Posted by Nikos | Posted in General | Posted on 25-02-2010-05-2008
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In December I wrote about Thwapr, a video-sharing service for mobile videos. Instead of building apps for smartphones, Thwapr chose to make its videos auto-playable on as many phones — smart or dumb — as possible without any software downloads, including apps.
This week, Thwapr has added one-click Facebook and Twitter sharing to video clips hosted at Thwapr, as well as a “Thwap It” button to share over its own social network. The catch is: There’s no catch. You needn’t sign up with Thwapr to share or receive a clip. So it’s just like YouTube.
CTO Eric Hoffert gave me a demo over the phone. As you can see on this test page, all you need to do is click the Facebook or Twitter button to send a tagged link and comment to your own network. The Thwapit button lets you send a message to someone else’s mobile phone, with a link to a video that will automatically play on more than 200 models of phone.
The most serendipitous part of the service, Hoffert says, is that many recipients aren’t aware their phone can play video clips until they click. Says Hoffert: “On a BlackBerry 8330 or a Droid on Verizon, Thwapr serves streaming video in RTSP format. On a more modestly powered Motorola Razr feature phone on Sprint, it serves a downloadable 3GP video file delivered via HTTP. Thwapr knows the pixel resolution of your phone’s screen and whether or not it’s a touchscreen. We resize the video to fit.”
The latest upgrade improves video quality as well. “If you shoot video on a BlackBerry,” Hoffert says, “it’ll play on some other phones with higher resolution than BlackBerry supports. On Android, we’ve just doubled our video quality. It looks great.”
Thwapr was founded in 2007 with funding of $3 million from angel investors . The company is headquartered in New York City and has 15 employees.
Companies: Thwapr
Posted by Nikos | Posted in General | Posted on 02-01-2010-05-2008
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You’re probably already familiar with the work of modder / hacker extraordinaire, Benjamin Heckendorn… and if you’re not, well, maybe it’s time to familiarize yourself with his work. Regardless, some of his fantastic handiwork has shown up on Ebay for sale, and while we don’t want to counsel you to foolishlessly spend loads of hard-earned cash, this is bound to be an heirloom one day. The listing here is for Ben’s PS3 Slim laptop — the one modded from a 17-inch Gateway 1775w LCD with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution — and its currently at around $1,075.00 with 16 bids on it and roughly 3 days remaining. So if this kind of thing strikes your fancy (and we know that it does) hop to it! Check out our segment of The Engadget Show we filmed at Ben’s evil laboratory after the break.
Continue reading Ben Heck’s PS3 Slim laptop pops up for sale on Ebay
Ben Heck’s PS3 Slim laptop pops up for sale on Ebay originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Jan 2010 21:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted by Nikos | Posted in General | Posted on 07-11-2009-05-2008
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Safa is a Korean firm that has put out quite a few forgettable DAPs in its day, and while this one isn’t going to win any awards for technological advancement, it does look like “fun,” for whatever that’s worth. The Xing LED is a none-too-shabby 12mm thin and boasts 12 hours of playback time on a single charge. The company fails to mention little things like storage capacity and file format support, but that ain’t why we’re here: the face of the device features 27 LEDs that can be either programed to display the icon of your choice or used for a rousing game of Rock / Paper / Scissors. Sort of makes that Zune HD of yours look like overkill, eh? Price and availability yet to be announced.
[Via PMP Today]
Continue reading Safa Xing LED features MP3 playback, 27 pixel resolution
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Safa Xing LED features MP3 playback, 27 pixel resolution originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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