Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft is making a big push to bring more content to Xbox, and some of the more recognizable names in entertainment have responded by building apps for the console, bringing their services into your living room. Two weeks ago, ESPN arrived on Xbox with WatchESPN, allowing anyone who has a cable subscription with Time Warner, Bright House, Verizon FiOS, XFINITY (Comcast) or Midcontinent to access ESPN and all of its properties on their Xboxes.

Microsoft is further adding to its catalog today, with a handful of new apps from Rhapsody, Blip.TV, IGN, LOVEFiLM, RTL XL and TOU.TV set to rollout.

Rhapsody first announced its availability to Xbox 360 users yesterday afternoon, bringing its on-demand music service to Xbox LIVE. The company tells us that the new app comes with a UI designed specifically for the platform, which takes advantage of HD displays and integrates voice commands and gestures for Kinect. The app is available now on Xbox LIVE and is free for current Rhapsody members and Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers.

Similar to the company’s apps for LG, Panasonic and Samsung smart TVs, the new Xbox app allows users to quickly find and play their favorite music from Rhapsody’s catalog of 1-million-plus songs. Radio play, popular albums, new releases and playlists are also featured prominently, along with featured editorial stations picked by Rhapsody’s staffers. The app is initially launching for U.S. subscribers and will roll out worldwide in the coming months.

Blip.TV also launches on Xbox today for U.S. subscribers, allowing users to discover, watch and share original web series from up-and-coming and professional content producers. Blip works with production companies (and is probably best known for its work with those in the gaming world) to bring comedies, sports, arts and dramatic series to users through its content and distribution network. The new app has a familiar layout to users of Blip’s web interface, offering an experience and dashboard that’s similar to its Windows 8 UI. It’s simple and straightforward, focusing on smooth playback, and enables users to login directly or via Facebook authentication.

IGN’s new app is now available to subscribers in Canada, and brings the company’s original video content, reviews, live streams and shows like Pro League, Daily Fix and Strategize to Xbox LIVE. Users can watch reviews, previews, news and demos of popular games and easily navigate directly to those games for download. IGN’s app also integrates with Kinect so that you can play, rewind and pause that content with voice and gestural commands.

LOVEFiLM, the international Netflix competitor, is today updating its Xbox app for users in the U.K. and launching it in Germany, meaning subscribers can now watch thousands of films streamed directly to their Xboxes. Subscribers who pay LOVEFiLM’s $7 fee can check out movies instantly and get access to what the company claims is the U.K.’s “largest selection of DVDs and Xbox games.” For those already using the service, the new Xbox packages comes as part of the subscription, meaning it’s free.

As part of its (internationally aware) content rollout, RTL XL will also be launching its programs on the Xbox, beginning in the Netherlands, and TOU.TV (the French-language entertainment service) will be launching in Canada to give users access to 2,000 hours of free video content (serial dramas, documentaries, soap operas and web series, etc.) from the French-speaking world.

Now that both Netflix and LOVEFiLM are on Xbox 360, it will be interesting to see if Rhapsody’s arrival will encourage Spotify to push onto the Xbox platform. Rhapsody is an old hand in the on-demand, streaming music world (after all, it acquired Napster) and has been quietly moving out across platforms. While Spotify has become one of the most popular music-streaming services out there over the last year, it’s been lagging behind a bit in this regard. And no doubt there are more than a few Xbox users who are eager to get access to Spotify in their living room.

More on the announcement here.

We got a peek at Amazon’s Kindle FreeTime during its press conference back in September, but now it’s making the family-friendly feature part of a subscription package available across the family of Kindle Fire devices. More than just a submenu of video like the ones offered by Netflix and Hulu Plus, it resembles the Kid’s Corner launcher in Windows Phone 8 by password locking children out of the rest of the device, but with a preselected package of content to fill it.

Available to Prime subscribers for $2.99 per month, per child or for $6.99 for a family-wide license of up to six kids (don’t have Prime? you can pick it up for $4.99/$9.99 a month), kids can browse through the selection of educational apps, games, books, movies and TV shows. It also throws in other features parents will dig, with a personalized login and bookmarks for the kids, plus the ability to set time limits on use that can be specifically tailored by category.

All of this happens with them seeing any ads or racking up a bill for video on-demand or in-app purchases, since those hooks have been removed, creating an environment endorsed by Common Sense Media. Big names like Disney, Nickelodeon, DC Comics and PBS are all on the list, with the promise of a store of content to keep the little ones distracted/learning as long as necessary. To set it up on your device, you’ll only need to create a FreeTime account if you haven’t already, and hit the free trial button.

Want to see it for yourself? The feature is available in an OTA software update rolling out over “the coming weeks” to the new Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire HD 8.9, with a free month of trial access available to owners. There are more details in the press release after the break, or beyond the source link.

Continue reading Amazon Kindle FreeTime Unlimited launches, bundles kid-friendly media, menu for a fee

Filed under: Tablets, Amazon

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Source: Amazon Kindle FreeTime Unlimited

You’ve probably been waiting on this one for a while—Google has just now updated its YouTube app for the iPad and the iPhone 5’s larger screen. More »

Users of Amazon’s Kindle app for iOS will be pleased to hear that the company has updated the app to include one of the Kindle’s latest new features called X-Ray. The feature enables users to explore the “bones of the book.” Users can view more info about a book, such as ideas, fictional characters, historical figures, and places.

The X-Ray feature is powered by Wikipedia and Shelfari (Amazon’s own community-powered encyclopedia), and it basically allows you to break a book down into different sections like people and terms, and then dig deeper into those individual sections to learn more about them. It’s a really handy for those who are really wanting to fully understand the book they’re reading.

The feature is only compatible with English titles at the moment, and not every single book supports X-Ray — it’s mostly just the popular titles that come with it. However, X-Ray is available for a select number of textbooks, and it gives you “instant access to all the most important terms and concepts, with glossary definitions, links to relevant textbook pages, and related content from Wikipedia and YouTube.”

You’ll need to be running iOS 5 or later in order to update to the newest Kindle app version, but the update is free and it’s available now in the iTunes App Store. We have to give it up for Amazon, though. Their business model is impeccable, and allowing anyone to access and purchase Amazon content, whether they have a Kindle tablet or not, is a good way to get as many customers as possible, no matter the platform.

Kindle app for iOS updated with X-Ray is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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In the SF Bay Area, the cities of San Mateo and San Carlos have announced the deployment of their network of sensors aimed at helping drivers find parking spots with ease thanks to the Parker app (by Streetline Inc). Parker helps user find available parking spots, and the overall idea is to make parking more efficient, whether it is for users, or for the city.

In cities like the ones above (and Los Angeles), users can see parking availability in near-realtime, and drivers can head to a parking with a good level of confidence that parking spots are available. Streetline Inc executives were pointing out that car parking was one of the area that had seen very little progress when compared to other services. “It has not changed in 80 years”, they said. (more…)

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