 Apple is bringing its music-in-the-cloud service, iTunes Match, to 19 more countries scattered throughout Latin America and Europe.
Today Apple has brought the total number of countries that have iTunes Match to 37. The 19 new countries include Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Guatemala, Honduras, Latvia, Lithuania, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. To make the rollout even better, some of these countries just recently received the iTunes Music Store, so now they get all the same options in terms of music as everyone else soon after they get access to it. The new users will be able to store they iTunes Music library in iCloud, no matter how they obtained them. The iTunes Match service will also upgrade most songs to a 256kbps AAC file as if you purchased them in iTunes itself. The service still costs $24.99 or equivalent. Read [SlashGear]   In an industry that has at least one studio forcing consumers to buy DVDs before getting the chance to rent them, Lionsgate is doing the opposite. Today, Lionsgate released the film Abduction on Facebook. Today also marks the film’s DVD and Blu-ray release.
A two-day rental for Abduction costs $3.99 and doesn’t require the use of Facebook Credits. Lionsgate is likely testing the waters to see if releasing rentals on Facebook will be lucrative. Facebook has over 800 million users, so it’s certainly a good place to start. Right now, Facebook isn’t known as a movie-watching destination, but the social network is evolving every day to become a one-stop-shop for media consumption. Facebook’s Open Graph platform could also push movie rentals since our friend’s activities will be automatically published to the live ticker. If Facebook were to allow friends to gather and watch a single movie together at the same time, rentals have a chance at really taking off. For now, movie rentals on Facebook are restricted to the few that are aware of its existence. Via [Facebook]  
For those of you who planning to get the LG Cinema 3D Smart TV, here’s something that might excite you some more and finally get the said home entertainment device. Nuance, has just announced that its new Dragon TV platform is now powering the voice recognition feature of the LG Magic Remote which is used for the Smart TV. With Nuance Dragon voice recognition, you can now simply speak to the LG Magic Remote to find, discover and access movies, music and games. The new feature of LG Remote via Nuance Dragon TV platform will initially support US English, American Spanish, Canadian French and Korean. Additionally, the LG Magic Remote will also let you search for web content by keywords or phrase, or access social media content on Facebook or YouTube. The LG Magic Remote will be available this quarter while Dragon TV is now available for TV manufacturers and subscription TV operators. It supports Linux, Android and iOS platforms. Via [Nuance]   CES always sees an abundance of celebrities appearing at the show. Most of the celebrities at the show were highly touted and drew huge crowds at their respective booths. Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater didn’t draw the crowds that Justin Beiber, Snooki, or 50 Cent, but unlike those others he was actually demoing products.
Jordan Rudess was performing at the iConnectivity booth at CES, showing off some of his iPad apps, MoprhWiz and Geo Synthesizer. The two iPads were connected to the iConnectMIDI along with a few keyboards. The first video below shows Rudess playing on his iPad apps, while the second has him playing an original song on the tiny keyboard which he wrote specifically for CES 2012. Since I’m not a musician I can’t really speak too much to the benefits of the iConnectMIDI, but it is pretty cool that it allowed Rudess to connect two iPads to his setup. With all the cool iOS apps that help create music, I can see that it should be a pretty great device for musicians. 
