It has been a long time coming, but Skype has finally made its way to the iPhone and iPod Touch with an official application.
Ever since the iPhone came out, people have been waiting for a Skype application to make its appearance. Over the past 24-hours the tool has finally made its way around all of the iTunes Stores. People with second generation iPod Touch units can also use the app to make calls, but first generation users will only be able to do IMing with it. (Although I actually did make a call with my iPod, but since there is no microphone, it was just a “proof of concept’ call that it did indeed ring a phone)
While this is a fablous addition to the iPhone, there is a rather large caveat to the entire deal: Calls can only be made over Wi-Fi. Yes, it is a rather large problem, but as Skype themselves explain, it isn’t just them that is banned form making third-party calls over the 3G network, but all app developers. You can use the application for IMing anytime, anywhere, but calls will require you to be near Wi-Fi unfortunately. Luckily Wi-Fi is popping up in more and more places, but until you have something like the MiFi in your car, you won’t be making calls while driving down the road.
This is still a very welcome addition to the iPhone, and the addition of Skype calling ability should keep you well under your allotted minutes each month. It should also make international calling a lot simpler… when in range of Wi-Fi, we know, we know.
It would seem customers renting Blu-ray discs through Netflix are about to be paying a bit more for the service.
For a while now Netflix has been adding a $1 on to the monthly subscription price of anyone wanted to rent Blu-ray discs. Effective April 27th, this rate will be going to $2 a month due to the ever increasing number of titles available on Blu-ray that they are having to purchase.
The number of titles available for us to purchase on Blu-ray has increased significantly. Our Blu-ray selection has grown more than 60% in just 6 months to over 1,300 titles, and is continuing to expand quickly. Blu-ray adoption among our members has also grown – it’s now close to 10%. As we buy more, you are able to choose from a rapidly expanding selection of Blu-ray titles. And as you’ve probably heard, Blu-ray discs are substantially more expensive than standard definition DVDs – often as much as 30% more.
Here is how their subscription packages will now breakdown as of the change over.
1 DVD out at-a-time (2 DVDs a month)
Monthly plan cost: $4.99
Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $1
Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $5.99
1 DVD out at-a-time (Unlimited)
Monthly plan cost: $8.99
Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $2
Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $10.99
2 DVDs out at-a-time (Unlimited)
Monthly plan cost: $13.99
Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $3
Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $16.99
3 DVDs out at-a-time (Unlimited)
Monthly plan cost: $16.99
Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $4
Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $20.99
4 DVDs out at-a-time (Unlimited)
Monthly plan cost: $23.99
Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $5
Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $28.99
5 DVDs out at-a-time (Unlimited)
Monthly plan cost: $29.99
Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $6
Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $35.99
6 DVDs out at-a-time (Unlimited)
Monthly plan cost: $35.99
Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $7
Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $42.99
7 DVDs out at-a-time (Unlimited)
Monthly plan cost: $41.99
Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $8
Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $49.99
8 DVDs out at-a-time (Unlimited)
Monthly plan cost: $47.99
Additional monthly charge for Blu-ray access on this plan: $9
Monthly plan cost with Blu-ray access: $56.99
If the rumors are to be believed, streaming video service Hulu may soon have three of the four biggest broadcast networks showing their content on their site.
According to paidContent, ABC is deep in talks with Hulu about bring shows such as LOST, Desperate Housewives and others to the popular streaming video site. If this comes to be, that means that ABC, Fox and NBC/Universal will all be using the site for their online content distribution.
The biggest question would be why ABC, which has been streaming videos on their own site and those of local affilites for quite some time now, would want to partner up with a third-party service. According to sources, Hulu streamed 333 million videos in February after their big advertising push during the Super Bowl. This made them the fourth biggest video site in the United States with 2.5% of the online video market. While not huge, it is bigger than the networks each trying to stream their own content.
If this would come to be, it would certainly set up an interesting dynamic for broadcast television. Would the sales of their shows on sites such as iTunes begin to dwindle? And the bigger question is at what point does everyone just give up on tuning into the original broadcasts? Between all of the options out there now to watch shows when and how you like, why should we continue to be slaves to the programming schedules of the networks? So what if we watch it 6 hours or a day after it airs so long as we see it. This is a great move for the consumers, but not sure how good it is for the networks in the long run.
There is a rumor going around that OnStar and Twitter may be teaming up for one of the oddest partnerships wet’ve ever heard of.
According to GearLive, they recently were asked by an OnStar survey how they would feel about the possability of using Twitter through their built-in service.
“While in your vehicle, you can use OnStar to submit and retrieve tweets (messages) via your Twitter account. Using OnStar’s Voice-Activated Hands-Free Calling system, and having your voice converted into text, you can provide updates which would appear in the “What are you doing?” section of your Twitter homepage. It is also possible to listen to a tweet that was sent to you by someone else after it has been converted into voice. You can send and receive tweets without having to type or read anything.”
