reader

The file sharing crew at BitTorrent has so far taken only tentative footsteps into the living room with its certification program . If CEO Eric Kinkler's comments to Multichannel News are any indicator, though, the company is ready to make itself at home. He reveals that BitTorrent has signed pacts with 20 electronics makers to include its peer-to-peer service for media streaming in new TV sets, some of which will ship as soon as the end of 2012. Kinkler isn't naming the partners, but he notes that most of the torrent-ready screens are destined for Asia and Europe rather than the US -- many TV builders in American shops already have a raft of streaming video deals with the likes of Netflix, the executive says. Don't anticipate seeing a row of BitTorrent TVs in the local big-box store, then, but do expect the firm to make a name for itself beyond software and the occasional router . Filed under: Home Entertainment , HD BitTorrent lands deals with 20 TV makers for peer-to-peer video originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink    |  Multichannel News  |  Email this  |  Comments

The city of Freiburg, Germany adopted OpenOffice back in 2007, mostly replacing the Microsoft Office software it had been using previously. Now, an anonymous reader tips news that the city council is preparing to abandon OpenOffice and switch back. "'In the specific case of the use of OpenOffice, the hopes and expectations of the year 2007 are not fulfilled,' the council wrote, adding that continuing use OpenOffice will lead to performance impairments and aggravation and frustration on the part of employees and external parties. 'Therefore, a new Microsoft Office license is essential for effective operations,' they wrote. ... 'The divergence of the development community (LibreOffice on one hand Apache Office on the other) is crippling for the development for OpenOffice,' the council wrote, adding that the development of Microsoft Office is far more stable. Looking at the options, a one-product strategy with Microsoft Office 2010 is the only viable one, according to the council." The council was also disappointed that more municipalities haven't adopted OpenOffice in the meantime. Open source groups and developers criticized the move and encouraged the council to consider at least moving to a more up-to-date version of the office software suite. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Netflix isn't sinking , but it's certainly not the soaring brand it once was and has endured its fair share of struggles over the last several years. But, if you think Reed Hastings is shaking in his boots over encroaching competition you'd be wrong. The CEO says that Amazon will pose a legitimate threat to its streaming video dominance, but that day is still a long way off. He claims that the Kindle purveyor is losing between $500 million and $1 billion a year as it builds its empire and secures licensing rights. Of course, Hasting's comments during an interview with Dow Jones are largely speculative; based on the value of deals in which the two have competed directly. Then again, there seemed to be some implicit admission of the costs and struggles associated with competing in the subscription video sphere during its Q3 earnings report . The company lowered its forecast for the next quarter, saying it could lose as much as $490 million. Filed under: Amazon Netflix CEO claims Amazon losing up to $1 billion a year in streaming video war originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Nov 2012 15:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink    |  AllThingsD  |  Email this  |  Comments

If you didn't already know that the Taliban had a mailing list, your mind is already blown. But here's a solid one-upper: the Taliban spokesperson accidentally CC'd everyone on that list in an otherwise pedestrian email, outing some people who likely didn't want the world to know they were subscribers. More »

Activision says the debut is the biggest entertainment launch of the year for the fourth consecutive year. [Read more]

sciencehabit writes "Here's a twist: Scientists have designed a flexible, yarn-like artificial muscle that can also pack a punch. It can contract in 25 milliseconds—a fraction of the time it takes to blink an eye—and can generate power 85 times as great as a similarly sized human muscle. The new muscles are made of carbon nanotubes filled with paraffin wax that can twist or stretch in response to heat or electricity. When the temperature rises, the wax melts and forces the nanotubes to contract. Such artificial muscles, the researchers say, could power smart materials, sensors, robots, and even devices inside the human body." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Official description: "The Zalman CNPS FX100-Cube is fanless and noiseless CPU cooler, which does not draw dust or generate vibration due to its passive operation." Unofficial description: LOOK AT THIS FREAKING MONSTER HEATSINK! More »

