Hasta La Gadget!

See this message? You no longer have to if you live in France, Germany, Italy or Spain, as Sony’s rolled out its Music Unlimited subscription streaming service in each aforementioned nation just yesterday. Basically, it’s the same deal that launched in the UK last month, but at a slightly cheaper price given the exchange rate: €3.99 a month buys you a virtual radio station that streams millions of songs to your Sony TVs, Blu-ray players or PS3 — with portable devices and phones on the way — while €9.99 upgrades to a premium plan that lets you select tunes on demand and generate playlists. Next stop: North America. PR after the break.

Continue reading Sony’s Music Unlimited service infiltrates France, Germany, Italy and Spain, offers streaming tunes

Sony’s Music Unlimited service infiltrates France, Germany, Italy and Spain, offers streaming tunes originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

How far we’ve come. It was only a couple of years ago that Lenovo was closing a deal to sell its mobile phone business, but a quick re-acquisition in late 2009 and some recent heavy flirtation with the tablet form factor have led to the creation of a whole new unit in the company’s hierarchy, one dedicated to the development of smartphones, tablets, TVs, and other internet-connected devices. Headed up by Liu Jun and working out of Beijing, this squad of designers and engineers will focus on harnessing the “tremendous growth potential of the mobile internet.” Cloud computing will be a major feature of Lenovo’s plans moving forward, which places its goals for the future right in line with just about everyone else’s. Still, it’s good to see one of the big desktop computing players diversifying its portfolio with gusto.

Lenovo setting up a specialist unit for tablets and smartphones originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 08:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  AFP (PhysOrg)  | Email this | Comments

It’s a heavy day at CES, and it’s also a big day for the folks at Pure. Not only have they provided an updated release time table for the Sensia (“later in 2011” for an unknown amount) and Sirocco 550 (March for $499), but it’s also branching out with a few unexpected launches. In order to get even more tunes to the outfit’s blossoming line of WiFi radios, Pure has revealed its FlowSongs cloud-based music service — put simply, it enables consumers to buy music directly from their radio and Pure’s Lounge iPhone app. Users are instructed to ‘Like’ songs on FM or internet radio, and then within the same interface, they’re able to click ‘Buy’ while simultaneously scratching that Instant Gratification itch. Customers can download high-quality versions of the MP3 onto their Mac and PC, and it’ll work on any Flow radio. Currently, the service is expected to launch as a public beta in North America this spring, with individual tracks priced between $0.99 and $1.49 depending on the publisher. Unfortunately, there’s a $5.99 yearly subscription to actually use FlowSongs, which all but guarantees failure in a world where $1.49 tracks feel too pricey on their own.

Moving on, the company is also dishing out a few hardware announcements. Up first is the Contour (shown above), an iPod / iPhone-friendly WiFi radio that touts a black crescent shape (not too unlike Meridian’s M80), touch-sensitive controls and a trio of video outputs (composite, component and S-Video). The One Flow ($149) is about as basic as it gets, rocking a truly retro motif, a 3.5mm auxiliary input and a pair of alarms. Wrapping things up, there’s the i-20, which is hailed as the only digital iPod dock available that supports component, S-Video and composite outputs. In a nutshell, it’s a video output stand for your iPod or iPhone, which may or may not be worth the $99 asking price. Head on past the break for specifics on availability, and tap that source link once your credit card is ready.

Continue reading Pure launches Contour, One Flow and i-20, also debuts FlowSongs cloud-based music service

Pure launches Contour, One Flow and i-20, also debuts FlowSongs cloud-based music service originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Pure  | Email this | Comments

The UK and Ireland are today the first to get a taste of Sony’s big play for the online music market, the appropriately titled Music Unlimited. This new subscription service (£3.99 a month for Basic access, £9.99 for the Premium stuff) will let you stream a library of about six million songs to your PS3, Bravia telly, or web-connected Blu-ray player, while also offering the option to sync playlists from other music services like iTunes. PC support is available as well, with “a wide range of Sony’s portable devices” and Android-based smartphones on the roadmap for future compatibility. Music Unlimited sidles up next to Qriocity as part of Sony’s strategy to expand its influence in content delivery, presumably in an effort to thicken its revenue streams, and will be following up this British launch with arrivals in the US, Canada and most of Western Europe in the new year.

Continue reading Sony’s Music Unlimited subscription service ready to stream tunes to PS3s and Bravia TVs in the UK

Sony’s Music Unlimited subscription service ready to stream tunes to PS3s and Bravia TVs in the UK originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Dec 2010 07:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  AP (Yahoo! News)  | Email this | Comments

Google blew the lid off of Chrome OS yesterday in a big way, and one of its key features is now ready to roll. Cloud Print was unveiled back in April, a method to enable Google mobile devices to print via nebulous networking, and it’s now here — with some caveats. The biggest being that right now the only host for a non Cloud Print-compatible printer (basically all but this one) is a Windows PC running Chrome 9.0.597.1 or greater. Set up the service through there and the browser will host your good ‘ol printer to your Chrome OS device. Don’t have a Chrome OS device? You will. Eventually more printers will support this natively, eliminating the middleman, and we’re sure printing support will be coming to Android down the road too. When? In due time, fair reader. In due time.

Google Cloud Print is ready to spool in beta, if you have a Windows PC handy originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TechCrunch  |  Google  | Email this | Comments