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Computer Case Doubles as a flat-panel Mount

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:56:00 +0500

Why pay outrageous department store prices for an all-in-one PC when you can simply purchase an ATX/Micro-ATX compatible computer case with a built-in mount for your LCD monitor? Actually, don’t answer that because you can’t actually buy the L-2000 LDorado (from Korean company 3RSystem) in the US.

The LDorado can handle monitors between 19 and 24 inches and features seven expansion ports, a DVD/CD drive slot, and front-mounted USB ports, audio jacks, and power button. I’ve no idea what this apparatus costs but if you’re one of those “determined” types, you might be able to build something like this yourself.

Motorola intros Energy-Saving D10, D11 Digital Cordless Phones

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:48:00 +0500

They may not do something crazy like connect to the internet, but Motorola's new D10 and D11 cordless phones do break some new ground in their own little way, with each boasting an eco mode that promises to automatically reduce power consumption based on how far the handsets are away from the base.

To add a bit more green cred, Motorola also manufactured each of 'em using a minimum of 20% recycled material.

Otherwise, you can expect the usual backlit display, 100-number phonebook, and speakerphone functionality from each, with a bit of SMS messaging and three-way calling thrown in on the D11 model. No word on a price just yet, but both should be available by the end of the month -- in the UK, at least.

Pioneer wins plasma patent case over Samsung: $59.3 million awarded

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Tue, 4 Nov 2008 13:03:00 +0500

Pioneer may be licking its wounds, but at least there's one bright spot on an otherwise dark end-of-year. The US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall

(read: patent troll heaven) recently found that "Samsung willfully infringed two Pioneer patents covering plasma display technology," leading to a settlement which involves Samsung handing Pioneer a check for $59,351,480. Samsung has yet to comment on the ruling, but it's pretty easy to imagine what it's probably thinking, wouldn't you say?

WSJ: Apple's iPod Boss stepping down!

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Tue, 4 Nov 2008 11:44:00 +0500

He might not be a household name, but Tony Fadell is the chief of Apple's iPod division and part of the executive team responsible for the iPhone's development. At least he was.

The Wall Street Journal, citing sources "familiar with the matter," reports that Fadell is jumping off the Infinite Loop for personal reasons but will remain at Apple's disposal in a consulting role. Here's the kicker: IBM's Mark Papermaster -- appears to be the named successor. Assuming of course IBM's lawyers don't put a stop to Apple's plans. None of this matters of course since it's common knowledge amongst investors that Steve Jobs does everything from inventing the iPhone to replacing printer cartridges around the Apple campus -- his staff is just there for tax purposes.

Samsung's T-Omnia: all that and double the i900 Omni's resolution!

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 12:18:00 +0500

Like the i900 Omni, eh? We sure did. Well here's its prettier, smarter cousin tagged the T*Omnia.

. For the most part, it's the same quad-band, WinMo 6.1 candybar with 7.2Mbps HSDPA data, WiFi, GPS, 5 megapixel cam, and nifty TouchWiz UI we've seen for months. But this hometown Korean version bumps the display to a WVGA, 800 x 480 pixels (up from 400 x 240) while slapping in a DMB digital television tuner to ensure it's non-Stateside status for eternity... at least with this specific configuration. Perhaps Verizon would be so kind as to make use of that display?

Panasonic agrees to controlling stake in Sanyo

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 11:27:00 +0500

Ah here we go, a major acquisition following a quarter of disturbingly bleak financial results from Japan's tech community.

First from the chute is Panasonic, which according to Nikkei and other members of the media elite, has reached a preliminary agreement to takeover its troubled domestic rival, Sanyo -- details to be announced on November 7th. The chatter began in ernest over the weekend with plenty of folks blabbing about Panasonic's plan to create a "battery superpower" meant to dominate a future that envisions a taller, more slender mankind tooling about in form-fitting jumpsuits from the safety of silent, electric cars. The deal would also extend Panasonic's range of consumer electronics while giving it access to Sanyo's solar panel production. Yeah, yeah, we get it, now let's just make it official already, k fellas?

