Hasta La Gadget!

The Pogoplug is a little box that lets you access your hard drive’s contents over the internet. You plug the drive into the Pogoplug, plug the Pogoplug into your router and you’re done: always-on, use-anywhere access to your files. Now, a new Wi-Fi adapter means you don’t even need to put it near your router.

The dongle costs $29 and plugs into the main unit. It lets the Pogoplug hook up to your network via 802.11 b,g or n instead of Ethernet, so you can stow both the Pogoplug and a stack of USB hard-drives in a closet and forget about them. Best of all, if you already have a Pogoplug, the company will give you a wireless adapter, free.

For accessing your data from outside the home, this should make no difference at all to speed: the limiting factor will be your home connection’s upload rate, likely a lot slower than even the slowest home Wi-Fi network. Even at home on a wireless-n network, you’ll get the best speeds unless your computer is wired direct to the router.

The Pogoplug adapter will ship in three to four weeks in the U.S. only.

Pogoplug Wireless Adapter [Pogoplug]

See Also:

• Pogoplug Update Lets You Print With an E-mail
• Cloud Engines PogoPlug
• Pogoplug Brings External Hard Drives Online

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter..

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer is probably dreaming of three screens and a cloud right now, so it makes sense that his company has extended its hand to LG in order to build out the new U+ cloud storage service. Launched over in South Korea, this new service is expected to provide a “seamless connection” between a smorgasbord of connected devices — everything from TVs to digital photo frames to PMPs to tablets (plus a few we’re missing). The goal is to allow any connected device to enjoy the same content, and rather than putting it on each individual consumer to setup their own wireless NAS (or use Air Sync), LG’s taking some of the load off while adding a few nifty extras (streaming VOD, anyone?). The standard U+ box arrives with 1GB of storage, but consumers can opt for a 10GB package as well as the ability to access their material across the country via LG’s U+ WiFi hotspots. Actual costs don’t seem readily apparent, but given that paltry storage maximum, we’re guessing the majority of you won’t even bother to investigate.

Continue reading LG U+ cloud service links connected devices, requires a relocation to South Korea to enjoy

LG U+ cloud service links connected devices, requires a relocation to South Korea to enjoy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Akihabara News  |  LG  | Email this | Comments

Dropbox, the file-syncin’, cloud-storin’ service for the cognoscenti and the extremely good-looking, has released a beta for the Blackberry. Currently limited to 1,000 users (and already fully subscribed), the beta essentially brings gigabytes of remote storage to your crackberry.

Dropbox is a service which syncs any files in the Dropbox folder on your computer with 2GB free space in the cloud (you can pay for more). This is at once a backup (with versioned saves of files, so you can rescue a file you wrongly edited) and as a sharing service.

Like the versions for iPhone and Android, Dropbox for Blackberry lets you open files, stream movies and music and view pictures right on your handheld. You can also upload files: pictures taken with the Blackberry’s camera, for example.

It’s too late to sign up for this wave of the beta, but hopefully this signals that the fully-baked app, which will run on OS 5.0 devices, will be launched soon.

Dropbox for Blackberry Beta Begins [Dropbox Forums via Dropbox Updated for iPad, External Editing Added

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

We’re still not sure if we believe in the promises made by the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) yet — buy a piece of content once in physical or digital format, and gain access across all formats and devices via a cloud based account — but we’re closer to finding out for ourselves now that it has a new name, UltraViolet. In case you haven’t been paying attention over the last couple of years, the DECE group is already home to most of the biggest names on both the content and consumer electronics sides of the business, with the most notable holdouts being Apple and Disney, which is backing its own competing system, Keychest. The latest additions to the UltraViolet team are LG, LOVEFiLM and Marvell, while key members like Comcast, Microsoft, Intel and Best Buy are quoted in this morning’s press release. Check it out for yourself after the break and keep an eye out for that grey and purple logo on movies and players later this year when it begins testing.

Continue reading DECE’s ‘digital locker’ take-anywhere DRM dubbed UltraViolet, launches later this year

DECE’s ‘digital locker’ take-anywhere DRM dubbed UltraViolet, launches later this year originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Uvvu.com  | Email this | Comments

Spotify, the jukebox-in-the-cloud which is still not available in the US has been updated to work with iOS4. This adds several new features, but the game-changer is that it can now run in the background, replacing the iPod app almost completely.

Spotify is a free, ad-supported or paid application for Mac, PC, iOS, Symbian and Android which lets you play any music in the catalog as if it were iTunes. Unlike Pandora, the US-only music streaming service, you can actually choose an artist and track, and organize music into playlists, even saving them for offline listening.

Now, with iOS4’s multitasking, you can continue to listen to Spotify in the background as you send mail, read Instapaper or do pretty much anything else. Just as planned, the music controls in the app-switching dock control Spotify instead of the iPod app, the inline remote on the headphones does the same, as do the music controls on the iPhone’s lock-screen. If your iPhone or iPad is in the universal dock, using the Apple remote will also let you control Spotify. In short, it takes over all iPhone music functions while running.

Further, if you play a track from Spotify that is already on your iPhone, it will be pulled from the local copy rather than over the network (currently, this causes the app to pause if running in the background).

There are more new features in this release. Just like the latest desktop client, Spotify mobile lets you send music to your Spotify and Facebook friends, as well as browsing the “top lists”, charts based on new and popular tracks.

The only thing that keeps Spotify completely replacing your iPod app is podcasts, which can be accessed but cannot be updated automatically. The usability is also a little clunky. Searching the gazillion songs in Spotify’s catalog is fast and easy, but browsing your own saved playlists is an annoyingly linear affair, with much scrolling and clicking to find what you want.

Spotify is free, but to use it on your iPhone or iPod Touch you have to pay the premium €10-per-month subscription. I do. I figure its worth it to have 8 million track on my iPad and iPod Touch.

Bonus tip: Did you know that in iOS4, music keeps playing even whilst you sync to iTunes?

iPhone app updated – background listening arrives! [Spotify]

See Also:

• Spotify Takes Aim at iTunes, Befriends Facebook
• Spotify Opens to Indie Bands
• Spotify Adds U.S.-Friendly Service Plans
• Rhapsody's iPhone App Beats Spotify, MOG to the Punch
• Hands-On With Spotify for iPhone: Is iTunes Dead?
• Spotify Adds Offline Listening to Desktop
• Six Million Songs in Your Pocket: Apple Approves Spotify for …