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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HP had us slightly worried at the crude-looking beta release of the Play music platform, but its new Movie Store app for TouchPad owners looks reassuringly polished and gleaming. The Roxio-powered service offers movie purchases from $9.95 and rentals from $2.99, as well as a fair selection of TV shows for $1.99 per episode. Meanwhile, Amazon’s beta Kindle app for the TouchPad also launched earlier this week, so things are certainly ticking along. We just hope HP hasn’t forgotten about that promised document-editing function — some people want to create as well as consume.

HP Movie Store arrives on the TouchPad, cup-holder accessory to follow? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If we’re looking at sales figures of 3.5 million units in the first year for a new laptop, smartphone, or camera, then we might be impressed. But 3D Blu-ray discs? When half were included in the box with a Blu-ray player? Man, that’s gotta sting. Those numbers are based on an IHS Screen Digest estimate, tallying US sales beginning in June of 2010 and ending last month, though many larger titles didn’t make their debut until later in the year. Still, if those results are even in the ballpark of official (unreleased) numbers from BD distributors, then things really aren’t looking up for 3D. With fewer than 100 titles even available on Blu-ray, however, we’re not really surprised that discs aren’t exactly flying off the shelves. Obviously, as a growing number of movies are filmed in 3D we’ll see BD title availability increase as well, but with the technology’s lackluster beginnings over the last year and no sign that consumers are ready to spend more to embrace that new dimension, 3D may continue its slow crawl toward the mainstream for some time to come.

Report: 3.5 million 3D Blu-ray discs ‘sold’ in first year, half were bundled with hardware originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For over half a century, Hollywood has been making computers do whatever they damn well please. Routinely featured on television and in movies, supercomputers, desktop rigs, and laptops are all too often granted near-magical capabilities. Deceit! Here are the top ten lies Hollywood tells about computers, for your amusement and scorn. More »

Ever since Nintendo’s GDC announcement in March we’ve been waiting for Netflix streaming on the 3DS, and it appears tomorrow’s eShop update will do the trick. This may be too late for those that followed through on threats to cancel after the new rates were announced yesterday, but all other 3DS owners can get their Parks & Rec (in 3D?) anywhere in range of a WiFi signal. Joystiq also points out there’s also two Game Boy games coming in tomorrow’s update, Game & Watch Gallery and Baseball, just in case you’re interested in using your portable game machine to actually play games.

Netflix streaming comes to the Nintendo 3DS tomorrow originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 18:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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