Motorola Mobility’s mystery gadget streams video to tablets and phones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Been looking for the perfect thing to boast to your iPhone-owning friends about? Well brace yourself, because doubleTwist has just gone wireless with its latest update, introducing a feature called AirSync which allows Android users to keep their media collection simpatico sans cabling. The new app for PC and Mac boxes couples with its Android counterpart (along with a new AirSync component) and lets you do most of your management without needing a wire between your phone and computer. The desktop application and DoubleTwist player for phones won’t cost you a thing, though AirSync itself is $0.99 on the phone for the first 10,000 buyers, and then jumps to $4.99 a shot.

Setup is relatively painless, requiring just a passcode from your phone which is input on the PC side. From then on, whenever you’ve got the app open and your device in range, the content stored on the phone will appear in your DoubleTwist list just as if you’d plugged the phone in (similar to the Windows Phone 7 / Zune wireless sync). We took AirSync for a ride with our Mac and Droid Incredible, and everything seemed to work fine, though we did notice a few bugs (one that was pretty major) that need worked out. Firstly, you’ll probably want to just start fresh with syncing your collection — we made the mistake of trying to pick up where we’d left off and accidentally wiped the content stored on the phone. We also noticed issues with the application trying to sync or update your database while listening to music; more than once our playback abruptly stopped when the app was attempting to talk to the phone. Syncing can also be pretty slow depending on your connection — really slow if you’ve got a big collection.

Despite those complaints, AirSync (and both the doubleTwist Android app and desktop client) are incredibly slick solutions to a problem plaguing lots of smartphone users. The company obviously has just begun its work with the app — and it’s clear that there are kinks to work out — but the dream of a wireless future for Android users just got a lot closer to reality.

AirSync for doubleTwist brings wireless syncing to Android phones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Presumably looking to build some brand awareness, Sprint and Samsung are apparently teaming up to offer new Epic 4G owners $50 vouchers redeemable toward “select” movie rentals in its Media Hub video-on-demand store — which will actually buy quite a bit of content, when you think about it. The way it works is that you’ll buy the phone and get texted a ten-digit promo code within a few days; once you redeem it for the first time, you’ll have 60 days to use it up, otherwise the whole thing will expire on March 31st of next year. Word on the street is that the promotion is also headed for the Sprint version of the Galaxy Tab, which would give these guys a leg up for potential buyers viewing the Tab primarily as a media consumption device when you consider that the same product is coming to all four nationals (plus a regional). Of course, the vouchers are being billed as redeemable toward “select” content, so we’ll have to see just how limited it is before calling this a great deal.

$50 Samsung Media Hub vouchers making Epic 4G and Galaxy Tab purchases a little sweeter originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sun, 31 Oct 2010 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s mad, monied quest to “free the TV apps” may not stop at your couch — the electronics manufacturer says it’s looking to loop in cell phones as well. “We plan to have a single platform for Samsung TV and phones,” a VP told Reuters, without providing further details. We have to wonder if it might cross swords with the Media Hub video-on-demand software the company’s pushing in the tablet and smartphone space. No word on when we’ll find out.

Samsung plotting a single platform to connect TVs and phones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not a brand new concept or anything, but rather than forcing mobile users to scan QR codes in order to access more information about a given product or advertisement, Wizup is able to recognize far more esoteric items. Created as a part of the Windows Phone 7 developer challenge, this piece of software is able to listen to radio stations (at least in France), understand images from magazines and even recognize TV channels. Simply snap a picture or let it listen in (much like Shazam for song titles), and it then delivers all sorts of germane content to the mobile’s screen. It’s a dream come true for marketers, but better still, it makes digging for more information a whole lot easier on the end user. Head on past the break for a demonstration video — if you’ve been denying it thus far, good luck as you continue to resist the Augmented Reality Revolution.

