Hasta La Gadget!

Wonder why Motorola’s set-top-box business got bundled in with the phones? If we had to guess, it’s probably because Motorola Mobility is making a device that will wirelessly join both. Speaking at the Reuters Global Media Summit, company president Daniel Moloney said that Motorola’s working on a standalone device that will wirelessly sling video to tablets and phones in the home, and will later be integrated directly into new set-top-boxes the company rolls out. “It’s one consumer proposition that will come sooner rather than later,” he told the crowd, suggesting that the device would be available through “service providers” rather than sold off the shelf, and that said providers might charge an additional service fee for its use. Here’s hoping not. Perhaps Qualcomm finally found a buyer for that FLO TV spectrum, though?

Motorola Mobility’s mystery gadget streams video to tablets and phones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Because not every smartphone has a full 1080p resolution (yet), KDDI‘s R&D Labs have come up with a new method for massaging the most out of HD movie streams while on the move. You’ll still be able to pummel your poor mobile device and connection with the full-res stream, should you wish it, but KDDI’s innovation is in developing a system whereby you can zoom in on particular parts of the feed, have the stream cropped to your requirements on far-off servers somewhere, and then receive only the stuff you want to see onto your device. And because of your phone’s aforementioned pixel deficiency, the employment of this technique will most often result in negligible picture fidelity loss, if any. The biggest benefit, however, might be to carriers like KDDI who end up having to carry less data back and forth, even if it does come at a slight server-side cost. Video after the break.

Continue reading KDDI develops a zoom-enhance system for HD movie streaming on smartphones (video)

KDDI develops a zoom-enhance system for HD movie streaming on smartphones (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 03:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, that was brief. Just a few short months after InstantAction went public with its embedded browser-based gaming platform at GDC 2010, the Oregon-based startup has gone belly-up. If you missed out on what this here outfit was offering, you clearly aren’t alone — but for the historians in attendance, we’d invite you to revisit our hands-on for an overview of what was planned. Unfortunately, the company has yanked all of its Vimeo clips detailing the system’s features, and its website now affirms that the service as a whole is “no longer available.” We’re hearing that it’ll be selling the underlying Torque Game Engine (and presumably that fancy “chunking” tech that enabled games to be played in a browser with just a broadband connection), but based on the tepid response so far, we’re guessing it won’t fetch much. We definitely saw a bit of promise in the concept — after all, browser-based games like Solipskier are all the rage in some circles — but bona fide console / PC games simply don’t fit that mold, or so it seems.

InstantAction dies in an instant, future of embedded gaming looks questionable originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Nov 2010 22:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s a modern day dilemma, really — you’d love to hang that flat panel on your wall, but the wireless technologies available to mere mortals in the year 2010 just aren’t up to snuff. Wireless power is a pipe dream, and even wireless HDMI has its drawbacks. Case in point: ASUS’ new WiCast media streaming solution. Introduced last month in conjunction with Amimon, this high(er)-end streamer is theoretically capable of transmitting 1080p material over the air, with 3Gbps at its disposal. Trouble is, critics at AnandTech found that there were gobs of wires to connect before anything started to stream “wirelessly,” and moreover, they noticed significant artifacting in Iron Man 2 even with just five feet separating the receiver and transmitter. The good news is that the WiCast isn’t platform / machine-specific, but that luxury comes with a price — you’ll have to connect three cables (two USB and an HDMI) to your laptop and a receiver box to your HDTV. In the end, there seems to be just one real winner: Monoprice.

ASUS WiCast EW2000 1080p streaming solution reviewed: ‘lots of wires for wireless’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 16:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aw, suki suki now! Roku — the guys responsible for taking over your living room — just announced that it’s making its hardware and software platform available to license. At first glance, you may assume this means little to nothing for consumers, but you’re (hopefully) mistaken. If you’ll recall, the Roku XD was rebranded in order to slip into Netgear’s vast sales channels, but the software part of this equation has our interest very much piqued. We’ve already seen Vudu’s software baked into a number of HDTVs, and we’re envisioning a future filled with world peace, In-N-Out for all and Roku-embedded television sets. We’ll take two outta three if we have to, though.

Continue reading Roku makes hardware and software available to license, embedded TVs can’t be far out

Roku makes hardware and software available to license, embedded TVs can’t be far out originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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