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Switch on the pocket-sized Tizi, pull out the antenna and fire up the companion app on your iPad or iPhone. Congratulations. You are now watching live TV.
Elgato’s EyeTV already lets you watch TV on your iDevice, but you need a computer to be switched on, near an antenna and running server software to do it. The Tizi is a tiny, standalone box that does all this for you. It is battery powered, for use both at home and on the move, and gives 3.5-hours of use on one charge. You can also hook it to any USB power-source to charge and power it.
How does it work? The Tizi pulls in local DVB-T/DT signals, decodes them using its ARM 9 processor and then sends them to your iPhone or iPad via Wi-Fi (802.11b/g). Yes, you’ll have to tune your iPad to this Wi-Fi network, but you can still stay connected to the internet via 3G if you have it.
A channel-guide helps you find what to watch, and during ads you can switch away to other apps but keep the audio running in the background so you know when to tune back in.
This looks like a great product. I don’t watch much TV, but I could hang this in the living room, which has a clear view of the sky, and beam signals to anywhere I like in the apartment. Neat.
The Tizi is available now for $150, and the companion app is in the App Store for free.
Tizi product page [Tizi. Thanks, anonymous Equinux mailing-list people!]
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Steve Jobs has successfully prevented Adobe Flash from getting on the iPhone for years, but a new iOS app promises to bring Flash video to the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch without upsetting the CEO.
Demonstrated below, Skyfire is a web browser that automatically transcodes Flash video into HTML5 so it can display on your iDevice (instead of the blue Lego block symbolizing a lack of Flash support).
To our knowledge, Skyfire will be the first app of its kind to offer a roundabout method for watching Flash videos, when it goes live in the App Store this week.
Apple has prohibited Flash from running on iOS devices ever since the original iPhone launched in 2007. In an open letter published in April, Jobs said Flash was the No. 1 reason Macs crash, and he didn’t wish to “reduce reliability” on iOS products. In the same letter, Jobs vocalized his support for HTML5, a new web standard that does not rely on plug-ins.
“New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too),” Jobs said.
The Skyfire app only transcodes Flash videos into HTML5 — not games. A Skyfire representative said the Skyfire app was developed with oversight and feedback from Apple.
“It adheres to every guideline put forth by Apple regarding HTML5 video playback for iOS,” the rep said. “Skyfire will allow consumers to play millions of Flash videos on Apple devices without the technical problems for which Jobs banned Flash.”
The app was submitted late August, and it will go live in the App Store on Thursday.
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Typing on small virtual keyboards can be hard. 8pen, like Swype, is an alternate text entry program that uses continuous gestures, but instead of navigating a QWERTY keyboard, you use a click-wheel-like spiral motion to select text. It’s out today for Android, with versions for iOS, Windows, remotes and even game controllers in the works.
The best analogy I can offer for 8pen’s interface, again, is the old iPod click wheel. The screen is divided into four quadrants with an X. You begin at the center. Moving into each quadrant selects one of eight characters. A clockwise or counterclockwise movement cuts that character list in half. Then, one, two, three, or four “clicks” through each sector selects the first, second, third, or fourth character. In practice, each gesture amounts to a partial circle.
There are also definable custom gestures for stock phrases or names. I think this is actually the most interesting part of the application.
8pen claims to solve two problems: first, the fact that QWERTY screens optimized for two hands can’t be used that way; and second, that our current software keyboards make it too difficult to type blind. (Take a moment and think about how often you look at a virtual keyboard and how often you look at a physical keyboard.)
How effective could 8pen be? Well, that depends in part on how easy it is to learn.
We know a little bit about how users learn how to use new interfaces. Users have an easier time translating skills from familiar technologies. The QWERTY keyboard, however cramped, is a familiar technology, which is why we use it even in cases where it’s suboptimal. 8pen claims its gestures are closer to handwriting. Add the click-wheel interface, and there is a technology base, however weak, that users can draw on.
Users also have a harder time learning new technologies when they know old, incompatible ones really well. If you’re comfortable using a QWERTY keyboard, and particularly a miniaturized hardware or software keyboard, the costs of switching to a new interface are too high.
It’s like switching to Windows 7 when you know XP inside and out: even if it’s objectively a superior system, you can get more done using the tool you know best. There has to be a crisis to force a move — sort of like how the hurdles and reputation of Windows Vista led a lot of users to take a long hard look at Mac OS X.