Well, it’s an interesting idea to say the least, but can you imagine listening to your entire friend’s stream while driving down the road? And what happens when it gets to a shortened URL? Is it going to read that to you also? We could see it possibly be interesting if it could be set to only read replies and direct messages to you, but listening to your unfiltered friend’s Tweets while driving down the road… I would liken that to having my ears bleed.
It is an interesting concept, and if truly under consideration, it shows just haw far into the mainstream Twitter has gone. The mind boggles at the number of items we could see Twitter gradually getting integrated into. “Honey, I was making toast and the toaster showed you had a Tweet from your brother…”
In what feels like a never-ending stream of updates to their products of late, Google Docs is now letting you add your own vector drawings to your documents. For those unfamiliar with vectors, those are images that can be maniulated for resizing without losing their proportions.
The new feature will allow you to choose from a selection of preset shapes and images that you can rotate, resize and adjust. If you don’t find anything that fits your needs you can create a brand new image by using their drawing tools using lines, free hand scribbles and text labels. You can also do things such as changing line widths, doing fill color and from arrowheads to font size.
At the rate Google is adding features to Docs, you really have to start wondering how long it will be before people start wondering why they really are paying for various office suite packages. If you want to give this latest feature a try, just go to “Insert” and click on “Drawing”.
Fans of Sling Media’s Sling Box product are just about to the point where they can watch it any time and any where they want… literally.
While Sling Media has always touted how their Sling Box product allows you to watch your TV from anywhere via placeshifting technology, it hasn’t always been the easiest thing to do. There have been ways to watch via Symbian phones, Palm devices and Windows Mobile devices, but those technologies are quickly being left behind in favor of other devices.
They had been beta testing the technology for a SlingPlayer app for BlackBerrys for quite some time, but it has now been officially released. It unfortunately is not available for all BlackBerry models, but a goodly number of the latest models are supported. You can see which models are supported, and download the software, from this page.
In other news, the company has submitted an application to Apple for approval, and hopefully they will soon be adding support for the iPhone and iPod Touch. For now you will have to make do with watching the demo video they have released, but it looks like it is going to be pretty smooth and useful.
If you have to be able to see your TV while you are out of the house, Sling Media is clearly the way to go.
Could the ever increasing popularity of social media lead to strife in your relationship?
If the rumor mill is to be believed, Jennifer Anniston, the actress that played “Rachel” on the hit TV series Friends, broke up with her singer boyfriend John C. Mayer over his addiction to the micro blogging site Twitter. According to the Telegraph, Ms. Anniston was fed up with Mr. Mayer not returning her calls or emails, but yet he kept finding time to update his Twitter account. Jennifer Van Grove of Mashable did a break down of his Tweeting habits, and while it does show a sharp increase in frequency since February, it still works out to only 7.4 Tweets (the nickname for a message on Twitter) per day. Not that high of a number really, but if the story is to be believed, enough to make a couple split up.
Whatever the case between these two love birds is, that really isn’t the point. The point is that this brings up an intriguing question of the amount of social media hopping people do these days could lead to strife in relationships. With more and more services popping up on top of the old ones we already have, what are we cutting out of our time each day to check and reply messages, change our status, update our profiles and so on? Video game sales are on the rise, sales of movie tickets are at an all time high, Americans are watching more TV than ever before, and the list goes on and on of how we are spending more and more tiem detached from the people immediately around us. You add in social networking, and you can easily see people are running out of free time.
This may sound funny coming from a blog about technology, but maybe it is time we all start backing away from the computer some what. Do you really need to update your status on Facebook? Demi Moore, the actress, recently posted a video on Qik of how her husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, was making them late for a plane flight due to his checking his Facebook. True, he says he is checking for messages from his mom, but he couldn’t have picked up the phone to call and talk to her from the car? Being on the computer may, at times, feel like something is taking less time, but going to the computer – logging in – clicking on your inbox – reading – replying – sending, that takes less time than picking up a phone to call someone and say, “I love you”? No, it doesn’t, and you don’t get the pleasure of hearing the other person’s voice.
Just take a deep breath, think before you log in to yet another social network, or send another Tweet, and ask yourself, “Is there someone I should call or spend a moment with in person?” People are mistaking the connectiveness of social networking with the connectiveness of real-time relationships, and that is just sad. And certainly don’t get me wrong, I am just as guilty as the next person. As soon as I hit publish on this article, I’m going for a walk… outside… and I’m not checking my Facebook before I do it, either.
Vuze has announced they are bringing HD downloads to just about every device you can think of, and best of all, some of it is even free.
