Archive for the ‘TV’ Category

When we look ahead in 2010, we can see that the innovation have just begun. So here is the list of technologies, which I think, will make its breakthrough in the industry in the year 2010. Most of these technologies are related to online media and the Internet.

1. Apple’s Tablet
The noise and speculation are too loud to ignore the presence of Apple’s Tablet. If all the rumors are authentic and, if by all means Apple launches the iSlate on 25^th January, then it’s going to be the thing to talk about in 2010.

We all must admit that a tablet is a concept that has been around us for a very long time. But it still hasn’t entered the main line consumer devices. But after the increase in sales and demand of Amazon Kindle and Nook, the market is pretty sure that a tablet is soon to be the device to have. So at this time, if Apple can bring the device with the interface that people are looking for then that’s it – We have our new iPOD.

The reason I say this is because, Online Reading is something that every Internet users do and Tablet provides the best way to consume the Internet content. Though we might still be working on a Laptop, Tablet will be the way to consume the digital content.

2. NetPhone

We are already seeing the usefulness of Google Voice, which many Americans have enjoyed. We already have software like Skype which allows you to communicate through the data line.

This shows that people are still comfortable with voice communication and it is not something that will die. We would still want to call our friends and family and communicate. Hence, we might see more advancement over VOIP and its strength.

Though mobile network provider would have to play a hard battle with the VOIP services, the conflict between these two models will end once we have more and more VOIP services running in our mobile devices.

3. Net Neutrality

The rise of Smartphone have suddenly put lot of pressure on the mobile network providers. The online content consumption and communication have stressed out the network providers. One of the prominent example is the failure of At&T to meet the iPhone’s demand. This have forced the content provider and distributors into two opposite poles.

Content providers like Google (YouTube for video content) consumes lot of bandwidth and this is not good for the network providers because they have to face the burden of handling the requests. On the other hand, content providers doesn’t have to pay anything to the distributor. As a result, Network providers would have to charge the users for more. Now this brings a great conflict between the consumer, provider and distributor. Net neutrality is all about giving full access to the Internet without any restriction. But we still need to make some breakthroughs in the communication between the provider and the distributor. Hence, we might be able to see some breakthroughs on Net Neutrality in 2010 and this should solve the current problem.

4. Social Profile Management(Advanced Analytics)

Online Social Networking have blasted the news channel on each opportunity in 2009 and it will continue to do so in 2010. More and more real time content would be distributed online and consumed by people. Online networking will see more than just sharing information.

2009 had an overwhelming reaction towards social media which created a lot of junk in the Internet. Currently, so many in formations and contents goes to waste and doesn’t make its way towards the targeted audience.

2010 will see a revolution towards social profile management with advanced analytics. This will be applying spam control over your network and strengthening the efficiency of your network connections. Profile search will also be a big thing, as sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook gets employed in professional hiring. Social network provides a best way to reach out to potential business and hence search (not for content) but for people should be big. Hence, social profile management with advance analytics will be the next big thing for social networks

5. Virtualization

Client desktop computing is surely the new way towards connecting people to offices. Virtual desktop

or Virtual machines will soon be employed in many offices providing better flexibility to hardware and software selection. This will reduce all the hardware cost of servers and desktops CPU maintenance in office. This will also reduce the cost of software as most will be deployed in the virtual machine. This is a key to cutting costs, lowering complexity, as well as increasing agility as needs shift.

 

 

6. Online TV

YouTube and other online video sharing sites have almost killed the TV. The new generation prefer Internet over TV channels. As with the music industry, TV channels have understood and going online is the only way towards future and they have to jump into this bandwagon before it’s too late. There are already many commercial channels shifting their attention from TV to Youtube or other sites like Hulu. Further, Google have already announced its paid content over Youtube and the new video advertising technology.

Along with TV, advertising also has to make its way to the eco-system and we already know of many rumors over Apple and Google coming with ways to prevent viewers from skipping the ads. This makes TV programs the best way to enter into Internet. Hence 2010 will certainly see the hand and hand cooperation of the Internet providers and the Online TV channels.

