Mobile devices provide for a converging future
May 4, 2010 10:13 AM, By Carolyn Schuk
Cydle prepares to knock down iPad and Kindle walled gardens
Korean manufacturer Cydle is preparing to take on both the Apple iPad and Amazon's Kindle with its new Cydle (say it out loud: kye-dul) M7A tablet computer/mobile Internet device. Smaller and lighter than an iPad, the Cydle features the Android operating system, a super-fast ARM11 processor, a 7in screen with 800 x 480 resolution, WiFi, HDMI output and a battery life of six hours. More important, the Cydle does just about everything.
Due on Best Buy shelves in June, the M7 will come loaded with a full suite of applications, including a multimedia player, mobile Web browser, e-book reader, Skype, audio recorder, digital photo frame and touch-screen user interface. The M7A, due out in November just in time for Christmas, will add an ATSC Mobile DTV receiver.
QUALCOMM highlights broadcasting's advantages for rich media with new smartbook user interface
At the 2010 NAB Show, QUALCOMM debuted FLO mobile on Snapdragon smartbooks.
QUALCOMM continues to expand mobile TV its own way by introducing FLO TV on smartbooks — a category that the company defined as devices combining a computer's processing power and storage capacity with a telephone's ease of communication — with a new user interface designed to deliver an "immersive entertainment experience."
Running on Snapdragon-based devices, the new interface, brings live, linear video together with Web content in a single, six-window user interface that integrates news, weather, TV, games, time-shifted viewing and social media, as well as stored music and video, said Mona Klausig, senior manager of public relations at QUALCOMM MediaFLO Technologies.
For example, fans watching a live sports match can receive real-time data streams about athletes and team stats while also chatting with other fans around the world.
One of the more interesting aspects of FLO's new interface is its inclusion of an e-reader. Broadcast offers clear advantages for delivering the rich media's large data files, Klausig said. FLO TV is clearly hoping that consumers will start seeing those advantages. "We're looking at evolving consumer behavior, to marry those things [content] together in a social experience." Expect to see more interactive applications in the future from FLO TV, as well as new services such as event passes.
Fuugo personalizes ESG, raises its IQ with content choices from broadcast, mobile, Internet TV, social media
Faster than you can say "telefusion," Fuugo's Videoblender lets you combine last season's “Celebrity Rehab” fight between Tom Sizemore and Heidi Fleiss with this season's fight between the ex-lovers without leaving the couch
Finnish middleware company Axel Technologies had a problem. To stand out in the crowded media technology marketplace, "we had to reposition ourselves where there was no one else," said sales manager Markus Kaarto. So the company created a viewer-friendly interface and invented the word “telefusion" to describe its software for personalizing and combining content choices from broadcast, mobile and Internet TV.
"What happened to music is happening to TV," said Kaarto, who himself owns neither a TV nor a landline telephone. "Mobile devices make TV personal." Android-based Fuugo brings the many streams of broadcast and Web TV and video, social media, recorded content and DVR capabilities into a single, personal media stream. "Many mobile TV applications require too much from the user. We want to make it as easy to use as an iPhone."
Fuugo is currently in beta, and Kaarto says the company is working on IEM deals that it expects to announce soon.
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