T-Mobile offers Motorola's MOTOZINE ZN5 for just $99

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 10:58:00 +0500

Among American carriers, T-Mobile USA isn't typically the first that comes to mind when we're thinking of purveyors of bleeding-edge hardware -- but between the G1 and this, we might have to start rethinking that stereotype.

T-Mob has officially become the first carrier in North America to offer Motorola's 5-megapixel MOTOZINE ZN5, a quadband EDGE candybar with WiFi, a morphing keypad along the lines of T-Mobile's own MOTOROKR E8, and a 5-megapixel camera with xenon flash that's been infused with a heavy dose of Kodak imaging wizardry. The best part about the whole thing might be the price -- just $99 on a two-year contract, which fills our hearts with hope that awesome cams on phones are now officially commodity items. Look for the ZN5 in "select" T-Mobile stores and online starting today.

The Battle 4 Microsoft’s Soul

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 07:45:00 +0500

So much of this long protracted struggle for political change has rubbed off on the tech community. In the partisan windup to this long election process, we’ve become almost inured to the fact that as much as things will continue to be the same, already the “choice” between the two candidates has produced one sure thing. That is, either of the two candidates represents fundamental change from the status quo, no matter how much you want to differentiate further.

So it is with the shift to the Cloud. Whether you’re betting on Google, or Amazon, or Microsoft, or less obviously Apple, IBM, Oracle, or Cisco, the sure thing is that Web services has gone main stream. If this is a horse race at the vendor level, it’s about each company’s ability to harness its innate strengths and migrate its weaknesses. Put another way, the battle is within, not between.

So it is with Microsoft, mere months into Bill Gates’ retirement. Though my friend Dan Farber and others raise the specter of Gates returning to lead Microsoft at some climactic point, more likely Gates has already weighed in and signed off on the strategy unveiled at the PDC in Los Angeles this past week. Steve Ballmer’s leaked memo could easily have been written by Ray Ozzie, with its methodical restating of the software plus services case and the surprising (for Ballmer) summoning of Live Mesh at the end as Azure’s secret sauce:

Live Mesh hints at how our lives will be transformed as the barriers between devices disappear and the option to connect instantly to people, devices, programs, and information becomes a reality.

Who is Ballmer speaking to? Ostensibly customers, the target of subscribers to Executive Emails from Microsoft. But really the refactored executive team inside the company, and in no uncertain terms, the power structure built largely by Gates and managed by Ballmer. To a Steven Sinofsky, “the barriers between devices” speaks differently than to a Bob Muglia, David Thompson, Scott Guthrie, or David Treadwell. That’s because Sinofsky owns only one leg of that PC-Web-Phone stool that the Azure Services Platform rests on.

The second day keynote also hinted at the new political alignment in the company. While the first day introduced the cloud strategy, the second spoke as much to the Palace Guard as it did to the developers. Sinofsky’s Windows 7 brought the first significant developer applause of the week, perhaps a reflection of the sense that the OS would indeed survive the OS/X challenge with its Touch feature set, multi-monitor support, and screen management tools. As a Mac user, I had the odd sensation of feeling like Microsoft was trying to reengage with switchers, a point Ray Ozzie joked about in a later conversation.

But to the Microsoft rank and file, another message was clear. Sinofsky stayed completely away from the rest of the Azure announcements, hewing closely to the fundamental keep-the-trains-running-on-time reassurance that Vista (and by implication Longhorn) were mistakes of the previous regime. But wait, that was Bill’s regime, and Sinofsky is partially running against himself this time out. His former job as Office boss is now owned by Stephen Elop, who did not speak, instead handing that task to junior executives for the Office Online demo.

By contrast, Bob Muglia, who controls the Server group with its burgeoning revenue gusher, straddles both old and new Microsoft. A wily tactician who survived the DOJ meltdown where others didn’t, seems poised to inherit the mantle of Allchin in the new reworked Redmond. To him, the 3-legged stool is all upside “and the option to connect instantly to people, devices, programs, and information becomes” not only “a reality” but an annuity.