One problem I see with 8pen is the way it’s framed. First, smartphone typing may not use all of both hands, but it does use more than one finger, whether it’s two thumbs, a thumb and an index finger, or some combination of these. I find myself using at least my thumb, index and middle fingers on both hands most of the time. (I am a fast typist with very large hands.)
Taking these extra resources off-screen doesn’t seem likely to speed things up. It forces us to type with one finger, when one-finger typing is actually the problem.
Second, it’s hard to type blind on a smartphone because the text entry surface and the screen are on the same plane. On a laptop, desktop or clamshell, the screen and text surface are separated, with the screen on the vertical plane and text entry on the horizontal.
This is actually an advantage for the smartphone in some ways, because it brings the eye and hand together like in manuscript writing. It’s a problem because there isn’t a natural orientation for both reading and writing, so we usually wind up hunched over a diagonal screen.
This is my skeptical take. More optimistically, I think it’s promising that companies are experimenting with text entry on touchscreens. There are huge numbers of people venturing into touchscreen text entry who don’t have lots of experience with smartphone typing, or even as much hardware keyboard typing than those of us who bang away on computers all day.
Meanwhile, frequent text entry is venturing into more and more devices — television sets, electronic readers, remote controls. If someone can create a system that’s easy to learn, relatively intuitive and reliable, there is a huge opportunity for the company that gets it right.
The 8pen [the8pen.com]
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The story of the Galaxy Tab has been quite a saga, to say the least. In fact, it was actually back in May that we first heard rumblings of Samsung’s plans to unleash a 7-inch Android tablet much like its Galaxy S phones, but it was only after months of painful teasing — including a cruel look at just its packaging on the Engadget Show — that Sammy finally unveiled the Galaxy Tab to the world at IFA. The Tab certainly packed the specs — a 1GHz processor, full Flash support thanks to Android 2.2, dual cameras, support for up to 32GB of storage and WiFi / 3G connectivity — to put other Android tablets to shame, and our initial hands-on with it only had us yearning for more. Without pricing and availability, however, the story was at a cliffhanger. Of course, those details trickled out over the next few months, and here in the US, Samsung finally announced that all four major US carriers would be getting Tabs to call their own. Verizon then finally took the lead in announcing pricing, and revealed that its Tab would hit contract-free for $600 — Sprint followed with the same no-contract pricing along with a $400 two-year contract option.
Indeed, it’s been quite a long journey, but even after all of that, some of the major questions are still left unanswered. Does the Tab provide a more complete and polished experience than all the other Android tablets out there? How are Samsung’s specially tailored apps? And ultimately, has a tablet finally hit the market that can rival Apple’s iPad? We think it’s about time we answer those questions and finally open what might be the most important chapter of the Galaxy Tab story — the official Engadget review. We knew you’d agree, so join us after the break.
Gallery: Samsung Galaxy Tab (Sprint)
Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab review
Samsung Galaxy Tab review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Amazon keeps rolling out software applications for nearly every device it doesn’t make itself. Next up is the new player in the smartphone market, Windows Phone 7. The forthcoming WP7 Kindle app has virtually the same function as other mobile Kindle apps, but will have Microsoft’s look and feel.
I may have been the only e-reading-focused reporter at the Windows Phone 7 debut event. I asked everyone I could find about e-reading applications for the device. “Just stay tuned,” I was told.
I still couldn’t believe there wasn’t one or more e-reading apps announced at the launch. It’s become an assumed part of app-capable smartphones and tablets in what has to be record time. Having an app for Kindle is like having an app for Facebook or the New York Times.
Think about it: just a year ago, there were only a few e-book apps, some by companies that are dwindling if not long gone. Now nearly every e-bookstore has a reading app on every screen you can carry.
Kindle joins just one other e-reading application that will be in the application Marketplace: Wattpad. Sometimes called “the YouTube of eBooks,” Wattpad is a service where users share their own original writing; half e-book commons, half social network.
Wattpad looks great — but it’s neither an e-bookstore nor an e-book reading application as we’ve come to recognize it from the Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iBooks, Stanza or MobiPocket smartphone apps (this list goes on and on).
The Kindle app for WP7 may not be ready when the phones are officially ready for sale. If history is any guide, this won’t be the last e-reader app announcement you’ll hear between now and then.
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