Buying a Slingbox finally gets you free TV streaming apps
As handy as a Slingbox can be for watching TV away from home, it’s not as good a deal as it sounds. You usually have to shell out another $15 or more just to get the Slingplayer streaming app for your phone or tablet. Sling is starting to see the light, however. It’s shipping a $200 Slingbox M2 bundle that lets you download the Slingplayer Android and iOS apps for free, not just the desktop versions. While this kit costs $50 more than what you’d pay for the M1, it’s potentially less expensive if you want apps for multiple mobile devices — especially if you’re not the only one that wants to watch. You’ll have to endure “seamlessly integrated” ads for the privilege, but that could be a small price to pay for viewing your favorite shows on every possible screen.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Slingbox
Xiaomi unveils ultra thin 9.9mm 48-inch Mi TV 2S
Xiaomi has just unveiled its Mi TV 2S, the latest model in the company’s growing Mi TV range. This new 48-inch version sits between the company’s first 49-inch TV and the 40-inch model released earlier in the year.
The Mi TV 2S is a large 48-inch TV which is capable of 60Hz 4K content decode through its HDMI 2.0a ports. The TV boats a sleek looking design with a 9.9mm super thin aluminum frame. At the launch presentation, the company also boasted about superior clarity, color and contrast compared to some TVs from rival manufacturers.
Xiaomi’s latest TV is powered by a quad-core MStar 6A928 SoC, 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory. The Mi TV 2S also comes with Xiaomi’s Android 5.0 based MIUI and a load of additional content from providers including Youku, BesTV, PPTV, and others.
As we have come to expect from Xiaomi, pricing is as competitive as ever. Mi TV 2S prices begin at Rs. 2,999 ($480) for the standard edition, while the cinema edition costs a little more at Rs. 3,999 ($645). The Mi TV 2S will be available in a wide selection of colors, including pink, blue, green and gold.
At the launch event, Xiaomi also launched a new water purifier, which complements the company’s air purifier designed for the Chinese market.
‘The Last Starfighter’ is getting a TV series with VR scenes
The Last Starfighter tested the limits of early computer-generated movie graphics, and it’s about to explore uncharted waters once again. Original writer Jonathan Betuel is developing The Starfighter Chronicles, a related TV series (about alien law enforcement, not an arcade fan turned hero) where virtual reality should play an important role. If you’re watching through a VR headset, certain scenes will have more to them than what you’d see on a regular screen — you could look around a spaceship, or see every aspect of a battle. You’re probably not going to find this on conventional TV (current broadcast tech wouldn’t allow for VR), but it would literally add a new dimension to online streams and app-based video.
The project is something of a gamble. It’s still in the early stages, and there’s no guarantee that networks or streaming sites will want to pick up a show simply because it has a VR hook. Remember how Captain Power‘s interactive TV experiment lasted for just one season? Betuel is drawing on help from online video gurus at Surreal.tv to make this real, however, and there are already “potential suitors.” If everything goes according to plan, this could give VR a foothold in the TV space… even if it’s just a nice-to-have extra.
Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment, Wearables, HD
Via: IGN
Source: Variety
Amazon to offer deals on Fire TV Sticks, Chromebooks and more during its Prime Day sale
Amazon has been gearing up to offer Prime customers a ton of great savings during its big Prime Day Sale, which officially kicks off tomorrow. The company claims that this 24-hour sale will be bigger than Black Friday, and after checking out some of the deals that will be available tomorrow, we’d have to agree. The online retailer has just outed a list of deals that will go live tomorrow, covering a wide range of product categories.