Scott Guthrie continued the subtle shift from old to new, highlighting Windows 7 features such as jump lists exposed to developers via Windows Presentation Foundation, a new WPF Toolkit with support for the same Visual State Manager and controls shipped two weeks earlier for Silverlight. .The

Silverlight gives .Net developers real skin in the cloud game without undermining the open nature of Mesh and Azure's REST and RSS/Atom gateways. Ozzie's challenge is not to convince developers of the power of the Cloud, but to leverage Microsoft's legacy cash cows without letting the people who own those groups stifle innovation as they have done for years. The loudest applause line of the two major keynotes was for the BBC's Anthony Rose and his BBC iPlayer demo, where Silverlight and Live Mesh Services harnessed social graph and user behavior that went several steps beyond anything from competitors including Google, Facebook, or Apple.

Now, what’s really interesting here is because this is Mesh-ified, this information is going off to all my devices. So, if I’m in the office and I’ve watched a program halfway through, and I’m now going out for lunch, I can take out my cell phone, and when I go on my cell phone, that program has been synched to the cell phone. And it’s not just the information, the metadata, but through the cloud the actual program is on the phone and the program, in fact, will resume playing from exactly where I left off on my desktop computer.

The PDC developers could smell money, and this was with live code orchestrated by a customer. This makes the questions about pricing and timing moot: Microsoft has the money to get this out there, and the timing is real soon now for a tech community looking to rebound from the tough times ahead. But the developers, though comforted by the Windows 7 snapshot and mildly enthusiastic about the online Office pitch, were voting with their applause for the Silverlight/Mesh/Azure triumvirate as the way forward.

Office for the Web may pan out as just a leg of the stool for collaborative purposes, but the Silverlight Office has never seemed more disruptive. Significantly, no Outlook Web version was shown, suggesting that Ozzie is keeping his powder dry while giving Mesh time to ripen along with its PubSub router underpinnings. Again, from Anthony Rose:

[MSN] Messenger is the largest IM network in the UK. So, for the BBC this is a huge viral opportunity. Imagine all of my friends just a click away, I can share my iPlayer programs and activity feed with them.

We’re looking at the next Outlook, and it’s going to be hard to stop inside Microsoft’s executive war room. The biggest single sound we heard at the Azure rollout was that of silence - a three year incubation period where very little of what Ray Ozzie has been building leaked out, and that which did was couched in terms that gave the old guard little to attack or slow down. Now that it’s here and endorsed by Ballmer in such unequivocal terms, the war for Microsoft’s soul is over. By opening the platform to standards forged in large part by scripters, hackers, and especially competitors, Microsoft has leapfrogged into the lead for mindshare where it counts: inside the company.

HTC Touch Pro now available for purchase online

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 07:42:00 +0500

We heard last week when Sprint launched the HTC Touch Pro at "select national retailers" that the device would be available online on November 2nd.

Well, it's November 2nd, and they've kept their promise. The base retail price of the QWERTY smartphone is $579.99, but an "instant savings" of $180 combined with a $100 mail-in-rebate brings the price down to palatable $299.99 (with a 2-year agreement, needless to say). Of course, if you're really starved for human contact, you could always head over to a Sprint store and buy one in person, too.

Update: Had a little trouble with those read links -- all fixed now.

Read

Intel's Core i7 purchased, over-clocked, benchmarked

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 07:35:00 +0500

Looking for the latest in CPU spice to keep your gaming rig flowing? You'd better go find your wallet/purse and head to your local computer shop for a fresh Core i7 (née Nehalem), because they are apparently available for sale right now -- before most of the major sites have even received theirs.

User gooddog over at the Overclock.net forums has flaunted posted this picture of his recently purchased 3.2GHz Core i7 Extreme 965 CPU. Paired with an Asus P6T motherboard and running at the stock clock rate it scored a 5,606 in 3DMark06, in-line with what earlier testers found. O/C'ed up to 3.8GHz it delivered a tidy 6,608, a mark that surely gives it control of all benchmarks and, thus, the PC universe.

Motorola to layoff 3,000 workers, most of 'em in handset division

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sun, 2 Nov 2008 20:46:00 +0500

To be honest, we were surprised that we didn't hear this number along with the other doom and gloom professed during Motorola's Q3 earnings call, but the writing was very clearly on the wall. As part of the mentioned $800 million expenditure cut planned for 2009, 3,000 (more) of Moto's employees will be looking for work elsewhere.

