A good (or even middling) soundbar can really boost your TV viewing experience, and it's all the better if the soundbar also has streaming capabilities like the JBL Link Bar or Roku Smart Soundbar. Roku only announced that streaming soundbar a few weeks back, and now there's a second one. This one is cheaper, and it's being released under the Wallmart Onn brand.
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We all thought the JBL Link Bar was a clever product when it was announced, but it took more than a year for the Android TV-equipped soundbar to come out. Now, Roku has a similar product, and it's set to launch in just a few weeks. The Roku Smart Soundbar brings big sound to your TV, plus it has a full-featured 4K Roku streaming player inside.
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Roku has leveraged low prices and vast app support to become one of the most well-known media streamer platforms. Devices like the Roku Stick are basically impulse purchases at this point. Today, some of Roku's cheapest streaming boxes are getting new capabilities. The updated Premiere is getting 4K HDR support, and the new Premiere+ adds Google Assistant.
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Google recently launched a new feature that suggests various streaming services when you're looking at TV shows and movies to watch. The latest update doesn't appear to do any more than ensure that feature is available, assuming it hadn't already rolled out to you. However, it looks like there's still a little more to come. It looks like we'll also get the option to configure those streaming services and cable subscriptions to get better suggestions.
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If were lucky enough to have cable TV back in the 90s (and you were around the right age and/or state of mind) you probably remember countless hours of Cartoon Network. The fledgling channel was nothing less than a classical education in the golden age of Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera shows. Eventually Cartoon Network filled up with its own original programming, but the classic shorts and Saturday morning cartoons moved over to a sister channel, Boomerang, which is still showing off the good stuff.
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The SHIELD TV is the best Android TV device around, even if its competition isn't up to much. With NVIDIA's Tegra X1 architecture and an available 500GB hard drive on the Pro model, one might wonder why something like the fan-favorite Plex software wasn't available before. (Plex was previously installed on the SHIELD, but only as a client for streaming media from another server.) Well soon enough it will be: NVIDIA and Plex announced that the next update to the SHIELD firmware will include a built-in Plex media server.
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If you're one of those users who continually laments the lack of expandable storage options from high-end smartphones or tablets, Seagate would like a word. The well-known hard drive manufacturer is releasing a somewhat unconventional model aimed squarely at mobile devices. The Seagate Wireless (that's the full name of the drive) is a 500GB hard drive with a built-in power supply and a Wi-Fi radio for accessing files on the go.
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Rdio's Android app got a teensy, tiny update today, adding gapless playback to all devices running Android 4.1. According to the "What's New" section of the Play Store page, the feature was added in by popular demand. For the uninitiated, gapless playback is exactly what it sounds like: a seamless transition from one track to the next. It's a big deal for some users, and much harder to do on a streaming music service than on local playback.
To get you in the mood, Rdio's nameless blogger recommends two very specific albums to fully appreciate the new feature: Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon 2011 remaster, for people with taste, and Daft Punk's Alive 2007 album, for people without.
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OK, Music Boss, admit it: you tried pretty hard to get our attention with the 1.8.1.4 update. I mean, Pebble smartwatches, streaming movies, and Chromecast all in the same story? How could we resist?
Music Boss is a robust way to control playback of various media apps via your Pebble or Pebble Steel smartwatch, and it was also one of the very first additions to the official Pebble app store. The tool is light-years ahead of the basic music player built into the Pebble, allowing users to launch and switch Android music apps, adjust volume, and integrate with more esoteric apps like Tasker.
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AllCast developer Koushik Dutta has added DLNA server support to his media Chromecasting app. Now anyone with AllCast installed can stream media straight from their DLNA servers to a Chromecast device with minimal effort.
A competing app, LocalCast, recently added the ability to cast network storage files via Samba. The catch was that you had to stream files to your Android device first before sending them out to a Chromecast. That isn't the case here. AllCast will let you send files straight to a Chromecast without any intermediate transfers.
Anyone who downloads this app may also notice a new icon sitting in their app drawer.
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