The Mysterious Google Entertainment Device
Last Updated on Sunday, 5 February 2012 04:36 Written by Alan Sunday, 5 February 2012 04:36
Most people think of Google as a search company, but their primary source of revenue is actually advertising. It permeates everything they do – there are ads in the search results, they sell ads to advertisers through AdWords and publishers through AdSense, and much more. Last year they made their first tentative steps into the entertainment business with Google TV, which met with a less than ideal response, although that is beginning to change. Now it appears Google in beginning to test a new entertainment device.
There’s a real possibility that this is nothing more than the next generation of Google TV, but at this point it all seems a bit mysterious. Google has filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission to test a WiFi and Bluetooth enabled device in the homes of employees in four different cities. From the FCC request:
“Google is developing an entertainment device that requires testing outside the laboratory environment. The device is in the prototyping phase and will be modified prior to final compliance testing. … Users will connect their device to home WiFi networks and use Bluetooth to connect to other home electronics equipment. This line of testing will reveal real world engineering issues and reliability of networks. The device utilizes a standard WiFi/Bluetooth module, and the planned testing is not directed at evaluating the radio frequency characteristics of the module (which are known), but rather at the throughput and stability of the home WiFi networks that will support the device, as well as the basic functionality of the device. From this testing we hope to modify the design in order to maximize product robustness and user experience. Utilizing the requested number of units will allow testing of real world network performance and its impact on applications running on the device, so that any problems can be discovered and addressed promptly.”
The test will be carried out in Mountain View, CA, New York City, NY, Cambridge, MA, and Los Angeles, CA. The test period will run from January 17th until July 17th. That means it will likely be quite some time before we get any real information on what this product is.
Boxee and Facebook Team Up for TV
Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 January 2012 07:38 Written by Alan Wednesday, 11 January 2012 07:38
Today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Boxee announced that they are teaming up with social networking powerhouse Facebook to bring TV to your Timeline. Boxee has always been built to allow users to share their video recommendations with friends, but this is their first foray into real social networking. Boxee started as a computer and Apple TV app, but expanded into their own set-top box a while back, and are now going to offer their new Boxee Live TV.
The TV app for Facebook will allow users to share what they are watching in their Facebook Timeline, as well as discover new videos from others. When the app is installed on your Boxee Live TV, and you begin watching a live TV show, it can post this information to your Facebook Timeline after two minutes of viewing. Before you panic about a potentially embarrassing post, don’t worry – the app needs your permission to do this. If a friend clicks on your shared link then they are taken to a new landing page that Boxee has created with more information about the show including the episode and season information. They can then save the show for later viewing or add it to their favorites.
The app is opt-in and changes can be made from your Facebook Application Settings page. As for the new Boxee Live TV, they said they plan to begin shipping it in the third week of January.
Boxee Facebook Live TV Integration from boxee on Vimeo.
Source: Boxee
Media.io Updates Adds More Functionality
Last Updated on Wednesday, 4 January 2012 08:16 Written by Alan Saturday, 7 January 2012 07:00
One of our favorite web apps of 2011, Media.io, has issued a major update for the new year. Media.io is an online tool for converting audio files that can easily turn your music from MP3 to WMA or from any one format to another easily and for free. We reviewed it a while back and you can check out our hands on here. Since that review the developer has continued to update the program with more and more functionality.
Media.io developer, Johann, has done a great job of updating the app, as well as it’s audio files capability, and he has now added more functionality to convert all of your music and audio files. New updates include the ability to share music and audio files, language updates, and better uptime. A full list of the updates added are included below.
- You can now share media.io with your friends using ShareThis. Personally, I’m not a fan of 3rd party widgets and I had to clean up ShareThis’ widget to make it less invasive to your privacy and to make it load faster.
- Korean translation. media.io is now available in Korean.
- Romanian translation. media.io is now available in Romanian. You might ask yourself “why Korean and Romanian?” – it’s got to do with the love media.io gets from particular countries.
- Less resampling. To compensate for flaws in
oggenc, I was resampling files to 44100 Hz on the old VPS. This has now been removed, resulting in better quality Ogg Vorbis files. - Performance improvements. It might seem hard to achieve, but I’ve found one or two tricks that make media.io load even faster worldwide. Every second counts.
- 100 % uptime in December 2011. While not really a new feature, the server media.io runs on has been rock solid in December with absolutely no downtime measured by Pingdom.
With all of the improvements it has become even easier to convert your music files from one audio format to another. Audio.io was one of the coolest web apps we found in 2011. It’s free to use and is compatible with almost every music format. If you have audio files that you would like to convert then head over to media.io to get started.