According to an unnamed spokeswoman, a "little over two-thirds of those layoffs [will be] in the handset division." And just think -- if Moto would only use all those hands to get an Android-powered phone out before "entirely too long from now," maybe these cuts wouldn't even be necessary. Maybe.

Read>>

ASUS finally details ET1602 / ET1603 Eee Top all-in-1 PCs

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sun, 2 Nov 2008 20:35:00 +0500

If you've paid any attention to the release cycle of ASUS' Eee Top, you'd have noticed by now that things have been done in quite the unorthodox way. Although we've already learned most everything we need to know from buyers in global markets, ASUS has finally seen fit to do us English-speaking folk a solid and host up official detail sites for both the ET1602 and ET1603.

Both rigs boast a 15.6-inch touchscreen LCD, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 160GB 5,400RPM hard drive, 1.3-megapixel webcam, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n WiFi, a pair of stereo speakers, two USB 2.0 ports, a multicard reader, audio in / out and a swank carry handle for lugging it around. The only difference between the two flavors is the GPU; the ET1602 includes an integrated graphics set, while the ET1603 packs a discrete ATI Mobility Radeon HD3450. Per usual, ASUS isn't dishing out any further pricing / release deets, but most everything else you could ever want to know (about the pair, not life or taxes) is just a click or two away.

Read - Eee Top ET1602
Read - Eee Top ET1603

Dane-Elec goes its own way, intro a handful media players

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sun, 2 Nov 2008 13:26:00 +0500

Growing tired of distributing the Meizu M6 and M3 (and growing even more tired of waiting on the M8), Dane-Elec has decided to strike up on its own and offer up a smattering of portable media players. Up first is the above pictured Music mediatouch, a 4GB / 8GB PMP with a 4.3-inch 480 x 272 resolution display, FM tuner / transmitter, microSDHC slot and USB connectivity.

On deck is the reasonably attractive Music pix, which touts a 2.9-inch 400 x 240 resolution display, a 1.3-megapixel camera and your choice of 2/4/8GB of storage space. The bright green Music touch gets miniaturized to the tune of a 2.4-inch display, while the ultra-tiny Music is a simple USB thumb drive-styled DAP with either 1GB or 2GB of space. There's no word on a release date for any of the aforesaid wares, but we wouldn't bank on 'em coming to the US, anyway.

More About Product>>

YouTube Translate: So Your Babushka Can Get What Your Video Blog is About

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sun, 2 Nov 2008 11:12:00 +0500

It was this past Thursday, in our review of another review service, when I figured that Google should seriously consider generating automated translations for YouTube clips to build on its relatively young captions capability. Well, today it began to do just that.

Before you become giddy for this fresh new option, it must be said that this is Google’s Translate service being worked into the picture. Which means the world flow is more or less abysmal to anyone with a reasonably firm grasp on one language or another. The good news, though, is it can only get better as development progresses.

The way the Translate feature works is for you, the video uploader, to create a caption from which the translation engine can feed from. …And that’s pretty much the extent of it! It’s all automated and on-demand from there onward.

Naturally, it depends on the source language and the translation being requested that determines the quality of the switch.

Panasonic's Micro Four Thirds Lumix DMC-G1 reviewed: only knocks is the price

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sun, 2 Nov 2008 11:05:00 +0500

The question has been on your mind since we first got wind of this so-called "Micro Four Thirds" concept back in August: how will it stack up? Now that Panasonic's Lumix DMC-G1 is filtering out to the world, we're able to kick back and digest a mammoth review of this here camera thanks to the fine folks at Digital Camera Resource.

Without going into dissertation-level detail in this space, we'll tell you that the biggest issue critics had with the G1 was its price. Not the image quality. Not the size. Just the price. In other words, Panny has delivered a superb camera that offers up "very good quality photos, an unmatched live view shooting experience and a nice collection of both automatic and manual controls." Deemed the first to "truly offer a point-and-shoot experience on an interchangeable lens camera," the DMC-G1 looks to be a real winner if you've got $800 to blow.

