HTC Holding October 6th Party In London, New Devices Prepared?

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Just like on October 7, 2010, HTC is holding a press conference followed by a party this year too, on October 6 this time, 2011, in London. What exactly will be revealed is a mystery at the moment but today's HTC event may shed some light on what to expect.

We've seen leaks of the HTC Bass/Runnymede, HTC Rhyme/Bliss and the HTC Vigor. The event could show off any of these devices in their European/Worldwide iteration or could be anything else (like the rumored HTC Beat media player we've seen the other day). With the Radar and Titan already out of the way, it's almost certain that we're expecting Android phone(s) made in Taiwan.

Source: Slashgear
Via: PhoneArena

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Nokia Windows Phone Devices Hitting Australia Q1 2012

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PHOTOS: The wild world of art meets connected devices

The Museum of Modern Art in New York will open up an exhibit about the art of connected devices, called Talk to Me, on Sunday. It’s got around 200 pieces that are anywhere from thought-provoking, to weird, to beautiful, to hilarious. (I posted some of the more sustainable-oriented ones here).

Flip through the slide show below to see pieces like a choking cell phone, a sneezing radio, the Avatar Machine, anonymous peer-to-peer sharing USB ports injected into walls, and an expressions dispatcher to help aid your emotions in the age of reliance on digital screens.

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Pigs beware: Roku gets Angry Birds with new devices

Roku is rolling out the latest generation of media streaming boxes later this month, with a new, smaller form factor and more powerful graphics at the same price point as the last generation. With the release, the company is betting big on casual games becoming available on new Roku 2 devices, including Rovio’s Angry Birds.

Like its product release last year, the new generation of Roku boxes will have three distinct price points with products targeted at entry-level, intermediate and power users. The Roku 2 HD ($60), Roku 2 XD ($80) and Roku 2 XS ($100) will soon be available online and in channel partners’ retail stores in the coming weeks. Tech specs for all three are as expected after Roku’s next generation of devices leaked online due to an FCC filing, but this release isn’t about the technology under the hood as it is about the new opportunity it introduces through casual games that will soon be released on the platform.

While Roku is continuing its practice of having different price points for different users, most of the innovation and value comes at the high end. The startup has not only packaged Angry Birds with the Roku 2 XS, but it’s also included a game-changing remote control (no pun intended) with an accelerometer included. While only the top-of-the-line model comes with the new gaming remote, it will be available as a separate accessory for Roku users that want to buy it later.

That remote is what mostly makes Angry Birds playable on the device. It’s powered by Bluetooth, and it’s capable of working with all three models. Also contributing is a new processor built into Roku boxes that will enable the kind of casual games that will soon become a staple on the device.

In addition to the original Angry Birds title, Roku will soon release Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio. But that’s just the start of its casual games revolution: Roku has also struck a deal with Namco that will bring Pac-Man CE and Galaga to the platform, and has other similar deals in the works, according to Roku VP of Marketing Chuck Seiber.

The new devices aren’t just about gaming, though. New video and social networking applications are being released with the platform as well. That includes a new, just-released Facebook channel with higher-quality picture and video capabilities, as well as channels for Epix, Major League Soccer, AOL and FOX News.

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How connected devices will disrupt the TV ad market

Linear TV makes up the bulk of video ad dollars today, with about $160 billion worldwide being spent on broadcast advertising, compared to just $5.4 billion in IP-delivered video. But a rapidly growing number of connected devices will soon disrupt what we think of as TV advertising, by combining TV-sized reach with all the interactivity, targeting and analytics advertisers have come to expect from web video ads.

The online video ad market has grown substantially over the last few years, but so far it has yet to really make a dent in TV advertising. While the TV ad market is growing more slowly than online on a percentage basis, it continues to add billions of dollars every year, compared to just the hundreds of millions that are sneaking into online video. For those that thought online video would soon begin to steal budget away from TV, that hasn’t happened — yet.

But things start to get interesting when TVs get connected and more of the video we watch is streamed rather than delivered over traditional TV broadcast. As seen in the graph below, the real opportunity for advertising growth is in targeting that increasingly influential medium. The graph, which is based on data from Booz & Co. projections for the video ad market, was first shown to me by Videoplaza CEO Sorosh Tavakoli as evidence of where the “TV ad market” is actually going.

Advertising for video on PCs and web browsers, video delivered to mobile devices and video delivered to tablets will all grow significantly in the coming years, but will pale in comparison to the growth of advertising for streaming video on connected TVs. And as monetization of streaming video to connected devices grows, the share of ad dollars going to traditional TV services will shrink.