7. Cloud Computing

Cloud computing will be the new way of doing business over the internet. It will be more of virtual resources management, where company can optimize his/her resources according to needs and dynamic adaption to changes. This will allow companies to greatly enhance their products and services. Cloud computing will also leverage the potential of web application in the Internet and we might be seeing some great online applications for users and also enterprise solutions.

8. Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality is going to blow people’s mind in 2010. With the help of mobile computing, GPS  technology, mobile camera and Google maps, mobile application is going to have much more power to bring the experience to the user.

Further, the core of the technology will be the mobile camera and the placement of processed information on top of live streaming content from the camera.

We are already seeing some of it with mobile GPS applications, but 2010 will be clearly put these applications on the top shelf of mobile apps. This will allows users to get every information by integrating physical reality and virtual world.

9. Online Microsoft Office

Microsoft did face a lot of failures in 2009 starting with its slow rise of Bing and failure of Windows Mobile 6.5. So 2009 was not the year for Microsoft, but we could expect more from Microsoft in 2010. It’s Windows 7 have received good reviews, hence in 2010 we may get to read more about it. Windows Mobile 7 is also on its way, it might help Microsoft gain over their Smartphone market share.

But above all, we might get to read about Microsoft’s online OS. Yes, the Word and Excel. With the strength of today’s computing power over internet, the time is right for the Online Office. We have already seen the success of the Google Docs, so the speculation is high for Online Office. Hopefully this will reduce their cost and avoid nagging updates. The new competition is obviously on the Internet.

 

10. Mobile Transaction (Mobile Banking)

We all surely need to get rid of credit cards and debit cards. Once the mobile becomes more than just a communication platform but your financial manager, we will see a huge potential of mobile transactions and mobile banking.

Mobile application builders have already started making applications for enterprise solution by making it enterprise friendly. For mobile banking and transaction to be successful we need an enterprise solution over the mobile network similar to RIM’s Blackberry which will confirm security over the mobile transaction.

The year 2010 will certainly see the glimpse of future’s monetary transaction

10 Technologies That Will Rock 2010

Sure, OSX is pretty and functional, but can it fit on a 32mb flash drive? Mac-on-stick is a complete Mac OS 7.0.1 environment that runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and even Pocket PC. Use it to run old-school apps or classic games like Dark Castle.

Running Linux, Windows or applications like Firefox, Thunderbird, and AbiWord from a USB flash memory device is old hat. How about a Mac 128K or Plus on a USB key? You may think of it as a curiosity, but a “portable” Mac system has a few practical uses:

• Play with old system software and applications without dusting off your old Mac.
• Impress your friends, or show others what the older Mac system looks like.
• Use Mac on Windows and Linux.

Creating a Mac-on-Stick using Mini vMac [LinuxBeacon]

Taking ownership of system files or folders in Windows 7 or Vista is not a simple task. Whether you use the GUI or the command line, it takes far too many steps.

Thankfully somebody created a registry hack that will give you a menu item for “Take Ownership” that will handle all the steps for you.  (If you are the person that originally made this script, let me know and I’ll give you credit)

Here’s what the new right-click menu will look like after installing this registry hack.

Install

Download and unzip the files contained in the zipfile. Double-click the InstallTakeOwnership.reg file and click through the prompts. No reboot necessary.

Uninstall

Double-click the RemoveTakeOwnership.reg file and click through the prompts. No reboot necessary.