In a former life Vuze was a torrent client known as Azureus, which still exists, but they decided to go for a more legit business model and came up with a video streaming service. Well, now they are working towards making sure you can watch their content the way you want, when you want.
For people with PS3s or Xbox 360s, you can download the HD files and then stream the videos from your computer to your console, and that in turn will show it on your TV. The only drawback to this system is that you will need to have your computer running with Vuze opened as you watch.
For iPod, iPhone and Apple TV owners, you simply need to move the files from your Vuze folder to your iTunes folder, and then synch the files to your chosen device. So if you’re using the Apple TV you can watch the files on your TV without your computer running, and with iPods and iPhones you can use them to watch your files on the go no matter where you are.
With the number of ways you can stream and download videos now, it makes you wonder how much longer broadcast television can last in this world, let alone video rental stores.
Rumors have been circulating for some time that Apple is buying up 10″ touchscreens like mad, but the question is what they plan to do with them.
Numerous Apple rumor sites are reporting that Apple has placed large orders for ten-inch touchscreens to be delivered in the third quarter of 2009. This places them arriving sometime between July and September, which would position them perfectly for a device to be released in September, the usual time of the annual iPod line refresh. This is usually done to help spur holidays sales of the popular media playing devices.
While some have speculated that these screens may be for either some form of Mac OSX-based tablet, or even a Mac OSX-based mini-computer. However, we here at StarterTech have another, perhaps wild, theory about what they are planning if these touchscreen orders are real.
What about a 10″ iPod Touch?
While Apple has always been about slimming down devices, and making them ever smaller, what if they radically shifted gears and made an entirely new product line? While it would technically be an iPod, what we are speculating about is the possability of a 10″ media player. The iPhone and iPod Touch have become popular media playing platforms for downloaded videos, streaming YouTube videos and even ebook reading with things like the Amazon Kindle app.
All of this has been nice, the one thing people have talked about is how much nicer it would be with a larger screen. Apple of course can’t go this route with the iPhone as people still need to hold it up to their heads to talk, but the iPod Touch could be converted to something else all together. I don’t feel they will discontinue the current size of the popular iPod, but I could see them launching a new super-sized version of the player.
We also add to the speculation that this is an iPod-type device due to the recent announcement that the iPhone OS 3.0 will work with accessories. Imagine a 10″ iPod-like device with a physical keyboard accessory that would allow you to work on it like a netbook/mini-laptop when you wanted to, but then you could just use it as a media playing device when you were traveling on a plane.
All of this is completely speculation at this point. While the screens look to be likely, they are not a definite as of yet. Even if the device does exist, there is no guarantee if it will run iPhone software or Mac OSX software. Everything being said by all sites is speculation, but the timing of the release really leads all of us here to feel the finger points more to an iPod like device than a computer of some type.
What say you? What do you think Apple is planning to do with these 10″ touchscreens?
If you happen to be subscribed to the Apple education newsletter, you may have gotten a surprise in the latest issue of an unannounced addition to the iMac line.
Sneaking in under everyone’s radar, it appears Apple has reintroduced the discontinued 17″ version of their all-in-one desktop, the iMac. This model is only being marketed to people who can buy from Apple’s education products, but it is not available on their online store. The unit is priced at $899 via their email newsletter, and appears this will be the only way you can get it. This does make it the lowest priced model in the line, and should appeal to cash strapped students.
According to AppleInsider, though, it appears that the price reflects the components, and this may be the exact same model they were selling in 2006. This means it has a CRT monitor, lower RAM, lower video specs and so on. Essentially you are buying an out of date computer that will shorten its life span some.
Regardless of the outdated nature, and limited availability of the product, it still makes an interesting comment about the possible state of the economy when it comes to the sale of desktops if Apple is stepping back over two years in their technology to offer an affordable solution to students. Could we possibly see this show up for normal consumers also?
It has been a long time coming, but Skype has finally made its way to the iPhone and iPod Touch with an official application.
It would seem customers renting Blu-ray discs through 
If the rumors are to be believed, streaming video service 
There is a rumor going around that OnStar and Twitter may be teaming up for one of the oddest partnerships wet’ve ever heard of.
Google Docs, the free office suite from 
Fans of Sling Media’s Sling Box product are just about to the point where they can watch it any time and any where they want… literally.
For iPod, iPhone and Apple TV owners, you simply need to move the files from your Vuze folder to your iTunes folder, and then synch the files to your chosen device. So if you’re using the Apple TV you can watch the files on your TV without your computer running, and with iPods and iPhones you can use them to watch your files on the go no matter where you are.
Rumors have been circulating for some time that 
If you happen to be subscribed to the Apple education newsletter, you may have gotten a surprise in the latest issue of an unannounced addition to the iMac line.