A collection of iPhone costumes for your perusal

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sun, 2 Nov 2008 07:46:00 +0500

Halloween has come and gone as it tends to do every year and this year saw its fair share of Apple-inspired costumes. DVICE has compiled a list of what it’s judged to be the best iPhone costumes of Halloween 2008. There are some pretty good ones in there, like the MySpace guy up on the left there and the baby in an iPhone stroller on the right. The list also includes a dog wearing an iPhone, which looks kind of cool.

Most of the rest kind of all look like cardboard boxes with tin foil around the sides. Two guys made costumes with working screens (there’s a video here), although they actually wore them last year. Still pretty cool, though.

Almost A Dealzmodo: Iriver Drop Prices on New MP3 Players

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 20:45:00 +0500

Always classy, always feature-packed, and usually too expensive PMP manufacturer Iriver is dropping prices on their current lineup starting today.

The drool-worthy Spinn drops from $250 and $280 for 4GB and 8GB, respectively, to a more affordable $190 and $230. The more entry-level E100 and Lplayer drop $40, down to $70 and $100 for those same capacities. I love Iriver and it's great to see the prices coming out of the stratosphere, but Iriver's gotta bump up those capacities to be a competitor here in the bigger-is-better States. Now, a 16GB Spinn for $230? That'd be a Dealzmodo.

Let’s speculate about the price of the BlackBerry's Storm

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 20:40:00 +0500

We still don’t know one very important thing about the BlackBerry Storm: how much is the thing gonna cost? Vodafone, which carries the Storm in the UK, may have just provided us a few hints.

Pricing plans for the phone have leaked, and the phone itself goes as low as €49 ($62) with the most expensive monthly plan.

That brings us to Verizon Wireless, which, you’ll remember, is a joint venture between Verizon and Vodafone. If Vodafone is willing to to sell the first touchscreen BlackBerry for as low as $62, how low will VWZ go? Say, $0, maybe? Not likely, but don’t be surprised to see the Storm selling for a tantalizing low amount.

Again, as if I need to remind you, take all of this with a grain of salt. Then, with the same grain of salt, enjoy your weekend.

CrunchDeals: Acer Aspire One for $289 at Woot.com

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 20:35:00 +0500

Woot.com is selling the Acer Aspire One netbook for $289.99 plus $5 shipping. It’s the version with the Linpus Linux operating system, 512MB of RAM, 8GB SSD, and three-cell battery. It sells for around $330 elsewhere so if you’ve been waiting for this particular model, now might be the time to pull the trigger.

This deal is only available today (Saturday).

woot.com

Panasonic's Lumix DMC-G1 ninja ships to consumers

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 20:29:00 +0500

Panasonic had us fooled with that press release dating its micro Four Thirds camera, the Lumix DMC-G1, for mid-November. We're not sure what Panny was trying to pull, but when we took a gander at its online store today we discovered that the G1 has already started shipping. The price is $799.95 as expected, so your time has come if you've been dying to try this slim and sexy micro Four Thirds thing out -- though we might wait for a few reviews to drop to confirm that the performance matches the price.

Make a Grown Nerd Cry with the BSO Domizer

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 20:23:00 +0500

The high-lariously named BSODomizer is a little gadget that interfaces between a computer and monitor to display an image at either random intervals or when triggered by an IR remote control. The best use of this kind of toy, of course, is reminding Windows devotees like myself that the nerld-famous (nerd world) BSOD is always lurking around the corner, along with a Mac user who's waiting to screech "Get a Mac! Get a Mac!" like the most annoying parrot ever.

The BSODomizer does have legitimate uses, like calibrating a screen, but flashing the BSOD without reason is definitely a more entertaining one. Besides, that pun would've gone to waste if it had been called the DIY Image Flasher or whatever. The BSODomizer is available from Kingpin Empire for $85 shipped.

Warning: the source link is NSFW if your workplace has a rule against ASCII drawings of Goatse. I wish I was kidding about that last part.