The notable items on sale tomorrow include the Fire TV Stick, Fire HD 7 and HD 7 Kids Edition tablets, Kindle e-reader, Chromebooks, and even a pack of Amazon gift cards. Here’s a list of just some of the deals you can take advantage of tomorrow:
- Fire TV Stick, fastest selling Amazon device of all time, $15 off
- Kindle, $30 off
- Fire HD 7, $60 off
- Fire HD 7 Kids Edition, $60 off
- 32-inch LED TV, $75
- 40-inch 1080p LED TV, $115
- Brand-name 32-inch Smart HDTV, under $200
- 50-inch 4K TV bundle, under $1000
- Bose headphones at the lowest price ever on Amazon
- Chromebook laptop, only $199
- Over 50% off two Nikon COOLPIX cameras
- Connected Car and Scan Tool products starting at 60% off
- Road-trip-ready automotive products starting at 50% off
- Buy an Amazon.com Gift Card multipack, get $10 in Amazon.com promotional credit
- Get 25% bonus Amazon Coins when you buy 5,000 or 10,000 Amazon Coins
- Prime Now will also offer deals in the six cities where the service is offered
Remember, you must be an Amazon Prime member to get access to these deals. Haven’t signed up for your subscription yet? Fear not, because Amazon will let you sign up for a one-month free trial to the premium shopping service. If you’re interested, head to the link below to enroll.
Amazon Prime Day begins tonight at midnight PT, so don’t miss out!
Join the Celebration:
- Transparent Red Carpet Experience: Amazon customers in the US, UK and Germany will have a chance to win a trip to the Transparent Season 2 premiere this fall. One winner and a guest from each country will receive round-trip airfare, hotel stay and transportation as well as a chance to meet the cast and creators from the Golden Globe-winning Amazon Original Series. For a chance to win in the US visit:amazon.com/redcarpet.
- Listen to Win: Prime members in the US who listen to any song on Prime Music will automatically be entered to win up-to $25,000 in Amazon Gift Cards. Prime members can stream a song, an album or listen to any Prime Station or Playlist for a chance to win Amazon.com Gift Card prizes, ranging from $1,000 to the Grand Prize of $25,000 in Amazon.com Gift Cards. For a chance to win visit: amazon.com/listentowin-rules.
Deals Preview: The following are examples of some of the deals that will be available at various times throughout Prime Day.
- Fire TV Stick, fastest selling Amazon device of all time, $15 off
- Kindle, $30 off
- Fire HD 7, $60 off
- Fire HD 7 Kids Edition, $60 off
- 32-inch LED TV, $75
- 40-inch 1080p LED TV, $115
- Brand-name 32-inch Smart HDTV, under $200
- 50-inch 4K TV bundle, under $1000
- Bose headphones at the lowest price ever on Amazon
- Chromebook laptop, only $199
- Over 50% off two Nikon COOLPIX cameras
- Highly rated binoculars, under $120
- Two security camera-kits, $279.99
- K’NEX 2-in-1 Ferris Wheel Building Set (Amazon Exclusive), $35.99
- K’NEX Crossfire Chaos Roller Coaster Building Set (Amazon Exclusive), $23.99
- Playskool Heroes Transformers Rescue Bots Optimus Prime Figure (Amazon Exclusive), $9.99
- iRobot Roomba Pet Vacuum Cleaning Robot, under $300
- Husqvarna mower, under $300
- 40 lightning deals on DVDs up to 75% off
- Up to 50% off any of the Harry Potter books
- Save more than 70% on the Divergent Series Complete Box Set of books
- Save up to 70% on select kitchen products from top brands like Cuisinart, KitchenAid, Foodsaver and Thermos
- Save up to 50% on select tools for the DIY auto enthusiast
- Connected Car and Scan Tool products starting at 60% off
- Road-trip-ready automotive products starting at 50% off
- Save more than 50% on Drinkwell Platinum Pet Fountain
- 30% off select clothing, shoes, jewelry, watches & more
- 60% off Amazon Elements Baby Wipes with code ELEMENTS60
- Free luxury beauty sample box with $50 purchase of luxury beauty products, with promo code LUXSAMPLES
- Buy an Amazon.com Gift Card multipack, get $10 in Amazon.com promotional credit
- Get 25% bonus Amazon Coins when you buy 5,000 or 10,000 Amazon Coins
- Prime Now will also offer deals in the six cities where the service is offered
#PrimeLiving Photo Contest: Through July 15, members are invited to snap a photo of #PrimeLiving moments and upload them atamazon.com/primeliving for the chance to win $10,000 in Amazon Gift Cards. To learn more about the #PrimeLiving photo contest and get inspiration from artists around the world, watch here.