Continue reading Wizup emerges from Windows Phone 7 developer challenge: think Shazam, but for ads

Wizup emerges from Windows Phone 7 developer challenge: think Shazam, but for ads originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been itching to see how Samsung would leverage Media Hub, and now we’re getting the goods at its Galaxy Tab event. Compatible with Tab and Galaxy S devices, both movies and next-day TV shows will be available for purchase and rental. As for the content partners, they’re not quite shabby: MTV Networks, NBC, Paramount, Universal Studios, and Warner, with more to be announced. Purchased content can be shared with up to five devices. What’s not specified is pricing. We should be getting hands-on with it soon, so stay tuned — or whatever the internet equivalent of that idiom is.

Samsung Media Hub: movies and next-day TV shows from NBC, Paramount, Universal, and more originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Sep 2010 19:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In our excitement over HTC’s announcements this morning (that’d be Desire Z, Desire HD, and Sense enhancements, in case you missed it), we missed one other nugget of good news. The HTC Media Link wireless DLNA streaming adapter does exactly what you’d expect from a name like that — namely, it’s a box that allows you to stream media (photos, audio, video up to 720p) to TVs that don’t natively have DLNA support. The pic above shows off what appears to be micro-USB and mini-HDMI ports. According to SlashGear, it’s due out in Q4 this year, but price is still TBA.

HTC’s Media Link provides the wireless DLNA support your phone and TV crave, coming Q4 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japan chooses ISDB-Tmm over MediaFLO for new mobile TV network, KDDI pouts originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s ugly. It’s buggy. It requires a Windows PC. But PlayOn for iPhone actually works, slinging Netflix, Hulu, CBS and more to your waiting Apple device over WiFi and (occasionally) 3G. Using the same PlayOn desktop client that presently redirects video-on-demand to your game console or a media streamer attached to your TV, subscribers can download an app on July 15th that transcodes content for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad as well, and is today the only way to get Netflix on your phone.

We spent some quality couch time with the program over the last couple of days, and with a powerful PC, fast internet and WiFi connection, we found video quite watchable on our iPhone 4, and there’s no knocking PlayOn’s breadth of content available, with loads of TV, a good deal of anime and your entire Netflix streaming queue available on the phone. The interface is barely there, though, just a series of poorly-spaced nesting menus, and it can take quite a few touchscreen presses and a bit of thought to find what you want to watch. There are a few bugs too, like one that kept shooting us back to the main menu randomly upon a button press, and another that locked us into a particular piece of content until both app and desktop server were restarted. Some content could have looked better on the 3.5-inch Retina Display if only we’d had the option to press the HD button, but the only controls Media Mall provides are forward, backward and volume, and even with full bars we’re afraid we couldn’t get 3G playback to work reliably. Since the company still offers a free 14-day trial of the service, the software’s definitely worth a try, but if you want Hulu or Netflix on the go (or even around the house), we imagine you’ll eventually end up using their dedicated apps instead.

PlayOn for iPhone brings a wealth of streaming video to iOS, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The rumored Charm has just gotten a proper unveiling from Motorola — and while it’s not getting nearly the media fanfare its Droid X corporate cousin did, it’s arguably even more unique. The phone features a full portrait QWERTY keyboard placed directly below a 2.8-inch landscape touchscreen, but for most operations, you don’t have to touch it if you don’t want to because you’ve also got a touchpad mounted on the back of the phone (the so-called “Backtrack”) much like AT&T’s Backflip. Not only is this the first widely-launched Android phone to employ such a form factor, it’s also the first to run Android 2.1 with Blur — and interestingly, they’ve carried over the old version’s general look and feel rather than going with the Droid X’s updated skin. It’s got a 3 megapixel camera (with Kodak co-branding, something we haven’t seen on a Moto in a long time), WiFi, and a noise-canceling second microphone. Pricing and availability haven’t been announced, but T-Mobile customers can expect it “this Summer.”

Motorola Charm official for T-Mobile: portrait QWERTY Android at long last originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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