Smojo Speaks

Justin.tv Broadcasting App Released for Android

smojo — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:03:35 +0000

Justin.tv has been a major player in streaming video for over 4 years now. When the website first came online the purpose was streaming mobile video with a web cam, small laptop and a mobile broadband card. Now 4 years later JTV is finally releasing their 1st application on a mobile phone platform. Today the Justin.tv application was released to the android market. Being a lifecaster just became a whole lot easier. Maybe we should start calling is droidcasting since it is coming from an android phone.

Justin.tv Broadcaster Android App

The Justin.tv application is currently available to all android phones running android 1.6, 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2. It is a very simple application to use. Just log into your Justin.tv account, choose which social network you want to share your broadcast with and then hit the giant red record button. Within seconds you are streaming live video to your Justin.tv channel. Also included in the app is chat. Currently you can only broadcast with the application but the guys over at Justin.tv are hard at work building in the ability to watch video on the phone which would make this app so much more epic. The entire Justin.tv experience inside one application would be awesome. It is coming and hopefully it is out very soon.
The following video is narrated by the one and only Justin Kan. He gives you a little demo of how everything works in the new application. Don’t mind his voice. He thinks he could have been a voice over person for movies. After this video I am going to say he has no future is voice work.

For more information on the application you can head on over to justin.tv/p/android. The application can be found on the android market for the great price of free.

HTC EVO 4G looks like a winner.

smojo — Sat, 01 May 2010 17:43:26 +0000

Here is a little demo of HTC’s new phone called the Evo. It will be coming out sometime in the summer. I’m hoping for a June release date. This will be my next phone when I make the switch to Sprint.
HTC Evo Features:
a 4.3-inch 800×480 capacitive TFT touchscreen with multitouch capabilities out of the box;
Android 2.1 OS with HTC Sense UI;
8-megapixel camera with LED flash and 720p HD video recording;
1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video conferences;
1GB of flash memory where you can install apps;
512MB RAM;
1GHz Snapdragon processor;
802.11b/g WiFi;
GPS/aGPS with free turn-by-turn navigation;
Bluetooth 2.1 A2DP + EDR;
4G WiMAX technology / 3G EV-DO REV A;
FM Radio;
HDMI out port;
3.5mm headset jack;
microUSB port;
8GB microSD card out of the box (expandable up to 32GB);
Digital compass, G-sensor, Proximity sensor, and a Light Sensor;
1500mAh battery;
Kickstand on its back.

Missing the Killer App in Location Networks

smojo — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:17:46 +0000

Check in and let your friends and followers know where you are at and what you are doing. Location-based social networks have gained popularity over the past year. Lots of different sites to choose from in the mobile check-in space. With all the various networks out there it is becoming harder to keep up with your friends on each network. 3 of the major location networks are foursquare, gowalla, and brightkite. All great networks and all have distinguishing features. Foursquare which just past 1 million users has mayors, badges and to-do lists. Gowalla has items and trips. Brightkite has the location feeds with photos and notes. If you are a user of all 3 it is a pain to go into each one individually to check yourself in and also keep up on what your friends are doing.

What is missing from the mobile check-in world is an application that brings all the services together and lets you see what is going on with ALL your friends. Most people are only going to check into 1 network. Creating some sort of mash-up app would lead to more usage of these sites. So listing where your friends are currently would be feature numero uno. The ability to check into the different sites would also be a no brainer to have in this application. Most of these networks also have tons of city data that can be pulled in to show where the hot spots are currently in a certain area. That is what I want. Someone build it and make location-based social networking easier on myself and the world.

Bye Bye N900. I’m returning you.

smojo — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 07:11:20 +0000

The N900 is a phone and mobile computer all rolled into 1 device. I started to fall in love with it after seeing so many videos on youtube showing off all the things it was capable of doing. The specs of it are awesome too. So I did something that I

Google Phone…My next phone?

smojo — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:25:16 +0000

It has been 12 months since my last phone purchase. For a year I've been using the HTC Dream aka G1. The phone's been awesome to use and it has been fun to watch the evolution of android. The G1 is a special phone because it was not only the 1st andr

Cutting Out Cable Television. My Alternatives.

smojo — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:09:04 +0000

Over 2 weeks have passed since I called up Cox Communications and told them to cancel my cable television service. You would think that this would be a hard transition for someone like me. Considering almost my whole life I have lived with cable tv.

Saying adios to CableTV. A long relationship ends.

smojo — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 05:53:35 +0000

Well Cable we have had a long and at times fun relationship. I can remember in my younger years spending all my time watching Nickelodeon sitting 2 feet away from the TV. I can still remember when I actually watched MTV. As I look back on my many years of having cable tv one thing really sticks out which is I don’t watch that many channels. At the moment I normally stick to a few channels. Comedy Central for shows like Southpark, Futurama, Daily Show, Colbert, and occasionally I will watch a movie or some standup. Cartoon Network for the new Star Wars cartoon and for Adult Swim. ESPN for sports (duh). TBS for Family Guy. When you look at what I just wrote you will notice that all those shows are available for me to watch online with the exception of sports.

So when the New Year hit I asked myself the question. Why am I paying over 60 dollars a month for 200+ channels if I am only watching 6 channels. The way the cable companies have their pricing does not fit how I watch TV. So I am going to stop giving them money until they change the way they do their pricing. My local cable company is Cox Communications. At the time of writing they only have 2 different packages available. One is for basic cable which costs $22 a month. Their basic cable channels are a joke. Channels 2 to 22. The majority of the channels you can get with antennas. The next package they have is for digital cable which is for 60 dollars a month. This package gives you over 250 channels. Why so little customization? I want options! Why am I paying for channels I will never watch? I can’t think of any other service that works this way.

Goodbye to you Cable TV. Maybe one day you will give your customers more options. Maybe one day you will let your customers pay for only the channels they choose. You have the technology to do it so stop being greedy.

In my next post I will show some alternatives to having cable.

YouTube in 1985

smojo — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 21:41:11 +0000

A couple of popular YouTubers collaborated to make the 1985 version of YouTube. In the video are Nalts, Matt Koval, BeanerLaRue and XgobobeanX.

Liquid is falling from the sky in Arizona

smojo — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:47:45 +0000

When you are living in the desert you have sunny days all the time. During the summer there is no reason to even check the weather report unless you want to see if we are hitting a new record temperature. The greatest thing about the summer mo

Social Media in Plain English

smojo — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:08:47 +0000

Social Media in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

You may remember a pretty popular video from a few months ago called Twitter in Plain English. The creators of that video now set their sights on the topic of social media. The people over