Prime Personalities: Amazon invites customers to take a quiz to discover what kind of Prime member they are, and enter for the chance to win a $2,000 Amazon.com Gift Card. No purchase necessary. See contest rules at amzn.to/QUIZ.
Deals on the go: Prime members can shop Prime Day deals on any device, including smartphones and tablets and find deals anytime, anywhere.
It’s a great time to try Prime: Anyone can sign up for Prime and participate in Prime Day, eligible customers can sign up for a 30-day free trial of Prime at amazon.com/primeday.
More to Prime
Amazon Prime is an annual membership program for $99 a year that offers customers unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 20 million items across all categories, unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes, more than one million songs, more than one thousand playlists and hundreds of stations with Prime Music, early access to select lightning deals all year long, free secure, unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive with Prime Photos and access to more than 800,000 books to borrow with the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Members in more than 500 cities times also receive unlimited Free Same-Day Delivery on more than a million items. In addition Prime members in Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Brooklyn, Dallas, Manhattan and Miami and even London receive one and two hour delivery on a selection of tens of thousands of everyday essentials with the dedicated Prime Now mobile app. Not a member? Start a free trial of Amazon Prime atamazon.com/primeday.
About Amazon
Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire phone, Fire tablets, Fire TV, and Amazon Echo are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon.
TiVo’s iOS app now sends video to your Apple TV
Have one of TiVo’s DVRs in the living room, but would rather not get another one of its devices just to watch recordings in the basement? If you use Apple devices at home, you no longer have to. TiVo has updated its iOS app with (long, long overdue) AirPlay mirroring support, so you can send your recorded shows to an Apple TV as long as everything is on the same local network. You’ll need a Premiere, Roamio Plus, Roamio Pro or Stream device for AirPlay to even be an option, so don’t get your hopes up if you’re hanging on to old hardware. Still, this a big step forward — you now have an easy way to catch up on missed episodes without having a TiVo-based set-top attached to your TV of choice.
Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD
Source: App Store
Test run paves the way for over-the-air 4K TV
You may not have to pony up for a streaming video service (or any service, for that matter) to get 4K video on your TV in the future. GatesAir, LG and Zenith have started field-testing Futurecast, a system that promises to drag over-the-air TV into the modern era. Thanks to HEVC video compression as well as boosts to overall throughput, the technology can stuff both 4K and two mobile broadcasts into a relatively small 6MHz frequency range. With enough bandwidth, you’d only need a set of rabbit ears to watch at least a few basic channels in Ultra HD.
Don’t rush to snag a 4K TV just yet. So far, Futurecast mostly exists as a bunch of technologies that will hopefully be rolled into the next-generation ATSC 3.0 standard. It’ll take some time before that standard is ready to go, and a while after that before you can buy a supporting set. Still, it’s good to know that plain HD will no longer be as good as it gets when you’re watching for free.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, LG
Source: LG Newsroom
Quentin Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’ will premiere in 70mm film
It’s no secret that Quentin Tarantino prefers film over digital, and he’s underscoring that point with the planned debut of The Hateful Eight. The director kicked off a San Diego Comic-Con panel with a video revealing that his Western was not only shot on giant 65mm film, but will screen in 70mm film before any other format. This will be a roadshow-style release where 100 theaters will put on a special show that might even recall the golden era of film, with overtures and intermissions. It’ll expand to other formats after two weeks.
As for why Tarantino didn’t go with smaller film stock? He argues that 70mm is good not just for dramatic outdoor vistas, but also for indoor scenes. It makes them “more intimate [and] more vital,” which is important when The Hateful Eight is mostly set in one building in Wyoming. Tarantino adds that he also saw 70mm as a bargaining chip that would keep his movie on film. “I figured if I shoot in 70, they’ll have to release it in 70,” he says.
