Amazon just joint CinemaNow, Vudu, Neflix and Microsoft marketplace to distribute video contents through the Xbox 360 game console platform. A similar app was made available on Sony PlayStation sometime ago.

Amazon Instant Video lets you playback all videos you’ve purchased or have currently rented from Amazon on your Xbox 360. If you’re an Amazon Prime member ($79 annual), you’ll also find the entire Prime Instant Video library with thousands movies and TV episodes at no additional cost.

• Amazon Prime: Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers who are also Amazon Prime members get unlimited access to over 17,000 Prime Instant Videos at no additional cost.
• Your Video Library: Anything you buy from Amazon Instant Video will be available in Your Video Library on your Xbox 360. Just visit the Amazon Instant Video store online, and shop from a library of over 120,000 movies and TV episodes.
• Your Watchlist: From your Xbox or from the web, you can organize your viewing with Your Watchlist. Add any title to Your Watchlist, and enjoy when you’re ready.
• Xbox Kinect: With Kinect, you can also find and play your videos with the wave of your hand or the sound of your voice.

Once again, Google is luring all of its services to Google+, the company social network has become the center of all things Google.

The latest addition is Google Places, a local business service now make home to Google+ with a new name Google+ Local, which uses listings from Zagat combined with reviews and photos from friends in user’s Google+ Circles to provide location based restaurants, hotels, museums, etc.. recommendation. Note that Google acquired Zagat last  September. Zagat is a direct competitor of Yelp.

If users are not yet Google+ members, the new Google+ Local also appears in Google Search and Maps as well.

The service is not limited to find places, it also gives opportunity to share and express your opinion about the places you have visited.

Here’s how you’ll come across it, according to Google:

Google, the maker of Chrome OS and its hardware partner Samsung just launched a set of laptop and small desktop called Chromebook and Chromebox respectively.

The new devices are running on Google Chrome Operating System, an OS solely based on the company Cloud environment. Google. The productivity relies on user level of online connectivity  since the whole OS interface is your browser. Google has gradually updated to add few offline capabilities as well as the ability to manage local storage provided by USB sticks or USB portable hard drive. The modifications have resulted  in snappier performance and usability.

Apps are pretty much Web-based but Google introduces a remote desktop capability allowing Chromebook and Chromebox users connect to a normal PC and perform usual tasks as needed

Below are highlights of new improvements

• Multi-window support and the UI scales from seamlessly scales from 11” to 30” screens.
• An app launcher and an option to pin favorite/most used apps to the launchbar.
• Now you can customize backgrounds.
• Built-in ability to view office files, online and offline, support for dozens of file formats
• There is Google Drive support and in the next version of the Chrome OS release, there will be support for online and offline usage and will syncs with other devices that connect to Google Drive.
• Google says Google Docs offline editing will be rolling out over the next several weeks to all Docs users. Google is currently testing it inside Google.
• New media player & a built-in photo editor and uploader

On the hardware side the Samsung Chromebook features a 12” display, 4GB of RAM, USB ports, 1Gb RJ45  Ethernet port. The Wifi only version costs $449 and the WiFi + 3G version costs $529 (monthly 3G subscription required).

The small esktop form factor Chromebox price is starting at $329. The desktop would requires additional monitor, keyboard and mouse.

While you might think that why buying Chrome OS devices when you can have the same with a normal Windows OS devices. Google says the Chrome OS represents simplicity without the cost of maintenance, backup and virus management, This alone would represent tremendous saving to corporate, goverment and education institutions..

Sharing photos taken from your mobile devices to larger monitor is a common desire but few solutions can accomplish seamlessly without additional hardware, connectivity, photo transfer, etc..

The $.99 iOS app called Scalado  PhotoBeamer makes the solution really easy with a simple condition that the larger screen monitor has a working Web browser.

You just launch the app, pick a photo on your iPhone; next, point your iPhone at any screen displaying www.photobeamer.com with a QR code and you’ll be able to enjoy your photos anywhere with family and friends. It’s a modern era slide projector available anytime, anywhere!

You can navigate to next and previous photo just by sliding a finger back and forth on the iPhone, which is now acting as a remote control.