Download TakeOwnership.zip

Add "Take Ownership" to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista :: the How-To Geek

 

There are apparently an awful, awful lot of people out there with shoe boxes full of spare SATA drives. Somebody is buying all these new HDD docks, and while most surpass the previous editions by adding support for another obscure format of memory card, Brando’s latest seems like an actually useful update, adding HDMI and component ports through which it can output video at either 1080i or the always popular 576p. Standard resolutions may not be its strong point, and sadly there’s no mention of which video codecs it can unravel, but it does at least support the major flavors of audio files (MP3, WMA, AAC, etc.) and of course will read memory cards and thumb drives to boot. No, a bare drive may not look particularly appealing while rattling away on your entertainment center, and at $69 you’re not far from the price of a Windows Media extender or the like, but don’t let such practical concerns dissuade you from adding this unique focal point to your home theater.

Brando’s latest HDD dock adds HDMI into the mix

 Lost may be nearly over for the year, but you can keep the late-1970s, quasi-philanthropic/mystic vibe going all year with reader inaudiblewhisper’s Dharma-themed desktop.

The simple desktop customization blends a few important system stats into the background, using a combination of:

• RocketDock with a custom skin.
• Rainmeter integrates system stats into the background.
• The wallpaper is a modified version of the Interfacelift Dharma wallpaper.

The entire desktop configuration including all the customizations can be downloaded in a single file—hit the link for the download. Thanks, inaudiblewhisper!

Want to make your own customized desktop? You can get started creating your own killer desktop with the easy-install Enigma 2.0 package, and then join up with the Lifehacker Desktop Customization Google Group to collaborate on ideas and contribute code snippets and advanced techniques.

Once you’ve created your own beautifully tweaked (and hopefully productive) desktop, post it over in the Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell Flickr Group complete with a description of the programs and tweaks you used (and preferably links as well!), and we just might feature it here.

The Dharma Desktop

Lifehacker – The Dharma Desktop – Desktops

Access to premium HD on computers has eluded most for way to long, so as soon as we heard that it was finally possible for anyone to add a CableCARD tuner to just about any Media Center, we just knew we had to try it for ourselves, and more importantly, share with you exactly how to do it. This doesn’t really require any hacking, or anything illegal for that matter — we’re not lawyers — but it isn’t cheap. The internal version of the ATI Digital Cable Tuner pictured above can be found new on eBay for about $195, or new from PC vendors like Cannon PC for just under $300. If that doesn’t seem like a bad deal to you and you already have an HTPC up to the challenge, then you should join us on our journey to HD bliss by clicking through.

Gallery: How To install a CableCARD tuner on any computer

Read On….

How to install a CableCARD tuner in your DIY Media Center

Web site FeedMyTorrents publishes RSS feeds of torrents for popular TV shows. Just subscribe to your favorite show and let your BitTorrent client automatically download new episodes as soon as they’re available.

FeedMyTorrents isn’t the only web site of this kind—perhaps the most notable alternative being tvRSS—but it’s a good deal more simple to understand and use than tvRSS. Where tvRSS has an undeniably larger collection of shows, FeedMyTorrents is strict about a duplication-free feed, meaning you don’t have to tweak the feed or weed out downloads you don’t want. Just pick the show you want to subscribe to, set it up in your BitTorrent client of choice, and you’ll always have the latest and greatest episodes of your favorite shows as soon as they’re available. Thanks Jason!

FeedMyTorrents

BitTorrent: FeedMyTorrents Offers TV Torrent Feeds without Duplicates

This free program allows you to move and transcodes, if needed, to most video formats to your Tivo. Similar to TiVo Desktop pyTivo loads many standard video compression codecs and outputs mpeg2 video to the TiVo. However, pyTivo is able to load MANY more file types than TiVo Desktop.

• Output 4:3 or 16:9 and pad your video if needed.
• Transfer compatible mpegs without transcoding.
• Transfer TiVo recordings (.tivo) from computer to TiVo.
• Display MetaData about your video.
• Serve Music and Photos through HMO protocol
• Support for Windows, Linux, and Mac

• This shows how a pyTivo server shows up at the bottom of the Now Playing List. Note there are two folders listed, but both of these come from one pyTivo server. This demonstrates how pyTivo has the ability to allow for multiple folders.