Not that he’s completely averse to joining the modern era. At the Comic-Con panel, he explained that he saw digital projection as “HBO in public.” If he eventually has no choice but to shoot in a TV-like digital medium, he might as well cut the middleman and produce for TV. It’s just as well, he adds — this would give him an opportunity to shoot larger stories instead of cutting things down for the movie theater. There’s no indication that Tarantino is about to make a career switch (he notes that any talk of him calling it quits is premature), but you now know where he’d go if celluloid went away.
[Image credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP]
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: io9, MoviemaniacsDE (YouTube)
Watch a TV documentary about YouTube at 10PM Eastern
YouTube may be one of the big reasons to ditch conventional TV, but that isn’t stopping the National Geographic Channel from putting YouTube on TV. The network is airing Generation YouTube, a documentary on the origins and cultural impact of the streaming video site, on July 11th (tonight, if you’re reading this soon enough) at 10PM Eastern. As you can see in the teaser clip, the show underscores YouTube’s very humble beginnings — it was going to be an online dating site at one point, and it didn’t take off until it embraced that upload-what-you-want philosophy. If you’ve wondered how YouTube got to the point where it’s creating internet memes and supporting whole careers, you’ll probably want to tune in.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/videos/youtubes-origin-story/embed/
Via: Tubefilter
Source: National Geographic Channel
Recommended Reading: Science fiction’s influence on hip-hop music
Recommended Reading highlights the best long-form writing on technology and more in print and on the web. Some weeks, you’ll also find short reviews of books that we think are worth your time. We hope you enjoy the read.
The Subversive Science Fiction of Hip-Hop
by Rose Eveleth
Motherboard
I’d never really thought about all of the science fiction references in hip-hop until I read Rose Eveleth’s piece for Motherboard that pointed out all of the ties. I listen to a lot of hip-hop, but for some reason, all of the mentions of sci-fi stuff — from superheroes to dystopia and our human limits — only got a passing glance from me. This offers a solid look at all of the crossover and serves as further proof that nerdery is universal.
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Streaming Music Has an Offline Problem In a time of data caps and battery woes, being able to play music from streaming services that you pay for monthly is a must. Unfortunately, the experience as it stands is rather messy. |
Let’s Explore the Corrupt Town that Inspired ‘True Detective’ No, the city of Vinci, California, in True Detective season 2 isn’t real. However, it was inspired by a real place, and this piece offers the back story. |
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Why Tomorrow’s Best Digital Experiences Will Feel Analog The use of natural materials on our devices is becoming ever popular. Wood, leather and more have all made an appearance, and their inclusion could change how we relate to our gadgets. |
Inside Amazon’s Warehouse, Human-Robot Symbiosis Can humans and robots work together? Amazon is looking to find out inside its new warehouse where automation and old-fashioned elbow grease are being put to work side by side. |
[Image credit: Jim Dyson/Redferns]
Filed under: Misc
Amazon’s Fling is its version of AirPlay and Google Cast
If you’ve been hoping for an AirPlay or Cast-like tool to beam content to your Amazon streaming gadgets, you’ll soon be in luck. The company revealed its Fling feature this week, a tool that will allow developers to include a way to control media from a mobile device on your Fire TV. Right now, the software will let you send video, audio and still images from an Android or iOS device to the set-top box (or dongle, we’d surmise) for viewing. Devs can also employ “two-way communication” between the Fire TV and a phone or tablet to “engaging second screen experiences.”
The company released an SDK so eager app makers can get started, and Karaoke Party and Rivet Radio are among the first selections to employ the tech. Rather than building the tool into it’s OS like Apple and Google, Amazon is allowing app developers to add in Fling as they wish. Amazon’s mobile devices run a version Google’s operating system after all, and some folks who own its streaming gear probably also own an iOS or Android device. That being said, it’ll be interesting to see if the likes of Netflix, Hulu and others will decide to opt in.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Software, HD, Mobile, Amazon
Via: CNET
Source: Amazon
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