With a little extra effort, you can easily save your PowerPoint presentation as image (jpg). Then the app can be your business tool as well. Jst make sure there will be a Web connected screen at your next business presentation.

The $.99 Scalado PhotoBeamer includes:

• Works on any display sporting a modern web browser
• Show your iPhone (iOS5 devices) photos on any screen, anywhere
• Zero configuration with no registration necessary
• Works over all connections, including 3G and Wi-Fi
• Choose among themes supporting your mode of presentation
• No network setup, manual pairing, bumping or similar – connections works out of the box
• Progressive beaming using patented Scalado imaging technology, to ensure the fastest possible experience even over slow connections

Download from App Store.

[Source Scalado PhotoBeamer Press Release]

LG, the Korean electronic giant just announced the commercial availability of a new display technology  that sports a pixel density to 440ppi (Pixel per Inch) to a 5” display. The 16:9 ratio 1920×1080 screen offers the same HD viewing quality on the smartphone as on 1080p TV and monitors. We should see this technology equipped on smartphones during second half of this year. LG has been making Android and Windows Phone OS smartphones with displays smaller than 5” in size.

Apple has been touting its retina display at 326ppi density, available on the current iPhones and iPads. The company is readying for its new iPhone that is rumored to have a 4” display without the technical details about screen quality. The new iPhone will be released in Fall of this year.

LG Display Develops World’s First Full HD LCD Smartphone Panel

5" Full HD display, creating perfect cloud computing environment

Seoul, Korea (May 28, 2012) – LG Display [NYSE: LPL, KRX: 034220], a leading manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display, introduced today a 5" Full HD LCD panel for smartphones – the highest resolution mobile panel to date. Allowing smartphone users to view Full HD content in the same quality as on TVs and monitors, LG Display and its new panel significantly advances the cloud computing experience widely considered the next major internet trend.

LG Display’s 5" Full HD LCD panel is a step forward past existing mobile display technology. The LCD panel based on AH-IPS (Advanced High Performance In-Plane Switching) technology features 440ppi and 1920×1080 resolution, providing for the first time Full HDTV quality on a smartphone. With 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, the panel is also 0.5 inches larger, 2.2 times denser in pixels, and 1.3 times more advanced in ppi than the preceding 4.5" panel at 329ppi and 1280×720.

"As smartphones become increasingly valued for how well they do multimedia and with the rapid growth of LTE enabling faster large file transfers, our new 5" Full HD LCD panel is certain to prove a significant asset to the mobile market," said Sang-Deok Yeo, CTO and Executive Vice President of LG Display. "With the world’s highest resolution smartphone display, LG Display continues to remain a step ahead in developing the most innovative in display technology products."

The display solution of choice for smart devices, LG Display’s AH-IPS is the technology behind the new Full HD LCD display. With the high density of AH-IPS, the naked eye is unable to distinguish between individual pixels. AH-IPS panels also express the original color of images highly precisely, and feature a wide viewing angle as well as stable display image and rapid response speed when touched. Finally, with its brighter light transmission and lower power consumption, AH-IPS is ideal for use in outdoor settings.

The 5" Full HD LCD panel from LG Display is expected to be released during the second half of this year, and will be on exhibit for the first time at SID 2012 Display Week in Boston starting June 4.

[Via Engadget]

Our days, there are myriad ways to share instantly photos taken with your smartphone camera to the Web such upload to Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Twitter, etc.. But, there are photos that you just want to keep for your private use on your computer. Unfortunately, transferring bunch of photos at once from your smartphone to your computer has not been something that is intuitive nor simple without cable, software and the know-how. 

Bump technologies, the maker of an app that helps smartphone users to exchange photos, contacts by just bumping gently bumping the devices together. Bump technologies just upgraded the mobile app to a new version (version 3.3)  that allows transferring photos from a smartphone to the computer, again just by touching the device with the computer spacebar on the keyboard.

While users still need  to install the Bump app on the smartphone (iOS and Android), on the computer, they just need to open the browser and go to http://bu.mp to see the magic happens. Users can select as many photos they want. Once transferred to the browser, photos can be downloaded, linked to or shared to popular social networking services.

