One of the most interesting aspects of watching a streaming service provider like Netflix roll its apps out across the various Smart TV platforms and OTT boxes on the market is watching how different devices and platforms receive access to different features at different times. In fact, sometimes a feature rolls out to a new platform that I wasn’t even […]
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Part of the appeal of the Roku media streamers over the years has been the openness of the platform. At any given time, there have been dozens of unofficial apps or channels that could be added to one’s Roku, and even among the officially supported channels, there were always plenty of off-beat and incredibly niche offerings to explore. The Roku […]
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The good folks at Plex have released a relatively substantial update to their Android app, fixing a number of bugs and adding two big new features. First up is a remote control, allowing for control of Android-based Plex devices as well as enabling remote browsing and streaming from other devices. The other new feature is a beta version of Plex’s […]
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With rumors of Google’s new tablet selling out, we can probably expect to see a number of media and streaming service providers following Comcast’s lead in announcing explicit support for the Nexus 7. Comcast has announced that their Xfinity TV Player has been updated with beta support for the Nexus 7, not to mention beta support for the forthcoming Jelly […]
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Microsoft has updated their My Xbox Live app for iOS, bringing it up version 1.6 and adding Quickplay support for controlling an Xbox 360 remotely to the iPad. The previous update to the iOS app had enabled Quickplay for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but with this update it is now possible to control an Xbox from any iOS device. […]
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I have already lamented the lack of news from Google regarding Google TV during the Google I/O developer’s conference last week. Obviously I was looking in the wrong direction because at least one company saw fit to talk up Google TV during the conference: Peel. When we reviewed the Peel Universal Smart Remote for iPhone and Android, we found a universal […]
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Every major TV manufacturer is trying to build a Smart TV platform these days, each with their own app store and development tools. The reality is that, for the most part, all of these manufacturers are looking to provide the same apps and access to the same connected services, so it seems silly that we should have all these different […]
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Western Digital’s WD TV Live and Live Hub media streamers have received an update enabling access to several new media streaming services and the SlingPlayer app, as well as VUDU movie downloading, though only for the WD TV Live Hub with its built-in hard drive. The new streaming services include AOL On for the U.S., the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for […]
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Nintendo has shown little enthusiasm in the past for turning the Wii into a media streaming device. The Wii does offer access to Netflix and Hulu Plus, but this is a far cry from the variety of media streaming apps available on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. For Nintendo, the Wii U, the new console that launches later this […]
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The idea that a game console manufacturer would present a keynote at E3 that is almost entirely devoted to video games should not surprise anyone, and that is exactly what Sony did this year. Sure, there was some weird ebook/augmented reality app/PlayStation Move thingy that some Harry Potter fan somewhere will enjoy, but otherwise the keynote was pretty much all games. Sony did briefly […]
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