Hasta La Gadget!

Fox embraced a radical thought when it outlined its Digital HD initiative earlier this month: customers are more likely to buy digital movies if the content isn’t artificially delayed and priced to match the releases on conventional discs. The studio is about to see if that gamble on common sense pays off. As of today, you’ll find 600-plus Fox movies ready to buy or rent in HD across every major digital video store in the US, with many downloads cleared to arrive ahead of their physical counterparts at lower prices that reflect a disc-free reality. The media giant has also decided to play nicely with Google after a longstanding absence, putting its movies and TV shows on Google Play Movies and YouTube. Its tentpole movie release Prometheus is unsurprisingly being used as the prime incentive to try Digital HD; the title is available online three weeks before the Blu-ray launch at a more reasonable $15 price. The sci-fi thriller is even Fox’s first movie destined for UltraViolet cloud lockers. Only Americans will have expanded access to movies and TV at first, but it shouldn’t be too long before many countries can be creeped out by Michael Fassbender’s android — including on their Android devices.

Continue reading Fox kicks off its Digital HD initiative by joining Google Play and YouTube, offering movies early

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Tablets, Internet, HD

Fox kicks off its Digital HD initiative by joining Google Play and YouTube, offering movies early originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’d just put down Angry Birds Space for a moment, maybe we could tell you that mobile apps are kind of a big deal. How big of a deal? How’s about 45.6 billion downloads just this year — that’s a serious amount of birds lost in space! All of those downloads weren’t just Angry Birds venturing into the final frontier, of course. Gartner, Inc’s latest mobile report doesn’t actually break down how much of that enormous number pertains to Rovio’s hit franchise, but it does note that “free apps will account for nearly 90 percent of total mobile app store downloads in 2012.” That means of the nearly 46 billion apps downloaded this year, approximately 40.6 billion were free. Additionally, an entire quarter of the apps downloaded in 2012 were via Apple’s iOS app store — but that isn’t what’s driving app growth, necessarily. “The number of apps available is driven by an increasing number of stores in the market today,” Gartner research director Brian Blau notes. “These stores will see their combined share of total downloads increase, but demand for apps overall will still be dominated by Apple, Google, and Microsoft.”

And the growth doesn’t stop there. Blau predicts that 93 percent of all apps downloads will be of the free variety by 2016 — also, we’ll be downloading over 300 billion apps worldwide by the same year. Like we said, kind of a big deal.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Software, Mobile

Gartner: Free apps dominate market, iOS App Store accounts for 25 percent of all content originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google and Boingo keep expanding their partnership, making GoGo a little jealous in the process were sure. Starting this week you’ll be able to hop online for free at over 4,000 Boingo hotspots across the country. Among the complimentary WiFi bastions are major airports such as JFK and O’Hare, as well as many subway platforms across New York City. All this is coming courtesy of Google Play, which is footing the bill for your free wireless adventure. The deal wraps up at the end of the month, but that still leaves you almost three weeks to take complete advantage of Big G and Boingo. PR is awaiting you after the break.

Continue reading Google Play foots the bill for 4,000 free Boingo hotspots through September

Filed under: Internet

Google Play foots the bill for 4,000 free Boingo hotspots through September originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ever been tempted to rent a movie again, but thought the price was just a little too dear? Google may soon be willing to haggle a deal. One of its newly-granted patents could automatically lower the price of repurchase-friendly content, such as a Google Play Movies rental, depending on how likely you are to pull the trigger. Its algorithm weighs your personal tastes and repurchasing habits against those of your peers: if the code senses you’ll be relatively stingy, you’ll get a better discount. The analysis could even factor in the nature of the content itself. A thoughtful movie, ownership of the soundtrack or just a lot of related searches could lead to a repurchase at the usual price, while a simple action flick with no previous interest may bring the discount into effect. We don’t know if Google will offer these extra-personal discounts to the public at any point in the future, but if you suddenly notice a lot of follow-up bargains in Google Play, you’ll know how they came to be.

Filed under: Internet

Google patents buyer-specific price drops for follow-up sales, can tell if you’re a cheapskate originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 00:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While inclusion of the “eye in the sky” All-22 game tape and condensed games the squeeze every play into a 30 minute football-fest are nice features for the NFL Game Rewind package, those looking to get their John Madden on can do so thanks to its apps for tablets. The telestrator feature is only mentioned in the notes for the iOS version so far, however the Android app shares in its ability stream the tape delayed games in HD, complete with stats and big play markers to jump straight to the key plays. While the apps themselves are free, you will need a paid subscription to the service at $34.99 to follow a single team, $39.99 for the entire league, and $69.99 for the Season Plus package that brings along the All-22 cam and telestrator features. Hit the source links for more info on the packages and exactly when the games are available for viewing, if you’re more of a Monday Morning QB than real-time NFL Red Zone / Sunday Ticket aficionado, they may work for you.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD

NFL Game Rewind apps for iOS and Android tablets appear with coaches film and telestrator features originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Sep 2012 05:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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