MSR-H101 Hexapods kit lets you build your own nightmares

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 13:00:00 +0500

Robot builder Matt Denton apparently first built a one-off Hexapod robot for himself some time ago, but he's now taken things one big step further and is offering a kit of a similar bot to the general public through Micromagic Systems. In addition to being excessively creepy (just check out the video after the break), the MSR-101 Hexapod also looks to be relatively simple to get going straight out of the box

, with it boasting a built-in HexEngine with plenty of pre-loaded settings, and built-in PS2 controller suppport, which'll let you parade your creation about without having to mess around with it too much beforehand. Of course, there's also plenty of room for more experienced robot builders to get their hands dirty, and Micromagic is more than happy to sell you a whole slew of optional add-ons for the kit. Those just looking to get started, however, can simply grab the base kit in their choice of black, red, or silver for an entirely reasonable €105, or roughly $168 -- just don't blame us if you never get a good night's sleep again.

How to Capture the screen of an Android device?

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 12:52:00 +0500

After we posted our first Android speed review, we got a handful of e-mails asking us how we managed to take screenshots directly off of the device. We looked around at a handful of other blogs - sure enough, the vast majority of them had fallen back to pointing a camera at the device’s screen and snapping away. While that’s slightly better than drawing the image on paper and scanning that in, we’ve got a better solution.

What you need:

* An Android device. At the time this was published, that probably means a T-Mobile G1
* USB Data cable for the device (For the G1 at least, it’s included in the box)
* Any computer which has USB and is compatible with the Android SDK (Windows, OS X, or Linux)

How to take the shots:

1. Download and install the Android SDK. Don’t worry - unlike some SDKs, installing the Android kit is completely straightforward.
2. Enable USB Debugging on the device by going to Settings -> Applications -> Development and checking the proper box.
3. Plug the Android device into the USB port.
4. Find the folder containing the SDK you just installed. The location will vary depending on which operating system you’re using, and where you chose to install it. On all platforms, the folder name should begin with “android-sdk-”. For example, the folder for the current build on OS X is “android-sdk-mac_x86-1.0_r1″
5. Open the tools folder within the Android SDK folder.
6. Double click the file titled “DDMS”. This stands for Dalvik Debug Monitor Service.
7. In DDMS, your device should be listed. Highlight it by clicking on it.
8. In the application’s top menus, go to Device -> Screen capture.

You should be good to go. Use the handset to navigate to whatever screen you want a shot of, press the “Refresh” button to recapture the screen, and once you’ve got it just right, hit the “Save” button. Once you’ve gone through it the first time, the process is actually easier than busting out the point-and-shoot.

Sick of waiting for your G1 to update? Here is how to update it manually

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 12:47:00 +0500

If you’re constantly glancing at your G1 to check if T-Mobile has graced your handset with the oh-so-slow-to-roll-out RC29 update (”By November 11th”? Pah!), you might be glad to find out that there’s now a way to expedite the process. A user over at xda-devhas worked it all out.

All you need is a computer, internet connection, a way to transfer the firmware to your Micro SD card and half a brain.

Skyfire browser now open to Canadians

noreply@blogger.com (Kashaan) — Sat, 1 Nov 2008 12:42:00 +0500

A quick recap for those who haven’t been following the mobile browser scene for a while: Skyfire, currently available for Windows Mobile 5/6 and S60, is the only mobile browser supporting full Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, Quicktime, and other processor intensive multimedia formats. It pulls this off where others fail through a bit of proxy voodoo; rather than forcing your handset to do all the legwork, a remote computer crunches as much as it can before sending it your way.

Skyfire had remained in private beta until recently, just opening its doors last month. With the announcement that the beta was now public, a number of folks around the globe were disappointed to realize that it was only open to US residents. When we asked Skyfire for an international ETA, they responded that it would be coming “in weeks, not months.”

While it’s still limited to North America, Skyfire announced this morning that they’ve expanded their turf to include Canada. Starting today, Leslie Nielsen and Celine Dion can enjoy Skyfire in all of its splendor. The rest of Canada can use it too, of course - but come on, share your health care system or something in return.

If you’re north of the border and itchin’ to dig into some Hulu on the go, go grab Skyfire here.