Hasta La Gadget!

In news that should surprise no one, Hulu has blocked videos from playing in the BlackBerry PlayBook’s native browser, adding the tablet to a long blacklist of devices. But where there’s a will, there’s a way — over at CrackBerry, one commenter reported success in emailing himself the embed code and then opening the link from his Gmail inbox. If that tedious workaround doesn’t help, you’re in for a lengthy, disgruntled wait for a change of tide– right behind some very impatient Android users.

Hulu blocked on the BlackBerry PlayBook, Android fans say, ‘told you so’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re not already running the Plex Media Server on one of the twenty-three beige boxes networked across your tiny domicile, you may be sorely tempted to install a copy this week, because the iOS app has just received a truly massive update. Where once the XBMC spinoff would have to transcode every video it delivered to your device across the ether, Plex claims it can now either bypass that CPU-intensive process or use an iOS-optimized technique, pumping H.264 video over the air far more efficiently. Second, it can deliver that content from iOS direct to your TV, via either a video-out cable or experimental support for AirPlay. Not bad, right? How’s universal search sound — the ability to type in a word and have the app reach out to local servers, remote servers, and online video services like YouTube and Vimeo too? Yeah, that $4.99 price tag is looking mighty affordable right about now, and there are plenty more improvements to peruse at the links below.

Plex 1.1 for iOS improves streaming over 3G, pipes video to your TV originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can do quite a lot with a sufficiently large catalog of semi-popular footage, but original content is king, and today the Wall Street Journal is reporting that YouTube will sink $100 million into original programming. The idea, according to the usual anonymous sources, is that Google will reshape the home of Keyboard Cat into a television network of sorts — with channels for different topics — and a good number of them featuring “several hours of professionally produced original programming a week.” That sounds like a drop in the bucket compared to the raft of footage that YouTube’s amateurs put out, of course, and it wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen Google invest in original work, but we’d be lying if we said we wouldn’t enjoy kicking back with even a smidgen of the pulse-pounding possibilities that some 4096-pixel-wide footage could offer. YouTube is reportedly attracting talent right now, say the WSJ‘s spooks, and intends to ease users into the idea of channel surfing starting later this year.

Google creating YouTube ‘channels’, spending $100 million on original content? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 21:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s nothing concrete to sink your teeth into just yet, but a couple of people “familiar with the matter” have informed Bloomberg that Apple could be taking AirPlay to the next level. Up until now, companies have been shelling out $4 per device to add AirPlay audio streaming into their products, but there’s a very real demand for video to be included in that as well. According to sources, the video streaming protocol is already baked in, but not enabled / allowed under the current licensing agreement. It’s bruited that the folks in Cupertino could soon expand the AirPlay license program to include video streaming from iPhones and iPads, with integration into HDTVs being the most obvious application. Specifically, the new plan would enable electronics makers to “use [AirPlay] in devices for streaming movies, TV shows and other video content,” but there’s no clear time table as to when any of this would go down. Will CEDIA 2011 be the launchpad for AirPlay-enabled televisions? If so, don’t ever say we didn’t see it coming.

[Thanks, Nilay]

Apple could be licensing AirPlay for video streaming, HDTV integration seems imminent originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As anyone attempting to stream high-quality video on any major metropolitan subway has likely found, doing so often requires the patience of Job and a willingness to spend more time ‘buffering’ and less time ‘enjoying.’ It’s a problem that’s particularly evident at crowded events like the never-ending South by Southwest, and it’s probably no coincidence that a team from The University of Texas at Austin are now spending their waking hours attempting to solve the looming wireless bandwidth crisis. Five faculty in the school’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department have been selected to receive a $900,000 gift from Intel and Cisco to “develop innovative and novel algorithms that could improve the wireless networks ability to store, stream and share mobile videos more efficiently.” Their work is part of a five university tie-up, seeking to solve quandaries such as tower interference, selective compression (read: pixelating the areas you don’t pay attention to in order to squeeze more out of the existing infrastructure), cell tower intelligence and data output redundancy. Hard to say if any of the major carriers will be implementing proposed solutions in the near future, but we can think of at least one company that’s crossing its fingers in hopes of that very outcome.

Texas researchers aim to solve wireless bandwidth bottleneck, hopefully before SXSW 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Mar 2011 16:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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