Hasta La Gadget!

In case you’ve got some fundamental issue with Apple’s upcoming AirPlay, or just a fifth-gen iPod nano you’re unwilling to part with, here’s a handy little adapter for you. Produced by Cywee and likely to be sold for around $99 by PCD in the US, this RF streamer plugs straight into your iDevice’s dock connector and then beams video, pictures, games and the like over to its nearby base station, which in turn hooks up to your television by a set of RGB cables. Any app that utilizes Apple’s video output API is a candidate for having its visuals sent over, though resolution is unfortunately capped at 480p and you’ll need line of sight at a distance of no more than 15 feet for everything to work correctly. Just to make sure we’re all appropriately underwhelmed by its current product, Cywee promises an 802.11n WiFi variant that’ll handle 1080p and output via HDMI for next year. Great, we’ll just wait for that one, why don’t we?

Continue reading PCD’s $99 wireless streaming adapter will beam iOS or older-gen iPod nano content onto your TV

PCD’s $99 wireless streaming adapter will beam iOS or older-gen iPod nano content onto your TV originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Oct 2010 01:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You have plenty of options if you’re looking for an external hard drive or some home storage that does more than just keep your files and data backed up, but the new Western Digital My Book Live is a network attached storage (NAS) device that lets you put your files anywhere in the house and access them from any other network-connected device.

The My Book Live adds a 100MBps Ethernet jack on the back of the popular My Book line of external drives, comes in 1TB or 2TB models, and retains its USB 2.0 port in case you want to daisy-chain the device to another hard drive for expanded storage. The My Book Live also functions as a media server and allows you to stream music or movies on the drive to other devices in the house, like your XBox 360, PlayStation 3, PC or Mac running iTunes, or just as an open network share.

Western Digital isn’t the only manufacturer in this game: LaCie’s Wireless Space and Verbatim’s MediaShare are among a number of others vying for position in this market. Still, Western Digital has huge brand recognition, and the New My Book Live has a good price point: $169.99 for the 1TB model and $229.99 for the 2TB model. Both versions are available now.

Apple TV may not have native apps yet, but AirPlay provides a workaround to run apps on your TV — so long as those apps involve streaming video or audio.

Ars Technica’s Jacqui Cheng wasn’t able to try out video streaming to the Apple TV in full — that won’t be possible until iOS 4.2 ships in November — but in her extended review, she did unearth two important bits about AirPlay:

• With iOS 4.1, you can already easily stream audio to the Apple TV, including audio from movie files;
• With iOS 4.2, every iOS app using Apple’s standard audio and video profiles can stream to Apple TV. Not just videos in your iTunes library.

Some of these applications are no-brainers, like Netflix and YouTube. Since both apps run natively on Apple TV anyway, this might appear redundant; still, it’s nice to be able to seamlessly throw video from your phone to your TV in the middle of watching something, without having to start over and search for the same video again.

Other iOS apps add content that Apple TV doesn’t have. Ars Technica mentions sports applications like MLB At-Bat and local internet radio. You might be able to preview a movie you’re editing in the iPad’s iMovie mobile app on the big screen without plugging in.

Of course, applications that either don’t want their content streamed to Apple TV (like Hulu, perhaps) or don’t want to put in the work to reformat their video into H.264 will be left out — just keep your video and audio in a format that can’t be streamed. For others, there’s nothing else they have to do on the software or hardware side to make their applications AirPlay-compatible.

That prospect could be exciting for both developers and users — at least until full-fledged iOS apps for Apple TV come along. Or Google TV’s apps sweep through and steal the whole show.

YouTube video streaming over AirPlay; Image via Ars Technica

Ars reviews the Apple TV 2.0: little, black, different [Ars Technica]

See Also:

• Hands-On With New $100 Apple TV
• 5 Reasons Why Apple TV Is (Still) Boring
• AppleTV Runs iOS, Already Jailbroken
• Apple Redefines Remote Control — Now, It’s Your Cellphone
• Why iOS Could Make Apple TV Succeed

There. That feels better, doesn’t it? Windows Mobile loyalists (yeah, all eight of you) who have been holding off on switching for inexplicable reasons now have a reason to celebrate: Spotify’s live on Windows Mobile 6.x. That sweet, sweet music streaming action that other mobile platforms have been enjoying for months is finally on Microsoft’s now-ancient smartphone OS, but the real news is that the team already has a build ready to go for the forthcoming Windows Phone 7. As you’d expect, these versions will allow users to search, browse and play back millions of tracks, stream over WiFi / 3G / 2.5G, play music sans an internet connection (offline playlists) and wirelessly sync between a local computer and a mobile. Windows Phone users should point their browser to m.spotify.com to get their download on (or hold off for it to hit the Windows Marketplace), and those who are still feeling timid can catch a beautifully narrated promotional video just past the break.

Continue reading Spotify launches on Windows Mobile, coming soon for Windows Phone 7

Spotify launches on Windows Mobile, coming soon for Windows Phone 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Oct 2010 09:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch all use a menu system called “Springboard” that doesn’t exist on the new Apple TV. But what the Apple TV uses instead might be coming to iPad. More »