Hasta La Gadget!

The future for Barnes & Noble’s NOOK business looks pretty bleak, but the company is continuing to make the best of what they still currently have by announcing more partnerships for its NOOK Video streaming service. Movies from several big studios will be making their way to NOOK Video, including titles from Lionsgate, MGM, and Paramount, as well as content from National Geographic.

While the NOOK devices and its services are available in multiple countries, it seems that today’s announcement of new partnerships are exclusive to the US, and financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Other partners announced today include Relativity Media, Little Pim, and Film Buff. Of course, this is another step for Barnes & Noble to compete with Amazon’s Instant Video service and Apple’s iTunes video sector.

Of course, this move is a way for Barnes & Noble to bolster up its NOOK business. While the company is uncertain as to the future of NOOK, it seems they’re wanting to change some things around, and today’s partnerships with several big studios may point the NOOK business in the right direction, but we’ll have to wait and see.

As part of the deal, NOOK users will have access to a handful of new movies and TV shows, including The Hunger Games, the Twilight series, Skyfall, Rocky, Fargo, Flight, Paranormal Activity 4, Act of Valor, Safe Haven, House at the End of the Street, Mad Men, Border Wars, and Amazing Planet. The deal made with Little Pim will consist of foreign language learning for children.

Barnes & Noble NOOK Video expands with Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount, and more is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

As real-time communication is increasingly becoming the internet standard, Twelephone is stepping in taking voice and video calling straight to Twitter, no middleman required. More »

Introduction
This year at Computex, we got pulled into the booth of ASUSTOR by one of our contacts that used to work for QNAP, telling us their new products would be worth the time spent. And so we did, ended up devoting quite some time to a new line of quality NAS devices, an the end even offered a lift back to Taipei city by the company’s president.
ASUSTOR has a bit of an offbeat history. The company is a subsidiary of Asus Inc., yet founded by an ex-QNAP team with the affection for …

If you stop by Vimeo at some point today, you may notice something new: the addition of full-length movies. Vimeo has always been an outlet for creative types to put their work on display, but lately we’ve been seeing the video streaming service focus on helping these content creators actually make money. First it was the addition of the the tip jar, and now Vimeo is flirting with the idea of letting creators charge users to view their movies.

With these six full-length films, Vimeo kicks off a preview of its new pay-to-view service. The idea is pretty straightforward: since many creators put a lot of work into their films, they should have the option to charge actual money to view it. It serves as a way of promoting independent filmmakers, and could potentially allow creators to make the project they want without going entirely broke.

The six movies that are available for purchase through Vimeo are Sons of the Clouds, We Are Legion, Shut Up and Play the Hits, Further, Sunny, and Beauty Is Embarrassing. Prices for each range from $4.99 up to $9.00. Content creators get to set their own prices for their movies, and each comes with a different viewing period – for instance, the viewing period for We Are Legion is only 2 days, whereas Further‘s viewing period lasts for 60 days. The movies are also playable on all supported devices, which includes smartphones, smart TVs, and game consoles.

Vimeo’s pay-to-view service will be rolled out in early 2013, but at this moment, that window is all we have as far as a launch date goes. We’re certainly excited to see if this takes off, because if it means more money for independents, we’re all for it. What do you think? Will you be taking advantage of Vimeo’s pay-to-view service?

Vimeo kicks off preview of new pay-to-view service is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you own a Roku set-top box for streaming your favorite TV shows from various services, a new feature has been added that will make it much easier to find what you want watch. In the past if you were looking for a specific show, the only thing you could do was browse through your favorite channels to find what you want to watch. Roku has now added a new search feature that will do all of that browsing for you.

Using the new Roku Search tool you can find movies, TV shows, actors, and directors across Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, Crackle, VUDU, and HBO Go. The search results show you where the content you’re looking for is available on the Roku service. After finding the content you’re looking for, selecting the channel in the results will take you directly to the movie or show you want to watch.

Roku says that the new search tool will grow in importance as it adds new streaming partners to its service. Right now, the search can guide users through nearly 130,000 movies and TV episodes and almost 100,000 actors and directors. Roku Search is available on the Roku 2, Roku LT, and Roku HD players.

The search tool is also available on the Roku Streaming Stick. Users can search for the keyboard and the Remote tab of the Roku iOS and Android mobile applications. The updated has the new search tool and will be rolling out over the next week at no cost. Users not wanting to wait for the update be applied automatically can run a manual update to bring their device up to software version 4.8 352X.

Roku video search tool lands in the US is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.