Hasta La Gadget!

YouView, the relatively young set-top TV service has managed to establish itself in 400,000 houses, the company revealed today. Its CEO, Richard Halton added that 2.2 million video streams are now being consumed every week. To celebrate all this viewing, it’s going to be launching an Android app in the coming weeks, which will remotely control the TV and recordings, essentially catching up to the iOS version already out there. The app will be optimized for several Google-powered handsets, including the Galaxy S2, S3, Ace, Nexus 4 and (perhaps oddly) the HTC One S. However, according to Pocket-Lint, the incoming app will still work on handsets running Android 2.3, just, well, unoptimized.

Better still, YouView promises to launch multiple new internet channels (through providers BT and TalkTalk), adding to the 70 broadcast channels available on the box at the moment. It’ll likely be ready in time for BT’s own sports channel, although YouView mentioned a loosely-defined summer launch. YouView promises that its new internet channels will include the ability to rewind and search for content, behaving almost identically to typical channels. There’s no specified channel list just yet, but we’re sure TalkTalk and BT will be filling us in on all the details ahead of any launch.

Filed under: Displays, Internet, HD

Comments

Source: Pocket-Lint (1), (2), (3)

Dish is a little late to the social television party, but it has finally arrived with the aptly (if not creatively) named Social app. The app, available on Hopper DVRs, shows personal Facebook, Twitter or Now Watching feeds — which displays tweets relevant to the show and channel being viewed — in a right rail alongside the video window. Social also enables full tweeting functionality and the ability to post Facebook status updates to up to four accounts for either social network. Lastly, the app delivers data about the amount of Twitter action related to the program being watched, such as the number of tweets in the past hour and where those tweets are coming from. Not bad, eh? All you Dish customers no longer need a second screen to spew forth your digital vitriol the next time David Benioff and D.B. Weiss kill off your favorite resident of Westeros.

Filed under: HD

Comments

Sony’s PlayStation Vita is getting a major content boost when the PlayStation 4 launches later this year, as all PlayStation 4 games will run on the Vita via Remote Play. The only exceptions offered by Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida were, “unless the game requires specific hardware like the camera [PS4 Eye].” It also stands to reason that PlayStation Move-specific titles won’t run via Remote Play, nor anything else that requires peripheral hardware (the Buzz! series, for example).

The PlayStation 4’s Remote Play functionality with the Vita is said to be far more robust than its previous PlayStation 3 / PlayStation Portable iteration. Developers can even put Vita-specific controls in their PS4 games, enabling Wii U-esque second screen functionality, Yoshida told us earlier this year. We’ll have our Vitas on-hand at E3 in a few weeks when we expect Sony will offer first hands-on with its next gaming console.

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, Peripherals, HD, Sony

Comments

Via: Joystiq

Source: Twitter

If you’re peddling wireless speaker systems that offer internet streaming support, it’s only natural to want to get cozy with Spotify. Sonos’ latest update for its iOS and Android Controller apps does just that, and you can now log-in to the streaming service using your Facebook account. What’s more, version 4.1 makes handling mixtapes easier, as you can access, edit or build new Spotify playlists from within the app. Revising your Sonos playlists, or creating new ones altogether, has also been tweaked so you no longer need to involve the ‘now playing’ queue. Lastly, the alarm function can now be set to wake you with the sounds of your preferred subscription service, taking you straight from dreaming to streaming.

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

Comments

Source: iTunes store (iPhone / iPod), (iPad), Google Play, Sonos

Speaking at AllThingsD’s D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook just dropped the latest sales figure for the Apple TV: 13 million (compare that to Roku’s sales of 5 million in the US), with “about half” sold in the last year. Despite being prodded by interviewers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, Cook repeated his “area of great interest” line (again) regarding TV, only mentioning that the company does have a “grand vision” in place. Surprised by the hockey puck’s popularity? You’re not the only one, as Cook followed up on Steve Jobs’ proclamation that” no one wants to buy a box,” claiming “Frankly, the popularity of the Apple TV has become much larger than we thought it would. We aren’t marketing it.”

Last year at the conference he reported sales of 2.7 million Apple TVs for the year, and the company noted 2 million sold in Q1 2013. He also followed his predecessor’s stance that the current TV experience needs remodeling “When you look at the TV experience, it’s not an experience that I think many people love…still an experience that is too much like 10 or 20 years ago.” As usual however, despite the “interest,” if you’re looking for a hint that Apple is going to join the likes of Google and Microsoft in trying to shift the balance of the TV market, Cook — like Jobs before him — is keeping those details to himself.

Follow along with our D11 live blog right here.

Filed under: HD, Apple

Comments