The new feature works by a combination of sensors on the phone and Bump’s cloud services. You must have location sharing enabled in your browser for the process to work.

"One of their biggest complaints is that it is hard to get photos off their phone and onto their computer," Bump CEO Dave Lieb, wrote in a blog post. "Syncing is complicated and often requires a cable you just can’t find, and people are fed up with emailing their own photos to themselves. Users would often jokingly tell us, ‘Bump is great; if only my computer could Bump too!’ So we built it."

Bump 3.3 is available in the App Store and Google Play.

The mobile space is red hot. It’s Facebook turn to debut a mobile app with 100% photo focus. The Facebook Camera app, which will be part of the ever-growing mobile collection of Facebook, Messenger, Page management apps.

Facebook Camera was conceived and developed prior to Instagram acquisition. Many parts of the app essentially offers similar features.

From the main page, the app let you see only posts with photo from your Facebook Newsfeed, tap on the photo will enlarge to full screen or swipe to see more if the photo belongs to an album. There are Like, Comment and Tag icons situated at the bottom.

Sliding the screen down will reveal thumbnail photos of the camera roll, from there you can check multiple photos for adding caption, tagging and posting.

Minor edit functions are available such photo filter, crop, rotate to any picture in your camera roll. The app seems to be speedy for uploading and view photos, however the filter selection is not as rich as Instagram. The TiltShift and Lux features offered in Instagram are sorely missed.

Now the question is why Facebook is releasing this while the company is in process to complete Instagram acquisition. We still think this is a strategic move to show new Facebook investors that the company is working as fast as it can to get in to the red hot mobile market. And ultimately Instagram technology will come to enhance this app overtime. Mark Zuckerberg wanted to keep Instagram as an independent app, so we do not expect that Facebook will shut down the service as it did with other previous acquisition.

For users who already have Instagram, using Facebook Camera might get better distribution and social engagement, especially for those who have more followers on Facebook than on Instagram. Granted photos from Instagram can be set to go to Facebook, but they are less visible on your Timeline. Uploading the whole album rather than one photo at the time is still something that Facebook users love to do. But always remember, you photos carry valuable information such location and your social graph from those who like your photo. Facebook provides some privacy controls, but you are not pay attention to them, aren’t you.

Facebook Camera is available in the App Store.

Google continues on its aggressive move on the mobile front with its latest version of Google+ 2.6 for Android delivering more emerging visual experience.

From the same astonishing visual UI carried over for its iOS counterpart, which was released just last week, Google development team has added a nice differentiator to the in-house mobile OS with the ability to initiate a video conference call “Hangout” right from the phone. Prior to this release, mobile users could only join to an on-going hangout session.

“To get started, tap “Hangout” in the new navigation ribbon, add some friends and tap “Start.” We’ll ring their phones (if you want), and if someone misses the hangout, they can ring you back with a single tap”

The new version also allows post editing and download photos from Google+ back to your Android phone and lastly the +1 button is more prominent.

The update 2.1 is available from Google Play

[Source Google]

To the surprise of many, the embattled Yahoo! tonight just announced the company first  Axis browser technology, which consists of with the mobile versions for iPad and iPhone and plug-ins for Chrome, Firefox, IE, and Safari for the desktop side.

The goal is to allow users to get instant results as Web page icons or in some cases the results instead of bunch of links, but the ultimate goal is to direct users to use Yahoo! search engine (powered by Microsoft Bing technology).

The iPhone and iPad versions are stand-alone app based on Webkit, however Apple still makes embedded Safari as default users. Yahoo! Axis has to earn consumer adoption to get that lucrative mobile share. The Android version is still in the works. Surprisingly, there is no social features in the design, at least for the initial release.

Axis lets users to keep the bookmarks and read later across devices once signed-in.

Key Benefits:
? Smarter, Faster Search:
Axis gives you instant answers so you can continuously discover and explore content without interruption. You will never have to leave the page you are on to view your search results again.

? Connected Experience:
Axis allows you to pick up wherever you left off as you move across your desktop, iPhone, and iPad. It makes your recently visited sites, saved articles, and bookmarks automatically accessible across all your devices.

