Hasta La Gadget!

Going paperless has been touted by some quarters to be part of an effort to go green. After all, since there is no printed media and eliminates the need for a truck to deliver your daily newspaper or monthly magazine to your area from the printing press, surely the amount of carbon footprint would be reduced? Not really, according to a rather fascinating MusicTank report concerning the “hidden cost of digital music consumption”, where it looks into the amount of energy required to power the cloud media access model.

MusicTank reports, “Streaming or downloading 12 tracks, without compression, just 27 times by one user would, in energy terms, equate to the production and shipping of one physical 12-track CD album. Repeated streaming of individual tracks may not necessarily be a desirable long-term solution with respect to energy consumption for the life cycle of a sound recording.”

Should forecasts of global data traffic arriving the 1 yottabyte mark by the time 2027 rolls around be accurate, that would be the equivalent of over 20% of the planet’s 2010 electricity consumption, which is something that “depends on sprawling server farms and a complex, energy-sapping network infrastructure”. In plain English, this is not the greenest solution possible and perhaps could end up being more detrimental than purchasing a CD off the shelf. What do you think of MusicTank’s report? Does it hold any water in your sight?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: YouTube Live Adds Pay-Per-View to Live Streaming, Kivic ONE gives your car stereo AirPlay,

The folks over at Hulu have been focused on cleaning up content discovery and playback for a while, and now they’ve turned their collective eye to the PlayStation 3 Hulu Plus app. An update rolling out this evening brings a number of tweaks we saw hit its redesigned website in August, including the “tray-style” layout of shows, larger artwork, improved search with results that appear in the dropdown and simplified player controls. Take a peek in the gallery for a few screenshots of the new UI or after the break for an intro trailer. Although other platforms weren’t mentioned specifically Hulu said the PS3 is the first living room device to show off its new experience, which leads us to believe other devices should get a similar look eventually. Subscribers can take a look on the PlayStation Network to see if they find any improvements, non-subscribers can, as usual, jump in on a free seven day trial.

Continue reading Hulu’s PlayStation 3 app upgraded, is the first for the living room to deliver the ‘new experience’

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD

Hulu’s PlayStation 3 app upgraded, is the first for the living room to deliver the ‘new experience’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Sep 2012 22:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cloud streaming provider Agawi (formerly “iSwifter“) is making a second major push with its cloud-based game streaming service alongside Windows 8 this October. Beyond the social content it already brings to the iPad — “more than 12,000” Facebook games — Agawi’s second run at streaming is more focused on what it calls “mid-core” and “hardcore” games. But what does that mean? Executive chairman Peter Relan says “mid-core” means “web-based MMOs with a PC download,” versus PC downloads representing the “hardcore.” The example video (below the break) shows Agawi working with a variety of games, though none of the titles in the video confirm potential content partners for the service (Relan teases a fourth quarter reveal of more news). And today, Agawi announced its collaboration with Microsoft Azure, resulting in cloud game streaming across the world of Windows 8 — tablets, PCs, and even its phones.

“Popular AAA games will be made available in the coming months for instant play on Windows 8 devices with no additional work required by developers,” the launch PR promises. Input methods for games vary dramatically by platform, and we’ve already seen what happens when you shove tablet-based touch controls onto a console/PC game (it ain’t pretty). “That’s a publisher decision,” Relan says. “We support the idea of d-pads on the tablet itself. We support pure touch gesture on the tablet. We support point-and-click on the screen — touch and tap. We support swipe for scrolling. We support a full controller, like an Xbox console controller,” he adds.

Continue reading Agawi cloud game streaming headed to Windows 8, focused on ‘mid-core and hardcore’ games

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

Agawi cloud game streaming headed to Windows 8, focused on ‘mid-core and hardcore’ games originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve wished you could just load Spotify up in a browser of your choice instead of messing with a dedicated player, you’re in luck. TechCrunch has gotten word that Spotify is working on a brower-based player to augment the one it has now, or even replace it. More »

You may be familiar with EchoStar’s satellite-based (Dish Network) and Sling Media (Slingbox) products, but the company also manufactures set-top boxes for third-party providers, as well as free-to-air services in the UK. It’s this last grouping that’ll be able to take advantage of the Android-based device we saw today, assuming it does in fact make its way to market. The HDX-410 runs native Ice Cream Sandwich, and is available in two versions — one supports IP content and local storage exclusively, while a second can also accept terrestrial Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) programming, letting you play back live TV shows in addition to content from a local server, pulled from the web or stored on attached media or an inserted microSD card. It connects to the web using Ethernet or WiFi, and includes USB ports on both the front and the rear, Bluetooth, HDMI out, digital audio out and a standard-definition connection. It’s also paired with a QWERTY keyboard-equipped remote manufactured by Philips with gyroscopic or directional-pad curser control, along with pinch/zoom gesture capability.

We had a chance to check out the ICS box at EchoStar’s IBC booth today, where the device was running Android 4.0.4 and an early version of the company’s hybrid app, which groups “favorited” content alongside terrestrial channels, letting you use the standard channel up/down button to navigate through stored TV shows, IP content or live programming quite seamlessly, as if all of the media was playing from the same source. It’s clearly not yet ready for primetime, but the interface was sleek and speedy — the set-top box performed very well overall. EchoStar reps were unable to confirm whether or not the HDX-410 would be coming to market at all, but they did add that the solution may be made available to third-parties in the future. Click past the break to take a closer look in our hands-on video.

Continue reading EchoStar HDX-410 set-top box runs native ICS, supports terrestrial broadcasts (hands-on video)

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

EchoStar HDX-410 set-top box runs native ICS, supports terrestrial broadcasts (hands-on video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 12:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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