higher-priced ultrabooks will feature touch screens and Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors later this year, but so will the MacBook Air, notes IHS iSuppli.
“More compromises will come in display, storage and memory. Cheap ultrabook screens will stay stuck at 1366 x 768, compared to the 13-inch MacBook Air’s 1440 x 900,” reports ReadWriteWeb. “Perhaps most significantly, storage will likely be handled by a conventional 2.5-inch hard drive instead of the pricier solid-state drives that make using a high-end ultrabook such a fast, seamless experience. Memory capacity will also be less: 2GB versus 4GB in higher-end systems.”
In order to make a profit on a $700 ultrabook, manufacturers need to get the cost of materials and production down to $500 per unit. As a result, some may seem no different than a low-end laptop.
“An ultrabook in a plastic enclosure just looks like a thin laptop, as opposed to an entirely new product,” says Kevin Keller, senior principal analyst for iSuppli.
“The real question, perhaps, is not whether PC makers can come up with $700 ultrabooks to appeal to cheapskates, but how much they’ll have to charge for upcoming high-end Windows 8 ultrabooks that really can take on the MacBook Air,” comments the article.
Despite predictions that cameras will be made obsolete by smartphones, Japanese manufacturers report that they shipped nearly three times as many cameras in January as they did during the same period in 2003.
“For several years, it has been predicted that smartphone adoption would cut into digital camera sales,” said Prashant Malaviya, associate professor of marketing at Georgetown University. “In fact, the exact opposite has happened.”
“Surveys by NPD In-Stat last November show that while more than a quarter of all American photos were taken by a smartphone, more people were buying cameras with detachable lenses or cameras with optical zooms of 10x or more,” notes Reuters.
The quality of images and the development of mirrorless cameras are among the strengths of the camera industry. However, point-and-shoot cameras are vulnerable to recent improvements in smartphone cameras.
NPD In-Stat senior digital imaging analyst Liz Cutting also notes that people generally don’t trust phones or point-and-shoots for important personal images and family photographs.
“It’s part of who you are, showing the kind of brand of camera you have,” she says. “But it’s also trusting the quality of that memory because that’s how you remember your life.”
“Camera photography is certainly not dead,” Cutting adds. “We’re just seeing a skewing towards what the smartphone can’t deliver. People are recognizing that and are going for a higher end camera.”
Microsoft plans to introduce a streaming music service at the E3 Gaming Expo in June, which is expected to be a replacement for Zune.
The Xbox-branded product, code-named “Woodstock,” will reportedly work across a range of platforms, including Android and iOS devices as well as the new Windows 8 system.
“Previously described as ‘Spotify-like,’ the service won’t require any browser plugins and is said to integrate deeply with Facebook, allowing friends to build group playlists and share tracks,” notes The Verge.
“Microsoft’s service will also include a ‘scan and match’ feature, similar to iTunes Match, which will let users find songs from their current library within the platform,” reports CNET.
Sony has announced plans to introduce its cloud-based Music Unlimited service this year, featuring a catalog of 15 million songs.
“Music content could be a key factor to revive Sony,” said Takashi Watanabe, an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group in Tokyo.“The time is over where an electronics company can excel just because it has a good device. You have to have a very good platform to capture your clients within your system.”
Content from Sony’s own music units includes songs from artists such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Bruce Springsteen. The catalog offerings also include tracks from Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.
Apple’s iTunes currently offers approximately 20 million titles, while Spotify offers more than 16 million songs.
“Music Unlimited lets users stream songs via Web-connected Bravia televisions, some Walkman models, PlayStation game players, personal computers and Android-based mobile phones. The service was expanded to the PlayStation Vita in March after being enabled on Sony Tablets and other Android-based tablets in October,” according to Bloomberg.
Google has officially released its Drive cloud storage solution that gives users access to cloud-connected storage across all their devices.
The service will compete with the likes of Dropbox, SugarSync, Box and Microsoft’s SkyDrive.
“The company will give every Drive user 5GB of free storage. If you need more room for files, you can get 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month, or 1TB for $49.99/month,” reports VentureBeat. “Google says that when upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage for e-mails will also expand to 25GB, meaning more storage for all those huge e-mail attachments your boss likes to send.”
Google Drive has Google Docs built in, includes a powerful search feature and photo recognition and has a screen reader feature for blind users.
The search giant is still working on an iOS app, but is already capable on Macs or PCs and Android.
LinkedIn launched its much-anticipated iPad app on Wednesday. “Redesigned from the ground up, the tablet version looks nothing like the LinkedIn website; it’s more akin to a social news aggregator,” comments Mashable.
The professional social network’s 150 million users can now use the Flipboard-influenced design to access three options: updates, profile and inbox.
While profile and inbox are self-explanatory, updates will include stories shared by friends and details regarding friends changing jobs.
Additionally, the app provides info from a user’s Google Calendar or Exchange calendar.
“More than 22 percent of LinkedIn traffic comes from mobile devices; a year ago, that figure was 8 percent,” reports Mashable.
Sprint Nextel will continue to offer unlimited data plans for those who purchase iPhones through the carrier, even promising the same deal for the next model, whenever that comes out.
According to CNET, even if “the next iteration of the iPhone arrives with LTE, Sprint will continue to offer a no-strings unlimited plan.”
“I’m not anticipating the unlimited plan would change by that point,” said CEO Dan Hesse. “That’s our distinctive differentiator.”
