Hasta La Gadget!

20th Century Fox is dipping its downloading toes into the 21st century’s waters, releasing movies on Android in addition to good, old-fashioned Blu-ray. According to the Financial Times, retail discs of X-Men: First Class will direct owners to a website where they can sideload a digital version of the film onto their Android device of choice. Apparently some of the suits over at Fox caught wind of how popular Android tablets are getting, and now see them as complementary, not cannibalistic (remember that industry buzz kill?) Sure, right now you shouldn’t expect any Netflix-sized library of titles, but perhaps we can all agree this is a step in the right download-to-own direction. Residents of the US, UK, Germany, and France will get the first crack at downloading the films. The rest of you can just stream and wait.

[Image credit via 20th Century Fox]

20th Century Fox to offer digital downloads for Android devices, Blu-ray purchase required originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After plenty of hands-on time with SwiftKey X, we reckon it’s probably the best virtual keyboard you can get for Android phones. And, for the next 21 hours or so, it’s even better than that — because it’s free at Amazon’s Appstore. So, if you’re brandishing Android 2.1 or higher and you type in one of the 17 supported languages, then the source link below beckons. Come back quickly, though, or we’ll miss you terribly. (The tablet version of the app is still $4.99, mind — but there’s always tomorrow.)

SwiftKey X keyboard app is free today on Amazon, be swift or pay $3.99 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 07:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now there's yet another place where you can lose hours of your life to Angry Birds

If your favorite thing about the latest Apple TV is its size, you’re going to love the Roku 2. The already dinky little box has shrunken even further — at 3 inches on each side, it is smaller than the Apple TV and shorter than a pack of cigarettes (both 3.5 inches).

More importantly, the Roku now plays games. Specifically, it can play — among others — Rovio’s Angry Birds. In short, not only can the Roku pull in pretty much any streaming content out there on the web, it can also turn your TV into a game console.

The Roku 2 follows a trend of hardware consolidation, especially in the television space, where internet-connected devices are becoming increasingly versatile. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, for example, offer video rentals in addition to gaming functionality. While the Roku 2’s primary focus is still internet video, with the addition of some lightweight gaming capability it provides an inexpensive alternative to the traditional game console.

On the TV side, little has changed about the Roku 2. You can stream Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and more, as well as live sports and music from Pandora and MOG.

But what about those games? To play them, you just tune in to the games channel and pick up the new Game Remote. This doubles as a regular remote when you’re watching TV and movies.

The remote is included with the top-of-the-line XS ($100) which also comes with a free copy of Angry Birds. For the other two boxes in the new lineup you’ll need to buy both the remote and game (games are bought and accessed through the Channel Store).

As for the hardware, we’ll go from the bottom up. All models have Wi-Fi. The $60 HD can show 720p video, the $80 XD adds 1080p and the $100 XS adds 1080p, an Ethernet port and a USB port for adding music, movies and photos. As mentioned above, only the XS includes a game and Game Remote.

All three are available now.

Roku 2 product page.

See Also:

• Review: Roku Netflix Set Top Box Is Just Shy of Totally Amazing …
• Roku Launches $60 HD Streaming Media Player
• Roku Moves Beyond Netflix, Says Hello To Amazon

You’re outraged (OUTRAGED!) that Netflix’s price hike has stolen your cheap movie rentals. In fact, you’re going to delete your subscription. Forever. Now what? Here’s how to replace Netflix in your life, from streaming to shiny plastic discs. More »

Looking for something a bit different to replace your Galaxy Tab with? Can’t say for sure why such a yearning would be reasonable, but if we just rang your bell, Viewsonic’s got a newcomer that’s on sale now. Just a few months after passing through the FCC’s database, the ViewBook VB730 is now in stock over at Amazon, with $229.99 netting you a 7-inch slate with Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, WiFi, a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage space, a microSD card slot and an 800 x 480 screen resolution. Unfortunately, there’s no Android 3.2 to be found here; instead, Froyo’s listed as the OS of choice, but it’s fair to expect a bit of corner-cutting given that shockingly low price point. Hit the source if you’re sold.

Viewsonic ships 7-inch ViewBook VB730 tablet for $230, sticks with Android 2.2 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 03:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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