That’s where companies like Videoplaza come in: By serving as the go-between for media buyers and consumer electronics manufacturers and streaming services, they can meet the unique demands of ads built for TV, but with all the bonuses of IP delivery. They will be able to combine the reach of broadcast TV with the interactivity, targeting and accountability of web-based advertising, agencies and brands will get the best of both worlds. They will be able to serve into multiple video platforms and formats across consumer electronics manufacturers. And they’ll enable performance-based campaigns that also scale beyond what is a fairly limited web video market today.

For its part, Videoplaza already enables advertising on devices like the Sony PlayStation 3, Samsung and LG TVs, the iPhone, iPad and Android mobile devices and IPTV platforms in France. While focused primarily in Europe, the company is rapidly growing worldwide.

But it’s not alone: All the major ad networks are looking for ways to expand beyond delivering ads into the web browser and onto a growing number of devices. With so much future money at stake, it’s no wonder that connected TVs will be at the center of many ad technology company strategies going forward.

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Hands on with Spotify for mobile devices

Spotify, one of the most popular music streaming services in Europe and other regions, today launched in the U.S. as expected. Spotify offers a massive catalog of music for free, but adds features in two paid monthly subscription tiers: Unlimited for $4.99 and Premium for $9.99. Reinforcing the shift away from desktop computing, mobile users will have to ante up for the Premium plan to enjoy Spotify on the go, available on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Symbian, and webOS devices.

Here’s a breakdown of the other features in the service tiers, including offline mode to store tracks and advertising-free playback:

The removal of ads is nice, as is truly unlimited streaming, assuming you don’t have bandwidth caps to contend with, but to me, the big feature is Spotify playback on mobiles. And another Premium feature dovetails nicely with the supported handsets: Playlists can be used offline, allowing for music from Spotify’s catalog to be stored locally and played back without using precious mobile broadband. A great strategy for this feature would be to have the software synchronize offline playlists while on a Wi-Fi network. In fact, on the Android version of Spotify, I see options to sync music over Wi-Fi, 3G or both.

Aside from the offline storage, Spotify can help manage mobile broadband use through a playback quality setting. Low-bandwidth mode won’t sound quite as good, but uses a 96 kbps data stream; high bandwidth boosts the audio quality as well as the bandwidth due to a 160 kbps music stream. Such mobile data use can add up quickly: See our recent post on what a gigabyte is for mobile users to get an idea of how much data these types of services use.

On handsets, I haven’t yet found a feature that’s available in the Windows or Mac Spotify client that’s missing for mobiles. It’s easy to create Playlists, search for albums, tracks or artists, play locally stored tracks (yes, Spotify will play back music you’ve purchased and store on your handset) or share tunes with friends. There’s an option to shoot track information to Last.fm, Facebook, Twitter or via email. If you have friends on Spotify, you can even share your current track with them directly and a news feed in the app shows what your Spotify friends are listening to, provided they’ve enabled sharing and take advantage of it. If you’d rather hide your addiction to ABBA, you’ll want to see how to manage Spotify’s sharing settings.

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I have found two limitations when using Spotify on a smartphone, however. First, not all tracks are playable, although I can’t tell how many are limited specifically to the desktop client. A good example is The Legend of Johnny Cash. When searching for this album, it doesn’t appear in the mobile search results, but does show and is playable in the desktop client. That’s likely due to Spotify’s licensing agreements with music labels and it also brings up the second limitation: You can’t play music simultaneously on different handsets and desktop clients.

That means Spotify won’t allow you to listen to music on your smartphone while your family is trying to do the same on a desktop at home. As soon as I hit the play button in Spotify’s iOS client, for example, the desktop client stopped playing. For now then, it’s one account per person unless Spotify can devise some type of family plan.

Some may compare Spotify to Microsoft’s Zune Pass service, which supports music streaming to phones, local downloads and playback of millions of tracks in a similar subscription approach. Zune Pass costs $14.99 per month, which includes users to download and keep 10 tracks per month. But the biggest drawback I see compared to Spotify is the mobile platform limitation. If you want to subscribe to Zune Pass, you can only use a Windows Phone or the older Microsoft Zune digital audio players.

With support for multiple platforms, hooks into Facebook and wireless streaming playback in addition to offline music storage, Spotify plays all the right notes for mobile music lovers. I’ve long been adding to my music library through Amazon’s MP3 store, which offers daily deals as low as $1.99 for an album. But I haven’t yet bought Colbie Caillat’s new $9.49 album that arrived earlier this week. For just a few cents more, I’ve already heard the full album twice on Spotify and plenty of other songs too, so the new service has me rethinking my mobile music plans.

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