 

• This image demonstrates browsing of a pyTivo server. Browsing is the same as normal browsing in TiVo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Requirements ¶

In order to run pyTivo you will need:

1. A compatible TiVo (Series2 or later)
2. A Python interpreter. Here is a quick link to the Windows Installer.
3. FFmpeg. Here is a quick link to its Windows installer.
4. The pyTivo script.  pyTiVo.exe for Windows.
5. The Python Imaging Library — if you pl .an on using the photo plugin

Installations

• Windows
• Linux
• OS X
• Solaris
• Linksys NSLU2

If you find yourself getting lost check out the FAQ

pyTivo – Trac

 

In the dog days of summer when there’s absolutely nothing new on television (except the Olympics), it’s time to start watching the web—and you need the right tool to do just that. The free, cross-platform internet video player Miro can automatically download online video series via RSS feed or BitTorrent, play almost any format you throw at it, and keep track of what you’ve watched and what’s new and queued up for you. More and more independent producers are putting out fabulous video content on the web, but keeping up with it by visiting your favorite video hosting web site or in your regular feed reader can be almost impossible—but setting up Miro is like getting TiVo for web video. Let’s take a look at how to subscribe to free internet television with Miro.

Miro’s TiVo-Like Features

In short, Miro is a video "podcatcher"—software that uses video feeds to automatically download new episodes for you and keep track of what you’ve watched and not watched. Kind of like an inbox for your video subscriptions, here’s what Miro looks like with a few subscriptions set up.

(Note: This screenshot is from a Mac, but Miro works on Windows and Linux as well.) There you can see my subscription to the great Google Talks YouTube feed, and Miro separates what’s available on the feed, what clips it’s already downloaded to my hard drive, what’s unwatched, and what it’s in the process of downloading in an easy to use interface. On the left hand column, you can see my current subscriptions, and how many unwatched items each has in the green circle.

Since I often can’t take time out of a workday to watch longer video clips, I like to run Miro on a computer connected to my actual television, so I can relax on the couch and watch my subscriptions full-screen during TV time. Here’s a rundown of the killer features that make Miro ideal for keeping up with online video:

Online Video: Miro is Your TiVo for Internet Video

 

Windows only: Free software YouTube File Hack is a standalone application and Internet Explorer integrated menu item that downloads videos to your desktop from the popular video sharing site. Simply run the application, enter the URL of the YouTube video you want to view offline, and press the Download button. When all is said and done, you’ll have an FLV file for watching offline (we recommend the free VLC player to do so).

To use the Internet Explorer integration, navigate to any web page, right click on a YouTube video link, and choose the "Download this YouTube Video" option from the right-click menu. (Note that the "Download this" menu item displays regardless of whether a video is present or not.)

YouTube File Hack is one of several ways to download YouTube video clips. Let’s review just a few of our favorite options:

• The All-In-One Video Bookmarklet works in IE or Firefox and requires no installation—just drag and drop it to your browser toolbar.
• The Better YouTube Firefox extension adds a "Download this video" link to any YouTube page in Firefox.
• Vixy.net and Viddownloader takes the URL of a YouTube clip, converts it to a format of your choice, and offers it for download.

For more video handling desktop and online apps, check out our top 10 free video rippers, encoders, and converters.

Currently, YouTube File Hack works within Internet Explorer only; the software is a free download for Windows only. What’s your favorite way to download YouTube clips? Let us know in the comments.

YouTube: YouTube File Hack (and Others) Download Clips to Your Desktop

 

This morning we announced support for Netflix service as being built-in in an upcoming software update to 360 service. As C|Net points out, there have been some workarounds for this in the meantime, but this solution will allow you to stream natively and without a dedicated Media Center PC.
Also announced is a shared movie experience that will let you watch a movie at distance with up to 7 friends at once. Major Nelson promises more details on this later today.

