media - 2/3 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Jun

This Is The Nexus Q: Google's Front-Line Soldier In The Invasion Of Your Living Room

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News, Nexus Q (Steelhead)

We heard about it earlier, and now it's official. The Nexus Q is a streaming media player that is designed to centralize your media streaming in the living room. The device connects to Google Music and allows both you and your friends to add media and rearrange playlists as they feed directly to your home theater. The device will launch for $300 on the Play Store.

The device includes support for optical audio out, as well as micro HDMI video and audio. The device can connect to the internet via WiFi or ethernet. The device connects and can be set up via NFC.

Jun

Google Is Going To Sell Triad Bookshelf Speakers To Go Along With The Nexus Q - For $400

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Google, News

Hope you've got a large available line of credit for this year's Google I/O, because the big G is not holding back. After we've found leaks of the mysterious ~~orb of power~~ Nexus Q, now Google's device page has shared some more secrets: expensive bookshelf speakers to go along with its new "social streaming media player."

The speakers will only be available in the US initially, and seem to be of a pretty high quality. We should certainly hope so, for the price. In any case, this certainly lends yet another intriguing element to the "Google Play @ Home" mentioned in the Nexus Q video.

Mar

Fascinating: OnLive Unveils OnLive Desktop - A Free, Instantly Available Windows 7 Cloud Instance For Tablets, Complete With MS Office, Media Streaming, And More [Hands-On]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in App Reviews, Applications, News, Tablets, Videos

OnLive, the company that has already revolutionized gaming is now gunning for making the same kind of splash in OS virtualization. And not just any OS virtualization, but Windows 7 in the cloud, for free - a set of words I never thought I'd write in the same sentence.

Something worth pointing out right off the bat is OnLive's "groundbreaking video compression technology" that is used to stream the Desktop cloud to your tablet. If there's one company that has figured out how to perfect streaming of full-screen media, it's definitely OnLive.

I was a bit skeptical at first, but after trying out every aspect of the app through a relatively slow, Spanish Vodafone HSPA+ hotspot here in Barcelona, I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed.

Feb

[Updated: Here Are The Winners!] Book Giveaway #14: Use Your Web Developing Skills To Create Android Apps With "Building Android Apps With HTML, CSS, And JavaScript"

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Contests / Giveaways, Development

Last Updated: February 15th, 2012

You're already a web developer, master of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You have a great idea for an Android App, but your particular skill set doesn't help you create that app. Or does it? O'Reilly media just released a 176-page 2nd edition of "Building Android Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript" by Jonathan Stark and Brian Jepson that explains how to do just that.

This contest is now over. Here are our winners, selected at random:

Simmy
Daniel Harris
Geremy Hamlett
superkrrk
John Halbert

Congratulations, guys - all of you will be contacted for your information in the near future!

Jan

[CES 2012] Lenovo's X1 Hybrid Laptop Crams Customized Gingerbread Next To Windows, Calls It "Instant Media Mode"

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, Gingerbread 2.3, Lenovo, News

Lenovo has just unveiled its new X1 Hybrid laptop, which runs Windows with a twist – namely, it can boot into "Instant Media Mode," which allows the laptop to run off of a Snapdragon processor, utilizing custom software based on the Android 2.3 kernel. Ostensibly, this mode is meant for users who want to get through a long flight, or simply zone out with a variety of media, with double the battery life they'd have running Windows.

Interestingly, Lenovo won't explicitly state that the hybrid is running Android, likely because, as Gizmodo astutely points out, it isn't running actual Android.

Dec

WordPress For Android Gets Updated To Version 2.0 – Adds Full Support For Tablets, Rich Text Formatting, And More

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Applications, News

WordPress for Android was updated to version 2.0 earlier today, making on-the-fly blogging easier than ever. The update brings several new features, including a Dashboard and Quick Action Bar giving "one-tap access to everything you want to do with your blog." Additionally, the update offers an all new post editor, which comes with a sophisticated rich text formatting bar and "enhanced" media features.

The update also brings full support for Android tablets, which is huge, particularly for those users with a handy Bluetooth keyboard. Personally, I wouldn't think of blogging from a phone, but the screen real estate offered by a tablet seems much more reasonable.

Oct

[Weekend Poll] What Is Your Primary Portable Music Player Device?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Polls

This is the latest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see Are You Waiting For The Galaxy Nexus/Nexus Prime To Upgrade Your Phone?

A fairly simple question this week: what is your primary portable music player? Do you still have a personal media player (PMP), or do you rely on your phone? Or perhaps another device - or none at all? Sound off in the poll below, then head down to the comments to discuss.

Oct

Preview And Download: Leaked Galaxy Nexus/Nexus Prime Ice Cream Sandwich Audio Files, Including Brand New Alarms

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

The Ice Cream Sandwich leaks are continuing today with P3Droid's dump of the audio files found in the next Nexus' Ice Cream Sandwich innards.

From what I can tell, most of them aren't unique until we get to the alarms - a few of them are brand new based on my Google searches:

Fermium.ogg [Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Hassium.ogg [Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Neptunium.ogg [Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Nobelium.ogg [Audio clip: view full post to listen]

The alarm sounds are quite futuristic and magical, instantly reminding me of Tron. Considering Honeycomb already started in this direction and ICS' theme is also Tron-like blue, I think we'll be hearing and seeing a lot more audio and visuals in a similar style.

Sep

New uTorrent Alpha Release Adds Integration For Android, iOS, PS3 And Xbox - Allows Users To Drag And Drop Downloaded Content To Their Mobile Devices, Consoles

Posted by Liam Spradlin in News

uTorrent, one of the most popular BitTorrent clients in existence, has released a new alpha build that brings an awesome new functionality. Users can now drag and drop downloaded content to various devices (including Android phones and tablets) directly from the uTorrent interface.

uTorrent also plans to add video and audio file conversion support in a later, paid version of their software, uTorrent Plus. These features are not new, however. Vuze, a competing BitTorrent client, added device integration and file conversion long ago and has seen great success.

It would appear that the development team at uTorrent is looking to follow that successful model, while still gaining revenue from it.

Sep

CyberLink PowerDVD Comes To Honeycomb, Brings A Slew Of Features Along With It

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Applications, News

Anyone who has been using a PC for even a short amount of time has probably heard of PowerDVD from CyberLink -- if you haven't, go check it out, I'll wait.

Back? Okay, now that you're more familiar with what PowerDVD is all about, you'll be glad to know that it has made its way to Honeycomb powered tablets, and it's packed with features. With the official app, you can:

Wirelessly stream media from PowerDVD on the PC to your tablet
Wirelessly save MP4 videos, photos, and music from PowerDVD on the PC
Watch videos and play music with the native players
Touchup photos with one-click enhancements
Create playlists and manage your media library
Share content from your tablet to your DLNA TV
...and more

That pretty much covers the gamut of mobile media viewing, but with the vast amount of features offered by PowerDVD, you can expect an equally large pricetag to go along with it -- $20, to be exact.