Hasta La Gadget!

It’s been nearly two months since Time Warner said it’d start streaming on-demand content on its TWC TV website, but the giant cable provider announced today that customers can now (finally) start enjoying the à la carte service on their desktop or laptop. Similar to its offering on iOS, Time Warner Cable subscribers will have access to more than 4,000 TV shows and movies from various networks and studios, which, according to the company, also includes “certain” subscription-based programming by the likes of Showtime and HBO. Just like the rest of Time Warner’s web TV service, the recently announced on-demand content is also compatible with both Mac and PC (sorry, Linux), and, naturally, that includes support for some versions of all major browsers — including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

Comments

Source: TW Cable Untangled

Despite regularly hearing how mobile platforms fare within the smartphone space, we rarely get a sense of their place in the wider cellphone universe. Canalys is stepping in with some context. It estimates that smartphones represented just under half of the total pie in the fourth quarter, giving bigger companies like Apple and Google some serious clout. Android accounted for 34 percent of all cellphones shipped, driven by Samsung as well as fast-growing Chinese backers like Huawei, Lenovo and ZTE — all of whom were big reasons why smartphones made up 73 percent of Chinese phone sales in the same period. Apple took a smaller share of the worldwide arena at 11 percent, although it too was riding the Chinese wave to success.

Limiting the scope to smartphones tells a mostly familiar tale. Android staked out 69 percent of the market, taking a 5-point hit as iOS jumped to 22 percent through the iPhone 5 launch. Samsung reigned supreme among individual smartphone makers, followed by Apple and Nokia. The rest are once again Chinese, as Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo scooped up the next three spots. Whether or not regular cellphones are included, the message is the same — if you haven’t been building a popular flagship device or catering to buyers in Beijing, you’ve likely been left out in the cold.

[Image credit: Jon Fingas, Flickr]

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Google, Lenovo

Comments

Source: Canalys

When we think of hidden keyboards on our phones, our thoughts usually turn to thick sliders — notwithstanding the occasional wacky twister. BlackBerry has filed for a pair of patents that would be even subtler by hiding the keys inside of a phone’s main body. Looking somewhat like concertinas in practice, the concepts would pivot keys into place as the phone owner pulls out a retractable section to start typing. BlackBerry suggests it could work for both conventional smartphones (what you see above) as well as a not-entirely-practical design with keys on opposite sides of a display, much like a single-screen LG Doubleplay. We’re not expecting BlackBerry to ship related products anytime soon when the Q10 represents its immediate future in hardware keyboards, but it’s tough to rule out the ideas altogether when they could slim keyboarded phones without losing that coveted stealthiness. They might stand a better chance of reaching the market than some of BlackBerry’s more outlandish experiments.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Blackberry

Comments

Source: USPTO (1), (2)

It must be the season for Android-native makeovers within our apps. RunKeeper has just pushed out a 3.0 update to its exercise tracker that brings the interface in line with Google’s Holo concepts from Android 4.0 and beyond. There’s more to see once acclimated to the look and feel, however. The 3.0 revamp now has a dedicated tab to show all of an athlete’s progress in one area, such as goals and recent history. It also displays both intervals and pacing in mid-activity while making easy to set a reminder for the next run while cooling down. Runners wanting to modernize just need to hit Google Play to give RunKeeper a makeover that could very well improve their health in the process.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

Source: Google Play

The ZTE Blade III has been slowly spreading its cost-conscious influence across Europe since the fall, yet it curiously danced around the UK. That elusiveness is over now that Virgin Media has picked up the entry-level Android 4.0 phone for itself. It’s a match for mainland Europe’s version with a 4-inch WVGA screen, a 1GHz Snapdragon, a 5-megapixel camera, 3G data and 4GB of built-in storage with a microSD slot for more. Virgin is mostly counting on pricing to make the difference: the Blade III costs just £80 to buy outright for pay-as-you-go service, and it’s free for customers who pay as little as £18 per month (£13 for Virgin loyalists) on a contract. If you don’t mind the irony of a Blade phone that isn’t especially cutting-edge, it’s a tempting deal.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

Source: Virgin Media