Netflix for Android has been updated and they have added Facebook sharing for UK users, volume sliders on tablets and fixed audio and video syncing issues. Now how about a Windows Media Center app for UK users.

What’s New

What’s in this version:

1. Added Facebook sharing for Android phones and tablets in Latin America, Canada, the UK and Ireland
2. Added software volume controls for tablet users
3. Improved audio/video syncing for tablets and phones
4. Resolved split picture and flickering issues on select tablets

Thanks to Vonage we are giving away an Apple TV or an iPod Touch (you get to pick)

Vonage have launched a new iOS and Android app that provides free worldwide taking and texting to other users of the app and if your contact doesn’t have the app they say their calling rates are 30% less than Skype’s rates and call time can be purchased via an in-app purchase. The app works by integrating with your phones address book and highlights which contacts you can call for free, so there is no need for separate address books.  You can get the iOS and Android version from http://download.vonagemobile.com/vmapp

Entries close next Friday and make sure you give Vonage Mobile a try

a Rafflecopter giveaway

[Vonage is sponsoring this post on TDL and thanks to Vonage we will be giving away an iPod Touch or an Apple TV details soon]

Vonage have launched a new iOS and Android app that provides free worldwide taking and texting to other users of the app and if your contact doesn’t have the app you can purchase credit and Vonage say their calling rates are 30% less than Skype’s rates. The app works by integrating with your phones address book and highlights which contacts you can call for free, so there is no need for separate address books.  You can get the iOS and Android version from http://download.vonagemobile.com/vmapp

Here is the official word from Vonage

Can you imagine a future where your smartphone comes with unlimited data, but without a calling plan? Living in this brave new world doesn’t mean you have to abandon voice communication. The new Vonage Mobile app for iPhone and Android brings this new reality closer with free worldwide talk and text to all other users of the app. Whether your phone is connected over 4G, 3G, or Wi-Fi, your entire address book is only a tap away. Just remember that calls still use a portion of your data plan.
Vonage Mobile certainly isn’t the first smartphone app to provide free calling and text messaging from mobile phones, so what make this different? Unlike Skype for iPhone and Android, which maintains a separate address book, Vonage Mobile integrates your existing address book –  which means free app-to-app calls and text messages are available without needing to reconnect with people who already provided contact information. And the Vonage Mobile multi-invite function lets you invite anyone (or everyone) from your contact list with one simple text. Skype requires you to search for users and invite each person one at a time.
Vonage Mobile doesn’t limit calls to people with the app, or even to people who have a smartphone. You can call direct from Vonage Mobile to virtually any phone number on the planet. You can dial internationally without needing to activate special services with your mobile carrier. And most importantly, you can do this with the address book on your phone and your existing mobile number.
There is a cost associated with calling phones directly, but according to Vonage, the app offers international calling with per-minute rates that average 70 percent less than major mobile carriers and 30 percent less than Skype. This savings estimate is based on per-minute rates to the top 50 countries called. Billing is also more convenient, with payment integrated directly into your iTunes or Android Market account, instead of maintaining billing in a separate login.
Vonage combines exceptional call quality with an integrated phone experience to offer a more complete calling solution.  Unlike other free voice apps, which often echo badly or sound like you’re talking on tin can, when calling app-to-app Vonage delivers what they call ‘high-def’ voice quality, which is frequently better than a standard cell phone call.

For those of you playing along at home, here is a quick feature recap: • Free domestic and international calls and texts to anyone with the Vonage Mobile app. • When calling a landline or phone directly, you get international calling with per-minute rates averaging 70% less than major mobile carriers and 30% less than Skype. • In-app credit purchases are tied directly to your iTunes or Android Market account. • Inviting multiple people right from your address book via SMS or email is easy. • Vonage Mobile automatically identifies contacts who already have the app. • Your mobile number double as your caller ID (so your friends won’t be surprised by an unfamiliar app-assigned number) • Works on Wi-Fi and 3G/4G worldwide. If better call quality to any of your existing contacts isn’t enough to make you try out Vonage Mobile, there’s just one more thing you should know. Vonage is currently offering free calls from virtually anywhere in the world to the United States, Canada, or Puerto Rico. There are a few circumstances where free calling may not work, like business calls, premium and special service numbers, and satellite phones, but for the most part, free really means free. You also need to stay under 3000 minutes per month, but who talks that much anyway? Download Vonage Mobile now and check it out on your iPhone or Android phone. Invite your family and friends so you have someone to text or call, then let us know what you think.

