Hasta La Gadget!

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that ABC and CBS are hard at work adapting episodes of their TV shows for the iPad, with both set to offer streamable programming to new slate owners immediately upon launch. Their delivery strategies diverge slightly — ABC will use the app that was unearthed (and confirmed by us) this morning whereas CBS will stream through the browser (hello, HTML5!) — but the eventual user experience will be a commercial-supported affair that should be familiar to those who’ve used their respective online streaming services already. All that remains now is for NBC and Hulu to fall in line, as expected, and your portable media consumption menu will be complete. It’ll also be interesting to see what happens to iTunes Store pricing for episodic TV programming, which will soon be up against free (or in Hulu’s case, potentially subscription-based) alternatives.

Update: And here comes the official presser for ABC’s plans, alongside ESPN SportsCenter XL and a handful of Disney apps.

WSJ: CBS bringing free HTML5-encoded TV shows to the iPad, ABC plans detailed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nintendo Wii users don’t have to feel left out anymore. Netflix has started shipping instant streaming discs to Wii owners who have signed up for it.

The move makes Wii the last console among its peers to get the service.

About a year-and-a-half ago, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 became the first console to offer direct access to Netflix for gamers. Sony’s PlayStation 3 users gained access to Netflix’s instant streaming service late last year.

Finally, in January this year, Netflix said it will offer streaming for Wii users starting Spring. Wii users with a broadband connection and a subscription to Netflix can access Netflix’s library.

The movie rental service sent out e-mail alerts to customers Thursday and has said discs for the Wii could be in the hands of consumers before the weekend.

The Wii can’t play high-definition streaming shows or movies but we are hoping an innovative interface for using Netflix through the Wii’s controller makes up a little for that.

Photo: (ginnerobot/Flickr)

Wii owners have been waiting for this day to come since early January (or before, arguably), and at long last it looks as if the rental superstar has come through. Customers around the US are receiving email notifications today stating that their Watch Instantly disc (required for Netflix playback on the Wii) has shipped, and it should be waiting in their mailbox before this weekend begins. We’ll be interested to see how the streaming service performs on the weakest of the three major consoles, but given that no 1080p content is available, we doubt they’ll be any major snags. Let us know when your disc arrives and how the experience is down in comments, won’tcha?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Netflix finally ships out Watch Instantly discs for Nintendo’s Wii originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 13:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While we all wait patiently for Apple to concoct its own subscription-based, unlimited music streaming service (hello, Lala acquisition!), MOG is jumping on the opportunity right away. Er, almost right away. Down in Austin this week, the company announced that an iPhone and Android app would be out “in early Q2” in order to bring unlimited music streaming to both operating systems for $10 per month. We’re told that a catalog of seven million songs will be available, but there’s no way to know if 6.99 million are of the “no one cares” variety. At any rate, your monthly fee will also allow unlimited streaming from the desktop, but alas, you’ll be left with nothing but hollow memories should you ever stop ponying up. In related news, Rhapsody has announced (video after the break) that offline playback support is coming to the iPhone, with the updated app expected to be passed along for Apple’s confirmation “shortly.” Granted, the Rhapsody to Go subscription is $5 per month more than MOG’s option, but with all this competition popping up, we wouldn’t be shocked to see that slide lower in due time.

Continue reading MOG bringing unlimited music streaming to iPhone and Android, Rhapsody taking iPhone music offline

MOG bringing unlimited music streaming to iPhone and Android, Rhapsody taking iPhone music offline originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look out, OnLive — you’ve got company. InstantAction is having their coming out party at GDC, and we stopped by for a lengthy chat about the technology, its future and the hopes / dreams of the company. Put simply (or as simply as possible), IA has developed a browser-based plug-in that allows full games to be played on any web browser so long as said browser is on a machine capable of handling the game. In other words, you’ll still need a beast of a machine to play games like Crysis, but the fact that you can play them on a web browser opens up a new world of possibilities for casual gamers and independent developers. You’ll also be notified before your download starts if your machine and / or OS can handle things, with recommendations given on what it would take to make your system capable.

Oh, and speaking of operating systems — games will only be played back if they’re supported on a given OS, so you won’t be able to play a Windows only title within a browser on OS X or Linux. Rather than taking the typical streaming approach, these guys are highlighting “chunking.” In essence, a fraction of the game’s total file size has to be downloaded locally onto your machine, and once that occurs, you can begin playing. As an example, we were playing The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition — which is the sole title announced for the platform so far, though Assassin’s Creed was demoed — within minutes, and since you’re curious, that’s a 2.5GB game, and we were on a connection that wasn’t much faster than a typical broadband line.

More after the break…

Continue reading InstantAction streams full games to any web browser, gives indie developers a business model (video)

InstantAction streams full games to any web browser, gives indie developers a business model (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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