In-flight entertainment provider Row 44 Inc. has announced a deal with MLB Advanced Media to provide live streams of more than 2,400 baseball games on Wi-Fi enabled devices on airlines.
The service will initially be made available to passengers on Southwest and Norwegian Air Shuttle flights.
“Southwest is currently in the process of wiring its entire fleet with Row 44’s in-flight broadband system,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “The carrier is offering the service for a introductory rate of $5.”
“The integration of live baseball games into Row 44’s in-flight broadband entertainment experience ensures our traveling fans won’t have to miss a pitch,” says Bob Bowman, chief executive of Major League Baseball Advanced Media.
Sony announced it will launch a head mounted display dubbed the “Personal 3D Viewer” HMZ-T1 in Japan this November (some of you may have seen the prototype at CES 2011).
The wearable display is designed for viewing both 2D and 3D on a “movie theater-like virtual screen,” equivalent to a 750-inch display, according to Sony.
The device uses twin 0.7-inch OLED panels with 1280×720 resolution and 5.1 surround sound. It is expected to sell in Japan for around $700 (possibly higher when it makes its way to the U.S.).
ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld comments: “Online chatter discusses this as an alternative to 3DTVs versus the social aspect of viewing. The health warning at the bottom of the press release is rather strange, given the target market.”
Health warning from the Sony press release: “Considering the protection of the growth and development, we ask children (age 15 and younger) to refrain from using this product.”
The HTC Jetstream tablet (formerly named Puccini), will be available through AT&T beginning this Sunday.
Notable features include: a Snapdragon 1.5 GHz dual core processor, front-facing camera, 8-megapixel rear camera, and HTC scribe stylus pen.
The Jetstream runs Android 3.1 Honeycomb on a 10.1-inch screen and will be AT&T’s first tablet with real 4G LTE.
According to the company press release: “HTC Jetstream is AT&T’s first tablet to showcase the Android 3.1 OS. The brand new operating system was designed from the ground up for devices with larger screens. It improves on Android favorites with new interactive and resizeable widgets plus improved multi-tasking, browsing, notifications, and customization.”
However, the $700 price tag, “discounted” with a 2-year contract (and $35/month data plan), may prove off-putting to some consumers.
Former COO of Funny or Die Mitch Galbraith launched the beta version of social streaming movie service flickme this week with deals in place from Sony and Warner Bros. The venture was founded by Galbraith and Mark Smallcombe, who received funding from Sequoia Capital.
The new service lets users rent or purchase movies and watch instantly, via their Facebook accounts. Users can also socially connect with friends to share deals and recommendations. According to the website: “About one third of the movies on flickme feature pass-along perks: the first person to rent or buy can share special offers with friends, including discounts and access to rentals before they are normally available.”
The service will face competition from streamers such as iTunes and Netflix but is hoping the social connection will make it distinct.
“We’ve built a short cut to find movies you’ll love,” says Galbraith. “We’re assembling a library of thousands of top Hollywood titles and enabling highly personalized recommendations from close friends to ensure every movie you watch on flickme is a winner.”
Subscription online music service MOG has announced the availability of its new app for the Boxee Box by D-Link.
According to the press release: “MOG is the first on-demand music service providing unlimited music in high quality, 320 kbps, to be offered as a native app for Boxee. Listeners can now enjoy MOG’s HQ audio through this new living room offering, featuring a wireless remote keypad for quick searches of MOG’s 11.5-million song catalog on a user’s connected TV.”
You can test drive MOG free for 14 days, reports Engadget. After the trial period, you have a choice of the $4.99/month basic account or $9.99/month Primo account.
Bowers & Wilkins has launched a free app that enables users to stream music from wirelessly connected Apple devices for playback on any AirPlay-enabled player, such as the Zeppelin Air iPod dock.
“There are many fantastic mobile apps that allow you to stream music, but the Zeppelin Air App is the first of its kind that enables users to share music and create collaborative playlists with friends, mobile device to mobile device,” explains Paul McCarthy of App Developer Aurnhammer. “Bowers & Wilkins has essentially created a wireless, virtual jukebox.”