Hesse believes that the unlimited data plan attracts customers who may have otherwise gone with a different carrier. “Frankly, it’s a marriage made in heaven,” he said. “We’re clearly attracting customers from our competitors.”
In its first quarter report, Sprint Nextel announced it had activated 1.5 million iPhones, 44 percent of which came from new customers.
Android users who install the new version of the Facebook app will now have two other obligatory apps — Camera and Messenger — also installed.
The two apps look and work similar to the phone’s default apps but if users don’t want them, too bad: there’s no getting rid of the two additions without uninstalling the Facebook app entirely.
The Facebook camera app actually operates less efficiently than the native camera function, taking lower quality pictures. When using the app, it is not immediately clear that it is Facebook-specific. Unlike other photo apps like Instagram, the only benefit to Facebook’s Camera app is improved tagging of friends.
“People love Instagram, but almost nobody loves Facebook,” Jeffrey Van Camp writes for Digital Trends. “We all use it because we must (everyone is on it), but gutsy moves like these are why it lacks love. If someone wants to install a Facebook camera app, they can, but forcing three apps on users who only signed up to install one is not cool.”
“Trying to trick them into using the Facebook Messaging and Camera alternatives through deceptive icon designs and names is just sad,” he adds. “Well, sad and a bit savvy. Facebook may not be very lovable, but it does know how to insert itself deeper into your life.”
In a related Facebook story, the social network is taking steps to address security concerns. On Wednesday, it announced partnerships with Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos, and Norton/Symantec “to enhance its own URL blacklisting system; and it is launching a new service, the Antivirus Marketplace, with these five companies, to offer a selection of antivirus software to protect users even further. That software will be free of charge for the first six months of use,” details TechCrunch.
Disney/Pixar’s new film, “Brave,” will be the first to test out Dolby’s new Atmos format, the next generation theatrical sound system designed to make films sound more “natural and lifelike.”
“Dolby aims to have the new sound system, which it debuted this week at CinemaCon, installed in 10-15 theaters worldwide for the test, for which Pixar will prepare a special mix of the film,” indicates The Hollywood Reporter. “Seven-time Oscar winner Gary Rydstrom is serving as sound designer and re-recording mixer on the project.”
Oscar-nominated sound designer and editor Erik Aadahl says the new sound format is “the biggest breakthrough in sound that has happened in my career.”
Dolby details Atmos by noting that it’s “capable of transmitting up to 128 simultaneous and lossless audio channels, and renders from 5.1 up to 64 discrete speaker feeds,” according to THR. In order to create a completely immersive experience, speakers will be positioned around the theater and overhead.
A new report from Sandvine found that real-time entertainment (primarily video) has risen to 64.5 percent of total U.S. network traffic in March from 53.6 percent last September.
YouTube accounted for 13.8 percent of total traffic in March.
Sandvine also reported last fall that half of North America’s Internet use was related to video; Netflix accounted for 27.6 percent of daily downstream volume with HTTP following at 17.8 percent, YouTube at 10.0 percent and BitTorrent coming in at 9.0 percent.
With this transition to broadband for video content, usage can become an issue for both video quality and the network. “Technical solutions such as adaptive bit-rate streaming or buffering content to a hard drive help,” GigaOM reports. “But Sandvine concludes that basic monthly usage caps, such as the ones ISPs are implementing, don’t.”
“Are caps a worrisome protectionist tool to keep subscribers locked to both broadband and pay TV subscriptions?” GigaOM asks. “And if that’s a yes, then what should the FCC, Department of Justice or Congress do about it?”
AOL is making its foray into the TV sphere with a new Web channel that aims to go beyond being just a YouTube clone with its six new original programs produced by some top entertainment names.
“Yesterday the company launched a new video site called AOL On Network, which will bring all of the company’s video offerings (Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, AOL.com, and others) under one umbrella,” VentureBeat reports.
“The video content will play across 14 content channels, including food, business, entertainment, style, tech, travel, and health,” explains the post. “The AOL On Network will reach an audience of 57 million U.S. consumers on a variety of Internet-connected devices, according to a comScore report of video viewing behavior for March 2012.”
The site will offer “320,000 high-quality, short-form videos created by over 1,000 third-party publishers as well as AOL,” according to the post.
While AOL remains among the top 10 most popular sites for video content online, “the biggest factor in that success is in delivering video content that people actually want to see — meaning people don’t mind sitting through a few commercials or pre-roll ads during a video,” comments VentureBeat.
Yahoo! and VEVO presented Digital Content NewFront events yesterday in New York City, each announcing original programming scheduled for the coming year.
Katie Couric will host her own ABC News show on Yahoo! called “Katie’s Take,” a weekly online-only series debuting May 1 that will have its own page dedicated to the program. This will be one of several shows on Yahoo! that will be offered to ad buyers to get them to spend TV ad dollars on digital. The launch sponsor will be Nestle’s Poland Spring Natural Water.
Yahoo! also announced: “Electric City,” an animated sci-fi series produced by Tom Hanks; “Cybergeddon,” a feature length film to be released in segments, written and directed by Anthony Zuiker; a talk show hosted by Jeff Goldblum and produced by Yahoo! Studios; “Stunt Nation,” a weekly five-minute show; and “KaBOOM!” a three-minute show featuring “ridiculously fun objects getting blown to smithereens.”
Primarily known for music videos, VEVO announced six new series, including: a singing competition program, a scripted musical comedy series, a dating show, a comedy series about album covers, a show that searches the country for talented female musicians, and a show detailing the music culture of specific cities.