? Personal Home Page:
Axis centralizes your online life with a customizable Home Page that provides direct access to your favorite sites and content across all your devices.

Google, once again revamped its mobile app for iPhone and iPad. The app is aiming to improve the search experience beyond what user can get from the search box in Safari browser, and at the same time this app hooks all other Google mobile services in one place.

Both version iPhone and iPad have similar consistent look & feel with a very subtle differences to adapt to the screen size.

The app presents much cleaner interface. Users are greeted with just a white page with the Google Doodle of the day similar to the Web version and a prominent search box.

Note 3 small icons at the bottom, the left icon “Apps” takes you to a full page containing the Google Mobile App Collection; the middle button “Voice” allows issueing search input with your voice and lastly the right icon “Goggles” lets user to input search argument by snapping a photo.

As soon as you enter search argument, the next screen pops up leaving more room at the bottom for predictive search suggestions. Once entered or selected the suggested search arguments, the results are shown rather quickly. The icons located at the bottom of the result page offers choices such everything, images, news, videos,places, etc…

Toggle the arrow located on top right ^ takes user back and forth between the home page and the search results.

Click on any link from the search result will open a very sleek horizontal sliding page. Search image shows an astonishing  full screen with grid pattern photos.

The navigation is intuitive and the transition between pages is beautifully designed with subtle collapsible and expandable fashion. The new design definitely shows a significant improvement over the last version.

The apps for iPhone and iPad are available in the app store.

The next iPhone details have been trickling out to blogosphere including mainstream outlets such the WSJ, Reuter. The most prominent feature will be a larger screen size that will stretches to 64 x 1136 4” from 640 x 960 3.5”. The change would apparently to be on par with some of the latest Android smartphones featuring large displays that so far, have been well accepted by the consumers.

According to 9to5Mac, Apple is piloting few sample of the next iPhone. One of them with the same width and height of the iPhone 4/4S, as seen in the mock-up photo on the left [Courtesy of 9to5Mac]  . Only its display gets longer to a new ratio that would match perfectly to the 16 x 9 ratio of movie contents.

Changing the screen ratio will pose a headache to app developer, especially for the games apps, which certainly need to rewrite to fit to the new screen. Other apps such Twitter, Facebook, email, etc.. will just get more real estate to show more contents.

Additionally, another important feature that will make the cut will first be the 4G LTE radio, which will require more battery juice similarly to the latest iPad. Traditionally Apple will not sacrifice battery life, therefore, we believe  new battery technology will be found in the new device as well as a new mini dock connector to leave room to the battery.

Another challenge is Android devices are also getting slimmer than the current iPhone 4S. Few weeks ago, I had a chance to sit next to few Chinese engineers on the flight from San Francisco to Orange County. They were supposed to come out straight from a meeting in Cupertino and heading to Las Vegas for  the weekend. They did talk to me few things whether related or not to the next iPhone remain to be seen. In a broken English, they mentioned how demanding Apple is as far as required specs for the screen layers (glass, capacitive sensor, TFT LCD..) to get thinner and thinner, they gave me the actual thickness total 3.5 (.5+1.1+.3+1.6) I am not sure in what unit of measurement. They mentioned about flexible film (meaning the surface of the screen could be curvy?), and of course, low power consumption is a major acceptance criteria.

On the software side, the world will know more about the iOS 6.0 that will be unveiled at the WWDC in June. One notable leak is the new mapping technology that will be switched from Google to an in-house product with possible 3D rendering.

The next iPhone seems to be on schedule for October release.

A concept design, courtesy of DeviceStation

A new “touch-free” user interface was unveiled by LeapMotion, a San Francisco startup company. The solution consists of an 8-cubic-feet bubble of “interaction space,” which detects your hand gestures down to an accuracy of 0.01 millimeters — about 200 times more accurate than “existing touch-free products and technologies”, such as your smartphone’s touchscreen, Nitendo Wii or Microsoft X360 Kinect.