Raspberry Pi have written a post to clear up the stories going around that the boards have been delayed until September and the cost has had increased:

We’ve had a number of people contact us this morning about a teaser for an interview with David Braben in Eurogamer, which is due to go out next week. It seems to interpret some of the things that David said in a way that he certainly didn’t mean, and has panicked some of you enough to have you sending me horrified emails. Some other bits of the press have picked it up too; Tom’s Hardware currently have a big splash on their homepage saying “Raspberry Pi not available to consumers until September”. You can probably gather that I am not having a fantastic day dealing with this. I’m doing my best to get both articles amended.

You will be able to buy a Raspberry Pi from the end of February, from this website.The “consumer release” that Eurogamer is talking about is actually the educational release, which, as you’ll be aware if you’ve been hanging out on our forums, will come with a kid-targetted software stack, a heap of written support materials, and a standard case.

The model A will cost $25 and the model B will cost $35. These prices will not change (unless we can change them downwards). Price is such an important part of what we’re doing in trying to change the way people use computers that we’d be totally, totally mad to move the price point. The educational release’s case will not add to the price if we can possibly help it.

Good to know they are still on track for the end February

As promised, we’ve returned with a show on schedule. Not too much news this week but we still manage a full hour show. We get things started talking about Google’s Chrome browser for Android before launching into a full on Windows assault. With the consumer preview of Windows 8 looming, I’m tempted by a Windows slate. We also discuss some Windows Phone news and some general mobile talk. Download or stream #102 down below.

Show Notes

Android
Chrome Beta for Android Now Available

RIM
RIM Shows Off PlayBook 2.0 Features

WP
New Windows Phone Form-Factors Emerge, with one Huge Surprise!

Windows 8
Microsoft to Hold Windows 8 Consumer Preview Event on February 29
The Windows Developer Preview PC is not a Samsung Series 7

Other
T-Mobile launch bandwidth cap free “The Full Monty” plan
T-Mobile’s unlimited plan not so unlimited

Could Google be working on a Sonos competitor? The Wall Street Journal are reporting that Google are planning to develop a home entertainment system that would stream music around the home wirelessly and controlled from a tablet or smartphone.  The report also says it will be marketed under Google’s own brand rather than partnering with manufactures as it has done with Android devices.

Sounds like a good idea?

via Engadget

While we were at CES back in January Roku announced that they were shipping their box to the UK for the first time. Today they announced that the boxes had started shipping and they have added BBC iPlayer to the devices.

Checkout our video of of the Ruku recorded at CES

Press release:

Roku Increases Selection of Entertainment Content; Begins Shipping Roku Players to Customers in the UK
Roku Players Feature More than 40 Streaming Channels Including Region-Specific Programmes

Saratoga, Calif. and LONDON – Feb. 10, 2012 – Roku ®, the leading streaming platform in the U.S., today announced the addition of BBC iPlayer to its growing selection of video, music and games in the UK. Joining Netflix, FoxNews.com and others, the new channel will allow Roku’s UK customers to catch up on recent BBC programming on their television sets without the need for a PC.

“Roku recognizes the importance of region-specific programmes so today we are excited to announce the addition of BBC iPlayer to our platform,” said Clive Hudson, vice president and general manager for Europe at Roku. “This is among the first of many significant content partnerships for Roku in Europe and we look forward to making additional announcements in the coming weeks.”

Roku streaming players are known for their low prices, simplicity and quality of content. Two models of Roku players – Roku LT and Roku 2 XS – are available in the UK and the Republic of Ireland for suggested retail prices of £49.99 and £99.99 respectively (customers can visit www.roku.co.uk to find retailers). Both models feature more than 40 channels of streaming entertainment including on-demand films and programmes from Netflix and Crackle (Crackle is available in the UK only); live and on-demand sports from MLB.TV and Ultimate Fighting Championship organisation; music from Classical TV and TuneIn; photos and videos from Facebook and Flickr; news and entertainment from WSJ Live from the Wall Street Journal, FoxNews.com and others from around the world – plus casual games like Angry Birds.