 
With more and more users using their smartphones for sharing pictures with family and friends, their data costs also continue to increase. This is the reason why Walmart and T-Mobile has upgraded the Walmart Family Mobile plan by adding unlimited web surfing feature. If you’ve subscribed to the said plan, the unlimited web adds to the unlimited talk and text feature and so the plan now gives you even more value for your money. For $45 monthly, you’ll be able to enjoy all three unlimited services for your first Walmart Family Mobile plan and $35 per month for additional lines. This plan is available now from Walmart.com. Additionally, for those getting the plan starting now and until March 16, Walmart is offering 5GB per month per line at up to 3G speeds. This promo will last until March 31, after which for customers who will activate the plan will enjoy the first 250MB per month per line at up to 3G speeds. If you and your family are still not connected to the web via your mobile phones. I think now is the right time to do so and you might want to check out the Walmart Family Mobile plan offerings. Via [Walmart]  
Play.com, a United Kingdom based retailer, is listing the sleek Sony Xperia S as launching on January 30th. Despite being announced by Sony at CES 2012, the Xperia S — previously known as the Nozomi — was not given a launch date. Previous evidence suggested a launch in early March, but if Play.com’s information proves to be correct, then interested customers can get their hands on the Xperia S as early as January 30th. As of now, Play.com is accepting pre-orders on the Xperia S for £449.99 or about $693, which is expensive, but you are purchasing a solid, high-end smartphone. In terms of specs, the Sony Xperia S features a 4.3 inch HD touch screen display, Android 2.3, NFC, 12MP rear facing camera, 1080p video recording, a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, and a promised upgrade to Android 4.0 later in the year. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait for an official announcement by Sony confirming its ultimate launch date and pricing information, but at least Play.com is giving us something to go on. Via [UnwiredView]   A new way to log-in to your Google started gaining popularity around the web over the past couple days. It was called “Sesame” and it allowed anyone with a QR code scanner on their phone to log into their accounts on computers that may not have been totally secure. Sadly, Sesame was just an experiment and is no longer available to use.
Here’s how it all worked. Let’s say you were using a public computer at a library or school and wanted to log-in to your Google account. The problem is that you might not have felt comfortable inputting your credentials into a computer that may have keylogging software installed. To get around this, you would go to a Google-created website that displays a QR code. After scanning that code with your phone, you would be taken to a sign-in page on your phone where you could input your username and password. The PC you were working on would then automatically log you into your Google account. It was a bit of a mystery why Google didn’t make a big fuss over this, but now we know why. The page that used to present the log-in QR code says “we constantly experiment with new and more secure authentication mechanisms.” Maybe a new method to sign-in to Google will pick up where Sesame left off. Site [Google Sesame]  
Google+ has rolled out its silliest, and possibly best feature yet. We can now create memes from within Google+ and share them with the public or select circles. All you have to do is drag a photo into the share box in Google+, and select the option to add text. If you don’t see that option, the feature probably hasn’t made its way to you yet. The meme feature should be available to everyone within the next few days. If you’ve spent a reasonable amount of time on the internet, you’ve most likely seen memes floating around. They’re basically photos with insightful or hilarious text superimposed onto them. Even the most mundane photos can become fantastic memes if they’re in the hands of the right person. Google+’s meme generator includes a lot different fonts. You can also rotate and resize the text to your liking. The meme you see above is my reaction to Sony’s glasses-free 3D VAIO desktop concept. I’m just happy I was able to use this picture for something. Via [Google+]  
The question was asked rather simply, “When will ICS be available for the original Transformer?” And well, Asus quickly responded with the appropriate update. Sadly though, it does not appear as if they have anything solid to offer in terms of when. According to Asus, the update will be available “soon.” Stating further that the update is in the “process of being approved by google.” That being said, while it is nice to see that it is in the works — it looks like there is still some waiting to be done. Via [Asus on Facebook] and [SlashGear]  
It looks like Rovio Mobile has begun teasing the upcoming Angry Birds Seasons update. The company has released a short teaser video (which you can see below) and has noted that the update will arrive on January 20th as the “Year of the Dragon.” That being said, as we have seen in the past, the update will be free for those who have already downloaded/purchased the app. Otherwise, those looking to make the purchase can expect to shell out $0.99 for the iPhone/iPod touch version, $1.99 for the (HD) iPad version and $0.00 for the Android version. With that, the Year of the Dragon version of Angry Birds Seasons can be found using the following links; [iOS App Store (regular version)] and [iOS App Store (HD version)] and [Android Market] 
 | |
| Your requested content delivery powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 9 Thoreau Way, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA. +1.978.776.9498 |
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:43:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:43:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:43:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:43:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:43:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:44:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:45:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:45:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:45:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:45:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:45:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:45:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:45:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:45:00 AM
--
Posted By e Readers Tips to
e Readers Reviews at 1/18/2012 01:45:00 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment