If you happen to own one of five kinds of Nokia phone–an E72, E71x, 5800, N97, and N97 mini phones–and you’re fond of Netflix, then I’ve got some great news for you.
Netflix, just two days ago, launched a new kind of app exclusively for those five phones, that will allow you to remotely modify your queue, browse their library for possible additions to that queue, and even watch previews of upcoming releases.
It’s available on the Ovi Store, under entertainment.
About the only people saddened by this news is everybody at Blockbuster Online, who doesn’t have anything even remotely like this and is still jumping for joy over their new “download movies to SD card” system. This would admittedly be awesome except the downloaded movies will only play on a television, but that’s beside the point.
If you’ve got Netflix and Nokia, folks, you might as well get the app.
If you or someone you love has chronic heart problems, like the kind that took my grandfather, then you might well be interested to hear about the results of the three month test that’s currently in its second month for a kind of portable heart monitor that can send data back to medical professionals automatically on a regular basis.
In a partnership with Gen-i and Alcatel-Lucent, the gear in question uses a Bluetooth system (ah, Bluetooth–what can’t you do?) to, with the press of a button on the control unit, take blood pressure and weight readings from an electronic scale at the patients’ houses and sends them to hospital staff.
The technology in question is easily portable, allowing patients to continue living fairly normal lives while getting treatment, and allows medical professionals to free up hospital rooms and also keep themselves from getting tied down to their own offices. In fact, the guy you see above is one of the current test subjects, and he’s reporting a whole lot of positives from the new technology.
The trial is expected to finish up in December and results released early 2010.
If you’ve ever had a Genius Bar appointment at the Apple Store, than you’ve surely noticed that an employee has checked you in using an iPod touch. If you’ve also ever bought something like an iPhone you’ve noticed they use Windows CE-based handhelds to complete your transaction. Not for much longer.
Soon enough all Apple Store Employees will be able to deal with all purchases, returns, iPhone activations, through debit/credit cards and cash while using an iPod touch.
A new case and proprietary software is on its way that fits the Touch and is capable of being a magnetic stripe reader, barcode scanner, and can accept signatures using a stylus. All sounding pretty cool, will it have a positive effect on the customer service experience?
Well, folks, it’s true. An era has ended. One of the greatest early guardians of Internet content just got wiped off the face of the web about ten hours ago.
I’m talking about Geocities, folks, the place where everybody who was anybody who knew HTML went for free web hosting. They too could make a web page about their cat or their dog (Foofie, even–if you saw the White and Nerdy video that makes a lot of sense) or anything like that.
Back in the early days of the Internet, long before blogging and SEO and any modem speed much faster than 14.4 kbps (yeah, K. As in Kilobyte.), Geocities was the place to go to get a chunk of the world wide web for yourself. And Yahoo realized this, inevitably buying it for a whopping $3.5 billion bucks.
Of course, these days, Geocities wasn’t as widely used as the blogs and social media of today, so that spelled the end for Geocities.
So long, old friend. We’ll miss this simple relic of a bygone era, back when the Internet seemed new and potential seemed limitless.
If you’ve got cats, then you know what the worst thing about having them is. Namely, it’s their litterboxes. Cats are pooping in your house, and you’re left to clean it up.
Did we lose a war?
Yes, I know, once again, Simpsons did it first. But you can now correct the much bigger problem of cat waste in your house with the LitterWorks automatic litter box.
If you follow the read link, you’ll be taken to the LitterWorks site, which will explain in spectacular detail just how this thing works. A simple version goes like this: ten minutes after your cat leaves the surprise of the day in the litter box, the LitterWorks springs into action and rakes up the cat mess, dropping said rakings into an expandable plastic bag in a separate compartment.
This is a clever idea, and from the sounds of things, even manages to keep the smell to a minimum too. Anything that does that has to be a sweet gadget in anyone’s book.
According to an industry source familiar with Netflix’s future plans, the DVD rental company will be bringing their streaming service to an iPhone near you (and the Nintendo Wii). Of course, this news wasn’t a question of if, but when as Netflix opened up their API to any willing participant and even hinted at the development of such an app.
How soon the app will debut in the iTunes app store is anyone’s guess, but given Netflix’s goal of world dominance in not only the DVD rental space, but the media streaming arena I’d guess that it will be free for all to download. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that the service will work over AT&T’s 3G connection, since previous applications that offer streaming media have been limited to a WiFi only connection.
On August 11th, Netflix subscribers with an Xbox and Xbox Live account will enjoy a relatively significant upgrade allowing them to manage their instant queue without leaving their couch. We’ve already played with the update and like what we see.
Although many of Netflix’s streaming movies and TV shows are old or somewhat ‘b movie quality’, they still offer the most comprehensive selection of streaming media at the lowest price; $8.99.
So if there was ever another reason to get an iPhone, here it is.
Arriving sometime this summer, Coca-Cola will roll out a revolutionary drink dispensing machine called the Coca-Cola Freestyle.
It uses a touchscreen interface and highly concentrated flavor cartridges with micro dosing technology to deliver more than 100 beverages from a single machine. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to mix your own concoctions, but flavors that you have never heard of before, such as Fanta Peach or Raspberry Coca-Cola will be available for your drinking pleasure.
Leaving no stone unturned, Coke will track the consumption of flavors and will probably use the information to influence the development of future Coke beverages. Additionally, Coke has the power to remotely kill any flavors.
Apparently, the machines have already started to show up in California, Georgia and Utah. By summer’s end more than 60 machines should be scattered across the US.
I love it. At some point in the next few years the line between TV and Internet machine will be significantly blurred. Adding to the haziness today is Sony. They’ve announced that their Internet Video-capable BRAVIA TVs and those with the Internet Video Link module will be able to stream Netflix’s 12,000+ movies and TV shows. Like the current Xbox system as well as the Roku player, users will need to create their Instant Queue using a computer, but since the Xbox is set to release an update to their Netflix player that allows users to add movies on the fly, what’s to stop Sony from adding the very same feature in the future, aside from the lack of keyboard. Expect the Netflix feature to hit a Sony TV near you this fall and keep your fingers crossed for some PS3 integration.
While some buy water others invest in precious metals during times of possible apocalyptic turmoil. The TG-Gold-Super-Markt is the first gold, yes gold vending machine. In order to take it for a spin, though, you’ll have to travel to Germany’s Frankfurt Airport. So if you happen to be in Terminal 1 sometime soon, drop in $49 and you’ll have yourself a 1g wafer of gold, or for $400 you can pick up a 10g bar or coins. But unlike your local laundromat’s quarters machine, each piece of gold comes with a certificate of authenticity and the machine is jacked into the Frankfurt gold market so it can update its prices every few minutes. After that it tacks on a 30% fee, which all said and done is a hell of a lot, but so is any tourist piece of crap. Expect 500 more of these machines to pop up throughout Germany in the near future.
Generally speaking I turn a blind eye to late night infomercials and products that make guarantees that are just too good to be true. Magic Jack appeared to be one of those products, but apparently the company has turned itself around since launch and sold over 3 million devices.
If you’re not familiar with Magicjack it’s a small device that lets you place VoIP (like Skype) calls from a regular landline phone through your computer’s broadband connection. It plugs into your computer’s USB port and for $40 includes unlimited calls to the US and CA with no monthly charges or minutes for up to 1 year. After that it’s just $20 a year.
Now the company has plans to expand and perhaps even take on the big guys, such as AT&T. Arriving sometime between Q3 of 2009 and Q1 of 2010 the company will introduce a femtocell product that lets you wirelessly reroute your cell phone calls through the MagicJack. Apparently, the Femtocell MagicJack will be slightly larger than the current device and cost only a few dollars more. AT&T and others carrier have plans to roll out a femtocell device sometime later this year (Verizon already released theirs), but their devices are said to be retardedly expensive but lack a monthly fee.
You can also expect the company to roll out number porting in the next 60 days, which will enable consumers to port preexisting numbers over to the MagicJack. They’ve also got plans make the MagicJack Linux compatible by Q3 of this year and possibly roll out a mobile phone application similar to Skype that appeared on the iPhone recently.