 

via Engadget

Channel 4 have updated their iOS catch up app. Not much in this update apart from bug fixes, with the app you can can watch TV shows from Channel 4,E4 and More4 on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch.

You can get the app from the app store

What’s New in Version 2.0.2

This update includes bug fixes reported by a number of users. Please continue to report any comments or issues to us.

In a very long post on the Building Windows 8 blog Steven Sinofsky has written about the new Windows on ARM (WOA) platform and its relationship with the Intel platform. It’s a pretty details post and worth reading but I thought a few parts of it where worth highlighting.

• Sinofsky refers to WOA as a member of the Windows family on the lines of Windows Server and Windows Phone and not a subset of Windows 8.
• x86/64 applications will not run on ARM and they can’t be emulated or ported to run
• WOA PCs are in development and are due to ship at the same time as Windows 8 on Intel
• Metro apps written with WinRT will work on ARM and Intel
• There will be desktop version of Office 15 designed for WOA
• The Windows desktop is in the ARM version and applications like File Explorer, IE and other “intrinsic” Windows desktop features.

I think the message Microsoft are trying to promote is that Windows 8 on ARM is a parallel platform to the Intel version and that Metro apps will work on both systems (via the app store) and current x86/64 application will not work in on ARM.  I post is well work reading and there is a video embedded that shows of WAO. I am certainly looking forward to seeing WOA Windows 8 devices.

Download this video to view it in your favorite media player:
High quality MP4 | Lower quality MP4

BuildingWindowsfortheARMProcessor_low_ch9.mp4

One of the notable aspects of Microsoft Windows has been the flexibility the architecture has shown through shifts in technology and expansion of customer usage over time. What started out as an operating system for one person working solo with productivity software is now the foundation of a wide array of hardware and software technologies, a spectrum of connected Windows products, and an incredibly flexible approach to computing. With Windows 8, we have reimagined Windows from the chipset to the experience—and bringing this reimagined Windows to the ARM® processor architecture is a significant part of this innovation. Expanding the view of the PC to cover a much wider range of form factors and designs than some think of today is an important part of these efforts. Windows on ARM enables creativity in PC design that, in combination with newly architected features of the Windows OS, will bring to customers new, no-compromise PCs.

Having had my interest in XBMC re-kindled by Raspberry Pi I was pleased to see a new build of XBMC 11.0 Eden Beta 3. The new version fixes playlist issues, corrects Library buttons problems plus other fixes.

They have also announced XBMCbuntu which is based on a full LXDE desktop environment and has the Chromium web browser, Flash and GUI package. Details from XMBC’s blog and you can find the bits from xbmc.org/download

As we continue moving toward the release of Eden, more and more fixes are slotting into place. With Beta 3, we’ve fixed playlist issues, altered some misbehaving Library buttons, provided a little more control over the way movie sets are scraped, and cleaned up numerous other small bugs.

On top of the many bug fixes though, we are pleased to officially announce the first beta of XBMCbuntu. With this beta release, we have chosen to slightly shift the focus of the pre-built XBMC Live install. In the past, XBMC Live was optimized for a pure set-top box experience. In the switch to XBMCbuntu, we are pushing to a more traditional ‘buntu approach that emphasizes first trying and then ultimately installing XBMC onto the local machine.

There are many benefits to this approach. In particular, XBMC is now built upon a full LXDE desktop environment, which has a web browser (Chromium) with a fully updated (and updatable) version of Flash built-in and a GUI package manager ready to install and update all of the normal Ubuntu programs a typical Linux user might use. The user may now toggle between XBMC, which auto-starts, and a normal desktop if he or she chooses. And, perhaps most exciting for many users, XBMC will now be upgradeable, both from command line and from the GUI package manager, without fear of crashing the XBMC experience.

Naturally, those users who do not want to see the desktop will never need to. When you boot your computer, you will be booted directly into the XBMC homescreen, just as you are right now. The only clear difference is the new power underneath the hood.

For those users experienced in installing XBMC Live, be prepared for a newer, easier graphical installer. Your downloadable Disc Image may be found here. The installer still needs a bit of polish, most notably the slideshow panels, but we will be sure to brush up the cosmetics in time for final release.

And for those users of Eden Beta1 and Beta2, as always, your downloads may be found here. Once again, remember this is Beta software, and bugs are likely to appear. Feel free to let us know how your experience is going in the comments below