Lytro is on a roll. After launching manual controls just last month, the company today release a real treat. The Lytro desktop software just received an update that brings two new features into the mix: perspective shift, which slightly adjusts the perspective of the camera after the picture’s been taken, and living filters. Best of all, these new features work with previously taken Lytro photos. And just when you had finally wrapped your head around a picture changing focus after it’s been taken… In case you’re late to the game, Lytro launched a brand new type of camera which captures an entire light field, rather than one plane of light, allowing for interactive images which can change focus with a single click. This was magical enough in itself, but the company promised that with this disruptive technology would come even more creative benefits: changing focus was just the beginning. Today, the company delivers on that promise with not one, but two, new features. The first is shifting perspective, and it’s certainly the most important. One of the main reasons our eyes sense a third dimension besides length and width is the fact that we’re always moving slightly. These slight movements communicate with our brain to mark that the computer is closer than the coffee table is closer than the tv is closer than the wall. It’s basic stuff, to the point where it’s so obvious you’d never think about it on your own, but Lytro has found a way to integrate it into its software. This means users can not only change focus of the photo, but swivel it around to check out the perspective. All you do is hold click and move around within the frame. On the iPad, the experience is even better, as Lytro has used the gyrometer to control the perspective shift based on which way you tilt the device. It’s only a slight shift in perspective, the same shifts you make standing, walking, or looking around a room, but it’s a fundamental part of establishing distance and depth. This is possible on exsiting photos thanks to the sheer amount of data embedded in each photo taken by a Lytro. There’s enough data for the company to keep building features for a long while on the software side, and they prove with this update. The second new feature is called Living Filters, and it’s essentially adding photo filters but on steroids. For example, Black and White is actually called “Film Noir” and it leaves just the slightest bit of color in a photograph. It’s with this color that you know the girl on the left is a red head and the girl on the right is a brunette. Other filters like Carnival (think fun house mirror) and Line Art (which is like a cartoon drawing) are more on the fun side, while Crayon (for example) brings a professional grade quality to photos by letting you choose which parts of the photo are in color and which fade to black and white. What’s important is that no matter the filter, all the images maintain the same interactivity. To meet demand, Lytro amped up distribution in a huge way. The company’s previous backlog of orders has been fulfilled entirely, so if you order a Lytro today on Amazon, it would arrive tomorrow — something the company couldn’t previously state. The update is available for all Lytro users in the desktop software, but once you’ve enabled the update and opted in to perspective shift for your library (which is undoable), all photos you’ve taken (even existing photos you took months away) will be enabled for perspective shift whether you’re in the software, on the web, or in a Facebook newsfeed.

We'd already heard before that in the wake of the Apple Maps iOS 6 fiasco, Google was plotting its own app for iOS to launch before the end of the year. The Wall Street Journal reports that the app is in the polishing stages, and that it will soon be submitted for approval to Apple. More »

Microsoft's SkyDrive is now one of the centerpieces of the company's desktop and mobile platforms, but its relative newness has denied us some of the fine-grained control we've taken for granted from services like Dropbox . The cloud storage service just resolved two of those common power user gripes in one fell swoop through an update to the desktop client. To start, it's at last possible to limit SkyDrive syncing on Macs and Windows PCs just to specific folders -- that poor tablet won't reach its breaking point when someone creates a 5GB home video on the family desktop. Windows users alone see the second update, which integrates SkyDrive with right-click contextual menus for much faster sharing. Mobile customers aren't left out with the refresh, either. Both Android and Windows Phone 8 SkyDrive users get a long-due file search as well as the option to shrink photos when they go online. Updates for the four update platforms are available at the source link, although they should push out on their own over the next two days for those who aren't in a hurry. Continue reading SkyDrive gains selective syncing and right-click sharing on the desktop, searching on mobile (video) Filed under: Cellphones , Internet , Software , Microsoft SkyDrive gains selective syncing and right-click sharing on the desktop, searching on mobile (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Nov 2012 14:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink   Inside SkyDrive  |  SkyDrive  |  Email this  |  Comments