Thursday, April 3, 2014
Jw Player Begins Beta Testing For Chromecast Support To Bring more Web Content To Users
Chromecast is starting to ramp up its functionality as more and more apps become equipped with Chromecast support, and soon the Chromecast will even be better equipped to handle tons more web video content online. While you can already cast from the web to your Chromecast via the tab casting feature, or the beta cast entire desktop feature, it still isn’t quite the same as having official support for casting hosted web videos. That’s where the popular flash and HTML5 video player called JW player comes in, announcing today that it’s beginning a beta program for testing Chromecast support with it. This could end up opening up the Chromecast to much more content through the web than we have available now as many sites already use JW player to host videos.
Right now there is a limited number of official Chromecast partner apps that Google themselves has set up, and an influx of new supported apps are making their way into the hands of many users as the Google cast SDK was made open to the public and developers earlier this year. There is a decent number of media streaming options available to users of the HDMI dongle but when it comes to web content the support is fairly limited. YouTube has Chromecast support built into its website now but when it comes to other types of flash media and HTML videos from other sites, the support is somewhat lacking.
For those who may not know, the Chromecast is a tiny media streaming dongle from Google that you can plug into the HDMI port on a tv or monitor, to stream videos, and music, and other content to that device over the Wifi network in your home. The device costs just $35 on Amazon, and it’s small, lightweight, and easily portable. Having even more content through JW player makes the value for those who get their video content from the web that much higher. While today marks the opening of even more web video content to Chromecast users, JW has stated that they are limiting the beta testing to a handful of publishers who already use their video players, while they plan to open up access to the rest of the publishers who use their players later on.
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Google Said To Be Contemplating An Entry Into The Wireless Network
Google Fiber is slowly but surely beginning to make its way into more areas, and Google has already plotted out many more cities that it plans, or at least hopes, to roll out Fiber to in the future. There may be more to Google’s interest in Fiber than just offering customers extremely high speed internet at competitive rates though, as there are reports that Google may be interested in and already looking into the possibility of rolling out a wireless network in the areas where Google Fiber is already live. The word is that Google has already approached at least two existing wireless carriers here in the US, Verizon and Sprint, with talks on the Sprint side happening sometime last year before the official Softbank buyout had finalized, and Verizon talks happening sometime in the beginning of this year.
Right now there are only two cities where Google has already either rolled Fiber out to completely or has at least begun the process. Kansas City, MO and Provo, UT and Austin, TX is planned to get the next rollout, with other major cities like Portland, OR and San Jose, CA on the list of places where Google would like to see Fiber make its debut in those areas. Although they already compete with wireless carriers to some degree with video chat through hangouts and Google Voice VOIP, having a proper wireless network to offer customers another option to high priced competitors like ATT and Verizon would put them in direct competition.
The source suggests that Google could be looking to have their wireless network partner up with wireless access points, which might be part of the reason behind the deal with Starbucks locations where internet access is provided by Google. With wireless hotspots available from Starbucks in the areas where Fiber is already provided, customers could seemingly move between the wireless network and the wifi hotspots for cell signal and coverage much like the wifi calling features of T-mobile and now Sprint. It’s unclear if this was their goal from the start but it wouldn’t be a bad idea. With Google rolling its Voice service features and functions into Hangouts, we have to wonder if they would be looking into some way to give customers a seamless transition between a regular call and a hangout call when users move from the network to a hotspot. It’s probably highly unlikely but just some interesting food for thought.
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Moto G Forte Announced, A More Durable Moto G
Over the weekend, @evleaks leaked out the Moto G Forte which is a new smartphone from Motorola built off of the success of the Moto G. It’s primarily for South America, at least for now. The specs on the Moto G Forte are the same as in the Moto G, so we’re still looking at a 4.5-inch 720p LCD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 2020mAh battery, and 8GB or 16GB of internal storage. The only real difference here is the more rugged shell that Motorola has put on it. This new shell doesn’t make the device water resistant or dust proof, just merely makes it more rugged to protect you from accidental drops. Which we all have been victims of, whether we are clumsy or have just been bumped into while holding our phone and dropped it.
So far there’s no word on price for the Moto G Forte, but I’d expect it to be right around the Moto G’s pricing, and it’ll probably sell pretty well for Motorola. Additionally, we have no information about it leaving Latin America, so we are unsure whether we’ll see it in the US, Europe and other countries. It’ll be interesting to see if it does. What would be great, however, is if Motorola puts this new rugged shell on the Moto G Forte into their store so those with the Moto G can pick one up for their Moto G and turn it into a Moto G Forte, sounds like a good idea right? And another way for Motorola to bring in some more money, I think. There’s also no pricing announced just yet.
The Moto G Forte is a nice looking device, and I’m sure those in Mexico are going to love it. If you are in Mexico, are you planning on picking put the Moto G Forte?
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HTC Posts Kernel Source for Pretty Much Every Variant of the HTC One (M8)
Every time a new device launches from the likes of HTC, Samsung, Sony, LG etc with custom software on top of Android, developer’s can’t wait to get their hands on the kernel source for these devices. With Kernel source, developers we all know and love can create custom Kernels, help build better custom ROMs and generally help us get the most out of our shiny new devices. HTC has been one of the better supporters of the Android community over the years and while they’ve had some hiccups along the way, they still uphold their end of the bargain when it comes to the GPL.
Over at HTCDev, Kernel source as well as some framework files are now available for download. Covering carriers and variants all over the world, there are downloads available for the UK and European versions of the M8 as well as all US carriers aside from T-Mobile (which is yet to even release the new One). These downloads aren’t going to be of much fun for the average joe, but then again they’re not meant to be. Required for Kernel development and such, the source code here will help people start to develop ROMs and more for the HTC One (M8).