It’s Official: Get Netflix on your Xbox 360 | Larry Larsen | Channel 10

 

Zune fansite ZuneBoards has recently launched a YouTube-like site for converting and sharing Zune clips with the community. The site is called ZuneTV. Here, users can upload videos, which are automatically converted into the Zune-compatible .wmv format. Those clips are then made available for download by any member. Like any social video sharing site, there are ways to rate, favorite, and comment on videos and the videos can be embedded anywhere on the net thanks to a handy copy-and-paste embed code. In order to participate on ZuneTV, you have to first get a ZuneBoards account, then you just head here: www.zunetv.net.

 

ZuneTV

 

While we’re still waiting for the early year flirtations of NBC and Apple to sprout into a renewed relationship, it looks like Microsoft is picking up the ball and running with it. The new Zune Marketplace TV lineup includes NBC favorites "The Office, "Heroes" and "30 Rock," in addition to popular shows from Comedy Central, MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, and Sci Fi Channel. Over 800 episodes in total are available at the moment, and all of them are going for 160 Microsoft Points — about $2.00. A more complete list is after the break.

Zune TV lineup gets some NBC love – Engadget

 Windows only: Freeware application bitRipper provides no-hassle, one-click conversions from DVDs straight to AVI video files. Until recently a commercial program, bitRipper handles the decryption and encoding of the DVD video in one fell swoop, emphasizing a very simple one-click process (though you can set more advanced options if you like). The on-the-fly encryption and encoding means bitRipper also works very quickly. The downside: bitRipper does not support filetypes other than AVI, which means you’ll want to stick with previously mentioned HandBrake when you’re ready to rip a DVD for your iPod. If you give it a try, let’s hear how you like it in the comments. While you’re beefing up your DVD-ripping toolbet, check out the five best DVD ripping tools.

Download

Featured Windows Download: BitRipper Converts DVDs to AVIs in One Click

 

Modern Feed is a smart product, taking hosted video programming from a variety of sources and consolidating it into a single directory that’s curated by human beings. The entire experience revolves around a small navigator that sits atop your browser in its own frame. It lets you browse around playlists, search for your favorite shows, and jump around to various content providers without getting lost.

What makes the product noteworthy is that it’s taken some of the annoyances out of viewing professionally produced content on the Web. For example, if there are several places to get the same piece of content, the human curators, known as "feeders" go through and pick out the best one to send you to based on video quality, stream speed, and ease of use. It will also tell you how to get at the video if there are steps you need to take to get the video to start playing. Each time you click to play a video you can preview this information before being jettisoned off-site. It’s a really nice touch.

Modern Feed programming listings contain multiple streams, so if you want to view a certain format you can go straight to the source.

Playlist management is also well thought out. You can subscribe to shows on a season pass, just as you would on a DVR. The newest shows end up in your queue and can be reordered. There’s also a designation between a regular playlist and one for iPhones, which contains any H.264 files that can be played on the device if you don’t feel like viewing on your PC. Viewing and browsing these clips requires the use of the specially designed iPhone site (i.modernfeed.com) and a Wi-Fi connection, but the implementation is quite beautiful. Heilprin says the designers took a page or two from Facebook’s iPhone app, and that they plan to make other device-optimized versions in the future.

At launch there are more than 25,000 programs in the directory. There’s a built-in search tool that does a great job at getting you to various shows. The real hook, however are the feeder-created categories, which are far more enjoyable to explore than simply browsing alphabetically. The feeders have created picks the like of iTunes with staff choices and hot lists of what users are watching the most. It makes the site very human and keeps you watching tons of videos from all over the place.

While Hulu may have gotten some real buzz for its convergence of video resources, Modern Feed is doing something far bigger. It’s lassoing content from everywhere. It’s doing what social aggregators like FriendFeed and SocialThing have done so well, which is putting all this information into one centralized location. The added benefit is that Modern Feed has made it exceptionally easy to use and incredibly useful if you’re thinking about ditching your cable provider.

check it out at: Modern Feed 

Modern Feed serves up the ultimate Web TV surfing tool | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone