Hasta La Gadget!

Is the next Mos Def or Azealia Banks languishing in a region where there’s no way to get his or her talent across? The producer who’s laid down beats for those stars, ‘Apple Juice Kid’ (aka Stephen Levitin) along with fellow UNC prof Pierce Freelon aim to find out with a new PBS series called Beat Making Lab. In it, the pair take their talent, teaching skills and crates of audio gear to underserved communities in nations like Panama, Senegal and Fiji. The first episode (below the break) takes place in the Congo, where they’re shown setting up a permanent recording studio at the Yole!Africa non-profit community center, then giving a crash course in beat-making tech to six highly motivated students. The Congalese artists use that know-how to lay down tracks that reflect their unique personalities and culture, which are showcased at the culmination of the episode. The series covets more than just a nice performance, though, as one student put it: “When the instructors return to the US, it won’t be the end, but a beginning for us — because we’ll be able to teach others how to create their own beats.”

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Sharing a wonderful film or television series with friends is a great way to spark a conversation. Netflix Social brings that sharing to Facebook, eliminating one more reason to talk face-to-face with friends. On Wednesday Netflix began rolling out Netflix …

Augmented reality isn’t anything new. There’ve been a number of augmented reality applications available for smartphones and other devices for a long time. Typically, these augmented reality applications are things that overlay some sort of gaming content over the real-world environment around you.

A company called ReinCloud has recently shown off a very interesting augmented reality TV platform called ARGTV. The application won first-place overall in the TV Hackfest competition recently. According to the CEO of the company, the TV platform would do things like allow a viewer to share a drink with Don Draper from Mad Men.

Using the company’s ARGTV platform you would be able to pick up a virtual bottle of gin like the one being poured on TV and examine it from all angles. You can turn the bottle around and read the label on the back if you wanted to. Users would even be able to purchase an actual bottle of liquor using the TV platform without having to use your phone or turn the TV channel.

This sounds like a very interesting way to improve the interactivity with TV advertising to me. The company expects to ship its ARGTV product in Q3 of 2013. However, that ship date is far from guaranteed at this point because the product has to be fully funded. There’s no indication that the platform is seeking funding via Kickstarter or another crowd sourced funding service.

[via ReinCloud]

ARGTV platform will let you touch and inspect objects from your favorite TV shows is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The number of cord-cutters is on the rise, folks. With the popularity of streaming services mixed with free over-the-air stations, consumers are seeing less of a need to go with a cable subscription. In fact, the number of households that don’t have cable subscriptions has jumped to five million, compared to two million in 2007.

Nielsen released a report today that shows off the statistics on cord-cutting households (or “zero-TV” households according to Nielsen), and while the number of cord-cutters only accounts for 5% of households, an increase of 150% since 2007 is pretty staggering. Nielsen says that 95% of Americans still get their information and entertainment through “traditional cable or satellite options.”

There’s even some fascinating statistics about cord-cutters and how they watch television content. More than 75% of those who cut the cable cord still have at least one television in there house, and 67% of cord-cutters get their content from devices other than a TV, with 37% of people using a computer, 16% using the internet, and a combined 14% on smartphones and tablets.

Of course, you may be wondering why 75% of the cord cutters still have a television, and it’s mostly because that there are many streaming devices that plug into TVs, including the Apple TV, Roku, and Boxee devices. The TV itself is actually still a popular method for watching content, only this time around, there’s no coaxial cable tethered to the television set.

Cable-cutting households jump 150% since 2007 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Calling it an industry first, Rovio is launching a video distribution channel across all of the developer’s Angry Birds game titles on smartphones and tablets. Starting on March 17, gamers will be able to access the channel when it unlocks on that day. Angry Birds Toons will also be available from a handful of video-on-demand channel providers, as well as on select TV networks around the world.

In conjunction with today’s announcement of more Angry Birds Toons details, Rovio has announced that the Angry Birds series has racked up 1.7 billion downloads, which is absolutely unprecedented and it certainly made us do a double take. It’s not exactly said what counts as a download, but perhaps Rovio could be counting an update as a download in this case.

Because of the massive user base that Angry Birds has, bringing the Angry Birds Toons animated series directly to the game allows for “a far wider and more engaged global audience than traditional distribution would allow.” The show will consist of 52 episodes that will release on a weekly basis, and they will continue the saga about the battle between the Angry Birds and the green pigs.

Angry Birds Toons will also be available on Samsung Smart TVs, and on Comcast video platforms in the US. The show will make its way to Roku boxes and other devices eventually, but no timeline has been planned out just yet. And while the cartoon will be available on various devices starting on March 17, it will air on network television on March 16.

Angry Birds hits 1.7 billion downloads, “Toons” launching March 17 is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.