Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft has always been about expanding the scope of its products to more than just a select demographic. The company’s Xbox 360 is now more than just a gaming console; it’s media center device meant for the whole family. According to recent job listings, even more features may be coming to the living room in the form of cloud TV.

Microsoft is looking to hire engineers to build client applications for a service described as a “cloud-based TV platform,” and encourages candidates to “get in on the ground floor of an ambitious new project.” Obviously, we’re left with even more questions than what we started with, but it seems that Microsoft is looking to take cloud computing to a new level.

Microsoft is looking for engineers with experience with different web application technologies, such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript, as well as common frameworks like jQuery. The company also wants people who have experience with mobile and browser application development, and they list iOS, Android, Windows 8, and Windows RT as examples.

Microsoft is also requiring its candidates to be able to “pick up new technologies rapidly”, and “set and maintain a fast pace of execution”. The job listings are all part of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business division, which is responsible for the Xbox 360, Xbox Live, and Zune, so it looks like that the Xbox platform will be the one to get this so called “cloud TV” if or when it releases.

[via LiveSide]

Microsoft cloud TV platform shows up in job listing is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

AT&T’s cloud-based Locker is hardly new, having been made available to Android users since this past September. But, as of today, iOS users on the network now have the option to enjoy that freemium service as well, with 5GB offered gratis. Of course, there are subscription tiers for those of you in need of more robust server space: $3.99/mo will net you 30GB, while $9.99/mo delivers a substantial 100GB. Beyond simple remote file storage, however, subs will also have the ability to share multimedia content across email and social networks (i.e. Twitter and Facebook) using a network connection or WiFi. It’s live in the App Store now, so if you’re keen on what AT&T’s peddling, check out the source below.

Continue reading AT&T Locker opens its cloud to iOS users, offers 5GB of storage free

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Storage, Mobile, Apple, AT&T

AT&T Locker opens its cloud to iOS users, offers 5GB of storage free originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Nov 2012 13:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re an avid Amazon Cloud Drive user and happen to use an Android device as your daily driver, you might be pleased to know that Amazon released an app to help you take care of all your photos. The Cloud Drive Photos app from Amazon looks to put your photos in the cloud and organize them for quick and easy access.

Amazon is making it easy to save photos that you take with your Android device to your Cloud Drive with the new app. All you have to do is press and hold down on a photo on your Android device, and select “Upload to Cloud Drive.” After that, you can view the photos in any web browser or on your other Android devices.

You can also share photos directly from your Cloud Drive accounts to other social apps, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and even email. However, the app doesn’t have an automatic upload feature like Google+ and Dropbox, but for those who want a simpler photo storage app that looks good, Amazon’s offering seems to be a good bet.

Amazon says that it’s Photos app, along with its MP3 app, is already integrated into the company’s new Kindle Fire HD tablet, but now you can take advantage of the service on your own Android device. Amazon’s Cloud Drive provides 5GB of storage for free, and you can purchase more storage starting at $10 per year for 20GB.

The Cloud Drive Photos app is a free download and is available now in the Google Play Store as well as the Amazon Appstore for Android.

Amazon Cloud Drive Photos app launches for Android is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

As much of a boon as Dropbox has been for iOS users, it’s been held back for shutterbugs wanting a one-for-one translation of their images. Any cloud photos saved for posterity were shrunk to iPhone 4S size and largely negated the point of a local copy. No more: an update to the app removes the resolution ceiling and shows whatever the iPad, iPhone or iPod can handle. While it still compresses the final image, all the basic nuances should remain intact. There’s a treat in store for those who want to see more of their files inside of the Dropbox app, too, with iPhone 5 support putting to work those 112,640 pixels of extra screen real estate. Just don’t expect to use Dropbox as a mobile viewer for your Hasselblad photos and you’ll likely be happy.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Storage

Dropbox for iOS removes the photo resolution cap, stretches out to iPhone 5 size originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This Monday it became apparent that Amazon’s cloud services were knocked out in several sectors, this resulting in downtime for major websites and environments such as Reddit, Github, Minecraft, and Flipboard. Amazon has previously had similar events to these happen to their servers, with overheating and automatic shutdowns being blamed in those cases – now we’ve not quite got an official statement from the company even after a significant chunk of the day has passed. In other words – Reddit is down, it’s not just you.

Today’s outage appears to be centered around their EC2 operations with Amazon’s status for the area currently flipped to “performance issues.” This status does not include official word from Amazon as of yet, but the cards do not lie. The EC2 status as listed by Amazon’s own Amazon Web Services status listing have gone from “degraded performance” at 10:30 AM PDT to “new launches for EBS backed instances are failing” closer to 11:30 AM PDT.

You can watch the updates yourself at Amazon’s Web Services update page while you wait for the web giants to come back – meanwhile we’ll be following along and updating you from SlashGear here as it happens as well. The current statuses surrounding North America, especially in the Eastern region of the states, let us know that Amazon is not only seeing outages in several areas, but that re-launching said services is currently a no-go.

If you have a peek at Outage Analyzer you’ll find that they’ve made it clear that Amazon’s outages have likely affected nearly 100 domains across North America up through Canada and Alaska as well as through the UK and surrounding countries. The outage remains open through the 3PM CST hour. This list of downed sites continues to grow with Airbnb, Heroku, and Netflix being added here right before this post is published – stay tuned!

UPDATE: 3:10 PM CST – Affected sites list grows – Pinterest, FastCompany, FourSquare added. Failures appear sporadic as some sites appear to be up and running intermittently while others remain down for the count.

UPDATE: 4:19 PM CST – Several sites (including Reddit) appear to be coming back up for air now here and there – of course heavy loads are expected due to the mass amounts of cat pictures that were waiting to be uploaded and viewed.

Reddit, Netflix, Flipboard taken down in Amazon cloud failure [UPDATES] is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.