“The app lets every person with an ‘i’ device contribute to a party’s playlist,” reports MarketNews. “The music can first be compiled through the app, then arranged to the organizer’s liking before it’s officially sent to the AirPlay device for playback.”
An open WiFi network and AirPlay is required to use the app. AirPlay requires iTunes 10.1 or later and an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch.
Apple’s iTunes Match went live to developers for testing this week and music “streaming” from the cloud is reportedly already up and running.
If the hype is accurate, the TechCrunch article header from Dennis Kuba’s story submission may prove telling: “With iTunes In The Cloud, Apple Under-Promises And Over-Delivers.”
Apple enthusiasts are excited to see what shakes out this fall with iOS 5 and iCloud. Yesterday, TechCrunch reported: “Tonight brought perhaps the biggest surprise revelation yet: iTunes in the Cloud will support streaming as well as downloading of music.”
There is also speculation that this announcement may lead to a possible “cloud iPhone.” Rumors are making the rounds that Apple might unveil a low-cost iPhone 4 (with minimal on-board storage) alongside its new iPhone 5 release. If iTunes has streaming functionality, the low-cost version of the iPhone could rely on the cloud for content.
Be sure to check out the iTunes Match videos included in the post.
TechCrunch recently added an update: “There’s some debate going on right now about whether or not this is technically streaming. Even Apple is avoiding the term, as Peter Kafka points out. There are two reasons for this — reasons Google follows as well with their service.”
Facebook has already paid out $40,000 to hackers for identifying flaws in its website, just three weeks after the social networker launched its “Bug Bounty” program that offers compensation for finding vulnerabilities in the site’s code.
“Schemes such as Facebook’s illustrate the push towards greater disclosure of security weaknesses and hacking incidents, as the technology industry strives to pool its resources to protect itself better,” reports The Financial Times. “The approach has won praise from digital advocacy groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.”
“The program has also been great because it has made our site more secure — by surfacing issues large and small, introducing us to novel attack vectors, and helping us improve lots of corners in our code,” explained Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer.
Facebook joins others such as Google, Mozilla and HP that have programs in place to offer payments to outsiders who identify vulnerabilities.
The New York Giants claim to be the first NFL team to introduce live, realtime Twitter updates into broadcast TV coverage.
The team will display fans’ tweets during games via video boards and digital displays at Giants stadium, while fans watching at home will see realtime Twitter updates as part of the game’s graphics.
The Giants are collaborating with Mass Relevance, the firm that will aggregate and deliver the Twitter posts to the in-stadium displays, TV broadcasts and Giants.com website.
I saw this feature this week during NBC’s coverage of the Giants-Jets game. I found it to be an unnecessary distraction that occasionally obstructed my view and I didn’t read a single tweet that added value to my viewing experience. When I first submitted this story, I commented: “Based on my experience during last night’s game, this is my question: Who can I pay to make this go away?”
However, I understand why this may become popular. Perhaps the concept would be better served by delivering only to those fans actively seeking social interaction.
In a price comparison of Apple’s iPad and 42-inch LCD TVs, Bloomberg has included a compelling chart from research firm DisplaySearch that illustrates how the average price of a large screen TV is expected to soon drop below that of the popular tablet.
According to DisplaySearch, the average cost of a 42-inch LCD TV in the U.S. is expected to drop to $578 by the end of this year and continue to fall through 2015.
Apple’s iPad tablets sell for $499 to $829 in the U.S., with the Wi-Fi only, 32-gigabyte version priced at $599.
“The value consumers ascribe to a TV set is lower than most manufacturers’ costs,” says Macquarie Group analyst Jeff Loff. “Even incremental features like 3D, Internet connectivity and enhanced motion processing do not generate enough of a price lift to turn TV sets profitable.”
Sony Ericsson is adding Google Talk and video features this fall to its Xperia smartphone line.
The features will be available courtesy of an upgrade to the Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread platform.
The phone maker is also adding 3D camera features and increased social networking capabilities such as making Facebook access easier and quicker.
