Hasta La Gadget!

It looks like the Hulu overlords have finally seen the light, because Hulu Plus is coming to the living room in a big way — in addition to the cheap’n’easy Roku players, the service will hit TiVo Premiere DVRs sometime “in the coming months.” It’s a little stranger to pay $9.95 a month for streaming TV on your DVR, which is presumably plugged into a cable subscription and a TiVo service subscription, but hey — whatever floats your boat, Captain Moneybags. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Hulu Plus coming to TiVo Premiere too

Hulu Plus coming to TiVo Premiere too originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Sep 2010 14:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, “premium” video-on-demand. Media controllers have been fighting the inevitable forever, but now it seems they’re finally coming around to the future — letting users watch silver screen gems (or duds, for what it’s worth) in their home shortly after release in the theater. Before you bust out the golf claps for these dudes and dudettes, you should know that they’re planning to ding you for around $30 for the privilege, so it’s only remotely of interest if you happen to have a family of eight. According to a new Bloomberg report, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., and Walt Disney Co. are all in talks with major cable systems to “offer films for as much as $30 per showing soon after they run in theaters.” Disney’s also thinking of streaming its content to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with Warner expected to begin testing an offering later this year that lets consumers watch new(ish) release material for “$20 to $30 per viewing.” Of course, we guess it can’t hurt to throw the option out there and see exactly who is desperate enough, but we’re guessing this won’t exactly be the demise of the cinema. Or Redbox.

Sony, Warner and Disney mulling $30 at-home viewing option, we laugh and wait for the $100 option originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Sep 2010 11:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you have a really nice in-dash unit that you don’t want to get rid of but doesn’t support Bluetooth or streaming audio from the Web, the new Scosche MotorMOUTH II can fill the gap for you. For example, if you really wish you could listen to Pandora on the go but your car stereo doesn’t support it, or you wish you could make and receive calls over your car’s speakers instead of the speakerphone, the MotorMOUTH II will help make those things possible without ripping out your existing car stereo.

Simply plug the MotorMOUTH II into your stereo’s auxiliary jack and then pair the device with your mobile phone. From there you can fire up any app on your phone and the audio will be transmitted wirelessly over Bluetooth to the MotorMOUTH II, which will play it through your car stereo.

The same applies to phone calls: use your phone to take or place the call, and the audio from the call will be played over your car’s speakers. The MotorMOUTH II is available now for $79.99 retail, and comes with a Y adapter so you can move the audio jack around your car or plug directly in for private listening. 

Ladies and gentleman, it’s the Orb! What is the Orb? Some sort of spacecraft? A time travel device? No, nothing quite that exciting–though it does seem pretty cool, nonetheless. The Orb is a cheap ($69) device that lets you stream music from your PC or Mac to any stereo in your home.

Users can control music playback via the iPhone, Android handsets, the iPod touch, and iPad. You can stream your iTunes library, Pandora, Sirius, and a number of other Internet music services through the device. Orb Networks calls its smartphone interface “familiar” and “iTunes-like.” You can use your phone to play, pause, skip around, and adjust the volume of playback.

The hockey puck-sized device is available now, as is the iPhone app, which can be downloaded from iTunes. We’ll be getting some hands-on time with the device here at Gearlog shortly.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings may be stumbling over a publicity misstep or two since launching in Canada just yesterday, but he sure knows the right mea culpa to give. In a blog post entitled “Apologies” — which, amusingly enough, is published just after “We Blew It” — the King of the Red Envelope says, “we are looking at adding a streaming-only option for the USA over the coming months.” No prices are discussed, but our educated guess would place it parallel to Canada’s streaming-only plan, $7.99 monthly. Would we be willing to drop all physical media in exchange for at least one extra dollar per month? Now that’s a good question.

Netlix CEO promises streaming-only option for US ‘over the coming months’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 22:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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