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New Media News Every Morning

Yahoo Brings More of the Internet to the Living Room

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For its share of the news in the ongoing CES 2010, Yahoo is spiking up the delivery of web content through its Widget Engine for connected TV. Yahoo has announced partnership gigs with various consumer electronics companies including Samsung, Sony, LG Electronics and VIZIO. In addition, Yahoo has also teamed up with Intel to make its Widgen Development Kit available to developers to bring in more Internet-TV applications.

Yahoo’s TV widget brings popular Internet services and online media to reach viewers with applications specifically tailored to the needs of TV watchers. In other words, it’s like having a multimedia hub that you control on your TV screen. If you’re a couch potato like me, you’d definitely want to try this one out. That is of course if you have the supported consumer electronic products from the brands we mentioned awhile back.

And to make the user experience even more exciting and fun, Yahoo has also released the Widget Development Kit containing the Yahoo Widget Engine.  This WDK uses industry standard tools such as Javascript, XML and HTML to make it easy for developers and manufacturers to develop and deploy TV widgets of popular Internet services.  If this is the part of this news that interest you, check out more about the WDK here.

So, there. CES 2010 certainly brought us many new options for home entertainment.  Which is going to be for you? Boxee Beta? Boxee Box? Pophub Box or Yahoo Connected TV? Mind you, these are just some of the new options that you can use to spice up your home entertainment system. There are definitely many more which were announced at the CES 2010.

Originally posted on January 7, 2010 @ 5:22 pm

Vimeo to Go Full 1080p HD for its Premium Vimeo Account

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Introducing Vimeo Plus! from Vimeo Staff on Vimeo.

If you’ve been paying attention to the videos that we usually embed to some of our news coverages here in 901am (I hope you’re watching these videos), you’ve probably noticed that aside from YouTube some of those came from Vimeo, a video uploading and sharing site similar to YouTube. If you’re a Vimeo user, specifically a paid Premium member, by the end of this month you can now start uploading full 1080p HD videos to Vimeo.

Wait, just hold on a second. Wouldn’t that affect online playback of your videos? Especially since HD videos demand higher and faster bandwidth? Actually, yes it does affects online video playback. So Vimeo is giving you the option whether to choose sharing 1080p videos or stick with the current HD-quality 720p resolution.

Vimeo is perhaps enabling this feature to answer the signs of the times since the influx of cheap portable videocam has made it easier to produce HD videos at 1080p resolution. And besides, YouTube has been  allowing it for quite some time now.  Since Vimeo is being touted as the best YouTube alternative, it is but logical for Vimeo to have that feature as well.

Of course, this would also give Vimeo’s $60/year Premium package more attractive to users, since 1080 video uploading feature will only be enabled to paying members.

In addition, Vimeo is also allowing premium account holders to make their uploaded videos available, downloadable and viewable on mobile phones.  And pretty soon, a native Vimeo iPhone application will be available.

So if you are not a Vimeo Premium account holder yet, now could be the best time to get the Vimeo Plus subscription.

Originally posted on January 6, 2010 @ 4:31 pm

CES 2010: From Popcorn Hour to Popbox Hub

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To continue our coverage of Pre-CES 2010, here we have an ambitious media hub from Syabas, the same company that gave you Popcorn Hour. The new media device called Popbox Hub promises a better interface highlighted by visual thumbnails, applets called Infopops and a much improved universal search tool.

In case you’re not familiar with Popcorn Hour, it’s a multimedia machine that streams and plays all kinds of video and digital media to your TV or home entertainment system from your PC, storage device, network or over the Internet.

Popbox Hub carries on this functionality plus more. First, there’s still the Popapps which were re-programmed to store content locally as well as use more complex code including Java, Flash or Qt. This allows local content such as games as well as content provider such as Netflix.

Popbox Hub will also continue to stream content from ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN and NBC. It will also continue to support major podcasters – Revision3 and Next New Networks as well as non-vide services including Facebook, Shoutcast MP3 and of course Twitter. [Read more…]

Originally posted on January 4, 2010 @ 7:05 am

Web-Based Media Player Muziic Lets You Play and Organize YouTube and Vevo Music

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Say goodbye to pesky and obtrusive ads whenever you want to listen to free songs featured on music videos on YouTube. Likewise, say goodbye to those annoying country-specific restrictions that renders most songs practically un-streamable if you live in Timbuktu. Thanks to new site Muziic you can now enjoy those two benefits brought by the free Internet.

First started as a Windows application, Muziic then lets you organize and manage music collections from songs featured on YouTube videos. Think of it as the Windows iTunes for YouTube, that also lets you rip mp3s to YouTube.

To make its service more relevant, Muziic recently launched a web-based media player. And while they were at it, they brought along music video start-up Vevo which went public recently.

So, what do this bring us, free music loving Internet citizens?  Free songs, as in millions of them with accompanying videos to boot.

And then what else? Muziic also lets you register on the site so that you can create your music playlist. It has a very efficient search engine which offers direct song access similar to iTunes does. For those who couldn’t live without sharing things with their friends to social networks, Muziic also just recently rolled out a Facebook app. How about an iPhone app? Not yet but it’s coming pretty soon, I hope.

An online service as good as this is not without a glitch of course. For one thing, Muziic removes country-restriction to video contents from Vevo. While this may seem ok for now, Vevo is said to be looking at it right now. Hopefully, they won’t do something to spoil Muziic’s party.

Via Wired

Originally posted on December 28, 2009 @ 8:00 pm

Skype Supports HD Video Calls on PC and HDTV

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As if awakening from a deep slumber, Skype suddenly comes back to life and announced just in time for CES 2010 their latest offering – 720p HD video calls on Windows PC as well as Skype enabled-HDTVs.  Oh wait, are you still using Skype? If yes, then read to find out what these announcements are all about. If you’ve stopped using Skype a long time ago, this might be the right time to start using it again.

New Skype HD Video Calling

Although not really a full 1080p, Skype’s new 720p HD-quality video calling feature at 1280×720 resolution and up to 30 fps is enough to give you smoother and richer video calls.  To use this feature, you need a new HD webcam, PC with at least 1.8GHz dual-core processor, high-speed broadband connection and of course Skype 4.2 Beta for Windows. In case you’re wondering what HD webcams to get, be sure to check out announcement from faceVision and InStore Solution during the CES 2010. These two manufacturers are said to be coming out with new HD webcams that will work fine with Skype. These webcams will set you back for around $99 to $140.

Skype Video Calls on HDTVs

Now this one made me feel bad since I just bought a 32-inch Samsung HDTV. I should have waited for LG and Panasonic’s new HDTV models that will have an embedded Skype Software. Anyway, Skype’s video calling on HDTV will let you do the following:

  • Free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls
  • Calls to landline or mobile phones at Skype’s low rates
  • Receive inbound calls via user’s online Skype number
  • Skype voicemail
  • Voice conference calls with up to 24 other parties
  • Support for 720p HD video calls

Are we all excited about this now? I do hope so that this new features will revive the sparkle that Skype once had.

Originally posted on January 5, 2010 @ 4:36 am