Over the years, HTC has done a pretty good job of uploading their end of the bargain with Open Source software and for those lucky Europeans on the other side of the Atlantic, you can even unlock your bootloaders using HTCDev, making it even easier to enjoy the hard work of developers from XDA Developers and RootzWiki. Hopefully, we start to see some familiar faces like CyanogenMod and ParanoidAndroid on the M8 soon, as we all like a diverse choice of software to run on our devices. For those of you out there that wish to tinker with the code, you can download the source at the source link (get it?) and let us know how you get on! Happy Hacking folks!
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What Does Samsung Need to do to Keep The Top Spot?
Like many other OEMs Samsung started by copying what was proven to work when it comes to smartphones. This got them into some trouble with Apple, which ended in a patent lawsuit, but no matter what Apple did to Samsung, the damage was already done. Samsung showed consumers that Apple wasn’t the only company who could produce a smart phone. This strategy of using what has been proven in the market, as well as adding a few innovations of their own, has launched Samsung into the number one spot for Android smartphones, and number two over all second only to Apple. The problem Samsung is faced with now, is how to keep that spot, or better yet, overtake Apple. The key to that goal will be innovation. Let’s take a brief look into technology strategies that have been used, and where they have succeeded and failed.
Companies that seem to copy others when producing their products are commonly refered to as “fast-followers”. These companies play it safe by using technology that has been proven in their respective fields. Sometimes these companies can produce products that copy, but add just enough of their own spin to become successful. Other times, this system doesn’t work and the company quickly flops. Take Sony for example, they started during World War II, making tape recorders, a technology that was already being made by others. Almost ten years later, Sony was able to make a mass market transistor radio. That simple innovation launched Sony on their way to becoming a very respectable company. Sony was able to turn that success into product firsts, like the Playstation and the Walkman.
This strategy doesn’t always work, in fact, it fails more often than not, like the company Zynga. Zynga started making games that were essentially copies of Facebook’s and other mobile games. Problem is, they couldn’t keep up, so this strategy quickly failed, and that showed when Zynga went public. Currently, the stock has gone down 57% from where they started when they first went public. Another example would be Microsoft, who did the very same thing as Samsung. Copy other companies in some aspects, while sprinkling in their own innovations, just enough to seem different. You may know that Microsoft also couldn’t keep up with technology and is now falling behind. Luckily for Samsung, this strategy has worked for them, though they may never fully admit to this ever being their strategy. It is however, just the way things work and almost every startup company will follow this guideline. So now that Samsung is in the top spot, they need to focus on keeping that spot.
It isn’t easy anymore for Samsung to wait for others to test the waters with an idea. Instead, Samsung needs to be the trend setter, making their innovations the things that smaller OEMs want to copy. Samsung Chairman, Lee Kun Hee, gave a speech to employees last year saying they need, “a bigger push for innovations, including in business structure, so that we can lead industry trends.” This means that Samsung needs to change the way they work inside and out, essentially they are in uncharted territory without a plan.
Some suggestions have been thrown out into the air by Horace Dediu, who runs a mobile consulting firm called Asymco. According to Dediu, “Innovation today is something that involves a systems-wide approach. Fundamentally, I cannot see [Samsung succeeding] unless Samsung goes into the software-and-services business. Software and services is where all the action is.” That brings us to Tizen, a software developed by Samsung. The development of Tizen is behind schedule, partially because of Samsung relying on the same strategy they did before. Google had to call Samsung out because they seemed to be adding features of Tizen into Android on their devices. This was an attempt to make the switch from Android to Tizen easier. Though Google wasn’t a fan of that happening, and put a stop to it real quick. Like Samsung, we are left to wonder what they have to offer that can keep them in the top spot. If they don’t come up with something soon, we may see other companies take the lead, or what could be terrible for all of us, Apple growth. What do you think it will take for Samsung to keep the top spot, will they need to innovate in software as well as design, or will design and features be enough?
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HTC One M8 Google Play Edition Now Shipping
The HTC One M8 was announced last week, and not only did HTC announce a beautiful device with some very awesome features – review coming soon – but they also launched it in Verizon stores and Carphone Warehouse stores in the US and UK respectively the same day. That has never happened before. Not even with Apple. Typically manufacturers announce a phone and then it’s available a few weeks later. Or if you’re Apple it’s about 10 days later. HTC also announced the Unlocked, Developer and Google Play Editions all at the same time, and they were also available for order the day of the announcement, as well as pre-orders for the T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint variants. Which to me is a pretty big deal. The HTC One M8 will be hitting carriers stores on April 10-11th, although it appears that HTC One M8 Google Play Edition is shipping from Google Play right now.
The Google Play Edition of the new HTC One is going for about $700, and according to the Google Play page it leaves the warehouse on April 15th. However we are getting reports that some of them are shipping out now, likely to arrive early next week. The Google Play Edition is basically stripping out the Sense 6.0 – or Sixth Sense as HTC calls it – and replaces it with just stock Android. Which is a great thing, but at that price, it’s hard to recommend the Google Play Edition over the Sense version, since the Sense version is a bit cheaper.
Anyways, those that are interested in picking up the HTC One M8 Google Play Edition, it’s shipping out now – reportedly. So if you’ve got $699 plus tax to throw down on a new device, be my guest and head over to the Play Store now and order your own Google Play Edition of this amazing smartphone. How many of you ordered a HTC One M8 Google Play Edition?
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