The interface permits user interaction with the screen at short distance and even when the screen is confined in a protective glass case. Use cases for such interface are multiple in presentation, demo, newscast, advertisement, etc..

The Leap is available to pre-order now  for $70, and is expected to ship early next year.

Sony just introduced a mirror-less camera aiming to replace its predecessor Sony NEX-C3 and your incumbent DSLR as well. The camera is touted as the smallest and lightest interchangeable lens camera.

The NEX-F3 comes with a new grip on the body; a pop-up and angle-adjustable flash as well as a flip-up LCD screen in the back, the LCD can tilt up to a complete vertical position should you need to see you when taking self-portrait photo or video in front of the camera.

The device is using Sony second generation 16MP and DSLR-sized APS-C sensors; the NEX-F3 can take HD video in AVCHD 1080 in MP4 formats. You will find the Sony accessory port for an optional electronic viewfinder or a stereo microphone. The bundle includes the E-mount 18-55 kit lens. The optional 18-200mm lens with 11x zoom It will start shipping in July.

The camera features Auto Portrait Framing, which uses face detection and the rule of thirds to  trim the scene into an optimal composition while maintaining a copy of the original image.

Feature highlights:

• 16.1MP CMOS sensor
• ISO 200-16000 (200-3200 in Auto)
• Built-in flash
• AVCHD 1080i60 HD movie recording with built-in stereo mic
• Rear LCD that tilts up 180º

The new model is going on sale for $600

People, in our days, constantly need the phone on their side as much as the wallet. Whether you work or have regular activities in a wet environment, protective cases are not always effective. The waterproof cases are often bulky and not convenient.

At Smartphone&Moble EXPO 2012 in Japan, a new technology just surfaced and presented, It’s called “the Case Marine” by Gooma, a waterproof soft case for smartphones, the case has a waterproof rating of IPX8, which is the highest class in JIS (Japan Industrial Standards).

"This is the Case Marine. Until now, waterproof cases for smartphones haven’t looked very good, as they’ve all been bulky. But we’ve developed a stylish, attractive case. It’s made of 0.25mm polyurethane with a special finish. The screen part is made of acrylic. It can be used for an iPhone or a Galaxy S2. With a bit of practice, this case can be put on in about 5 seconds. When it’s attached, there’s a bit of slack at the back. Even if the phone is placed in water, the case makes it waterproof to everyday standards. The seal on the back has been certified by Oki Engineering; it has a JIS rating of IPX8, which is the highest level in Japan. So it keeps your smartphone waterproof down to a depth of 10m."

As shown in the below video, the case is merely a thin transparent cover, you can probably leave it on. You device with the cover on can even fit in to the your daily case. 

"Our current line-up is for the iPhone 4S and the Galaxy S2. Next, we plan to release an iPad case. The Premium versions are priced at 3,000 yen ($37), and the Lite ones at 1,200 yen ($15(). The iPad case will be available for about 4,000 yen ($50)."

No words on the availability outside of Japan.

[Source DigInfo]

On the heels of Microsoft releasing  Bing’s frictionless integration with Social circles in to your search results, Google is rolling out its new “Knowledge Graph” integration in its search service. It’s also going to be available on smartphones and tablets.

Google’s next generation of search, uses Knowledge Graph to provide a Symantec sense what you actually mean instead of just keyword search. As an example you can enter in your search argument “Jaguar”, the information search would provide bunch of links but the knowledge search engine would try to understand that you meant “Jaguar” as an animal or “Jaguar” as the car. Google will use its advanced algorithm to understand what you mean  in the right context  Google has created a 500 million-item database of people, places, and things. The results of the effort will start appearing supposedly from Wednesday in search, offering encyclopedic capsules of information on various topics. When you have this feature, a small window will appear on the right hand side  showing the results found from the Knowledge graph.

“Get an under the hood look at the next frontier in Search, from the team at Google behind the technology. The Knowledge Graph is a huge collection of the people, places and things in the world and how they’re connected to one another. With this technology, Google can get you the best possible answers and help jump start your discovery.”

These features raise concerns about cluttering the spartan layout of Google especially on the mobile format. At this time of typing, we still don’t see the feature enabled to give a thorough impression.