July 2013

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Google Launches The $35 Chromecast Streaming Device To Bring Chrome To The Living Room

24 July 2013 8:39 PM

Meet the Chromecast. As the name suggests, it’s powered by Chrome and is designed to bring Google’s browser/OS to the biggest screen in the house.

The Chromecast is designed first to be a streaming device. It’s supposed to be the easiest way to get YouTube and Google Play and Netflix and Pandora and photos on HDTVs. Think Apple TV, but rather Google TV with another name (because, well, Google TV is already a thing).

The Chromecast is the first expansion of the Chrome operating system out of traditional forms of computing. Up until now, Chrome OS was a desktop operating system, designed for use on a laptop or monitor. Google retooled it for the living room and tapped mobile operating systems to provide the content.

Chromecast

Chromecast Streaming

The Chromecast uses an AirPlay-type system to provide content to the device. From Android or iOS, users simply hit a button on YouTube to load the video on the other screen. Quick and easy.

Chromecast is essentially Google’s answer to AirPlay. But it’s available on more than just one platform. It also features group playlists, continues playing the media back while the phone is doing other things and even streams while the device is asleep. The big downside is that, as of right now, this feature requires the Chromecast device — it’s not available on countless devices like AirPlay. At least not yet.

Best yet, any device can be the controller. Start a video on one device, turn it off, and another device can still control the video started. It appears to be seamless.

Desktops connected to the same network can also act as a controller. Click the cast button, the video will play and the computer will continue to play the media as it does other tasks.

The device itself is a small HDMI stick similar to the Roku Steaming Stick. It’s powered by USB and Google TV VP Mario Queiroz bragged that it features quick and easy setup.

The Chromecast is just $35 USD and is available today in the U.S only.

Outlook Web App comes to iOS devices in native form

17 July 2013 1:55 AM
Outlook Web App (c) M

Outlook Web App. (c) Microsoft Corporation

It hasn’t been hard to get Exchange support on iOS devices, but there’s some for whom third-party apps and web clients just won’t do. Microsoft has them covered today. – It just repackaged the Outlook Web App as a pair of native iOS releases. Both OWA for iPad and OWA for iPhone deliver email, calendar and contacts to Office 365 subscribers with access to Exchange Online. The developer is quick to note that this isn’t a recreation of the Windows Phone environment, and there are a few elements borrowed from Outlook’s web version. Still, we see a few reasons to give OWA a try: the native iOS software sends push notifications, takes voice commands, and supports both passcodes as well as remote wipes. Between the new apps and Office for iPhone, it’s clear that iOS users are now welcome in Microsoft’s world.

Source: Engadget

Apple set to buy Kinect technology for £185m

16 July 2013 6:18 PM
xBox Kinect

Microsoft xBox 360 – Kinect

Apple is set to drop £185m on Kinect-style technology, according to new reports.

Calcalist reports Apple is prepared to fork out $280 (£185) million for the company behind the sensor technology in the motion-detecting Kinect gaming accessory for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and forthcoming Xbox One.

Probably the most likely candidate in the Apple portfolio to be Kinect-ed up is Apple TV — or rather Apple’s long-rumoured reinvention of the humble telly. Inevitably — but problematically, at least in the UK — dubbed iTV, the hotly-anticipated Apple take on TV could be controlled by hand gestures if the buy goes ahead.

Israel-based company PrimeSense is involved in the sensor technology that powers the arm-flailing Kinect, which reads your movements and translates it into movement or control in the game you’re playing.

Microsoft was happy to license the technology from PrimeSense for Kinect, but Apple is having none of that carry-on. With a mountain of cash in the iVaults, Apple is set to fork out for the whole kit and caboodle instead.

If Apple does assimilate PrimeSense into the fruit-flavoured Cupertino collective, it’s unclear what that’ll mean for other companies licensing PrimeSense tech, such as Asus, iRobot and many more.

Source: CNET UK