According to eWeek, key features include: “The ability to let users turn their Xperia smartphone into a mini PC by connecting mouse, keyboard or game controllers via USB to the Sony Ericsson LiveDock multimedia station, or to a TV via HDMI; Swipe text input (a competing technology to Swype on Android handsets); and screen capture from anywhere in the phone, a valuable tool for Web publishers.”
Expect the Xperia line to be available by October, possibly before the iPhone 5 fall launch.
Sony has announced two A-mount models for its Translucent Mirror line, the a77 and a65.
The a77 is the successor to Sony’s a700 DSLR. Sony has replaced the traditional mirror with a translucent technology that offers faster autofocus with less bulk.
The Sony press release claims: “The a77 boasts the world’s fastest continuous AF shooting performance” (among interchangeable-lens digital cameras with APS-C size sensors).
Digital Trends comments: “The a77 is exactly the kind of expensive ($2000 kit), hulking (weather-sealed magnesium body) piece of camera hardware with ridiculous specs (24.3 megapixel APS-C sensor, ISO 50-16,000) that photographers everywhere drool over.”
Eliminating the traditional mirror of a DSLR could potentially lead to serious changes in camera design and functionality. “It’s a huge breakthrough for DSLR videographers, who now have a viable option for seriously fast and accurate focusing (read: great for sports),” suggests Digital Trends. “It also allows the camera to have a crazy burst rate: 12 frames per second at 24.3-megapixels, far faster than any DSLR, even those that use lower resolutions.”
Samsung is poised to release its own free mobile messaging service.
ChatON is designed to simplify mobile communication by connecting users on all major smartphones. It will support Bada, Android, BlackBerry, iOS and PCs.
“The idea is to enable users to communicate instantly with each other using any mobile phone, along with sharing hand-written notes, images, and video,” reports Digital Trends.
“Samsung has vastly simplified mobile communication by allowing users to connect to our upcoming feature phones and all major smartphones in the market,”said Samsung’s media solution center chief Ho Soo Lee. “Users around the world can now enjoy easier and richer interactivity with whoever they want, in the format they want — this is mobile communication reinvented and democratized.”
ChatOn will have an aggressive launch, initially available in more than 120 countries in 62 languages. Digital Trends reports that it will boast a wide range of social services including interaction with Facebook and support for conversation windows, photos and videos.
MasterImage 3D is developing a 3D screen for smartphones and tablets that doesn’t require special glasses.
The screen uses what the company calls “cell matrix parallax barrier” technology, which it claims is more sophisticated than the autostereoscopic technology currently available.
GamesBeat lead writer Dean Takahashi points out that the viewing experience is vastly improved as compared to disappointments such as the Nintendo 3DS: “But the glasses-free experience MasterImage 3D has developed is something altogether different. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s going to offer an outstanding 3D experience on smartphones and tablets.”
Roy Taylor, executive vice president and general manager for MasterImage 3D, demonstrated a working prototype for Takahashi, who was very impressed: “The quality blew me away. On a 4.3-inch WVGA screen, Taylor showed a 3D movie running in stereoscopic 3D. I didn’t need to wear glasses to see the sharp 3D imagery. When I moved my head, it didn’t get blurry. And if I moved my head too far to the side, it gracefully transitioned to a two-dimensional image.”
TechCrunch reports that a new startup named Joint is aiming to address the concerns of Twitter users who are “badly in need of a better way to facilitate realtime, private, and longer-form conversations.”
Twitter’s general philosophy so far has been to keep its UI simple and rely on third party developers to add features.
That’s where Joint comes in with its solution that “essentially turns any Twitter hashtag into an IRC-like chat room, which is integrated with a realtime hashtag stream,” indicates TechCrunch.
This enables different social interactions, including a front-and-center realtime group chat feature. “Joint could become a very useful resource for people looking to easily congregate and discuss ongoing situations like hurricanes, protests, or events, live, from any location,” suggests the post.
TechCrunch adds: “Joint and its team isn’t affiliated with Twitter in any way, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the social network comes knocking at their door at some point down the road.”
