News Amazon Instant Video App for Xbox 360

News Amazon Instant Video App for Xbox 360 of Netflix's market. Amazon and Microsoft introduced an app for the Xbox 360 console today that enables Xbox Live Gold subscribers to search for and play movies via Amazon's Instant Video service with a wave of their hand or the sound of their voice.

The new Amazon Instant Video app taps into the console's Kinect voice and gesture controls. It also offers access to Prime Instant Video, a service with more than 17,000 streaming movies and TV episodes available to Amazon Prime members at no additional charge, according to a press release. A subscription to Xbox Live Gold starts at $5 a month. Amazon Prime is a membership program that costs $79 annually and offers customers free two-day shipping on their purchases. In addition, members get access to the expanding pool of movies in Prime Instant Video.

The announcement follows several other developments that seem to be aimed directly at Netflix's membership. The online retail giant launched its Sony PS3 app a few months ago and beefed up its library last month with hundreds of titles from Paramount. Amazon Prime customers can already view instant videos on their computers and other devices, such as Roku. Anthony Bay, Amazon's vice president for video, said in the release that the Xbox 360 app was one of the most requested features from customers.

The new app also integrates Amazon's Kindle Fire and other features.
"Our integration with Kinect for Xbox 360 lets customers play and search for videos with the wave of a hand or the sound of their voice, and our Whispersync technology allows customers to seamlessly switch between watching on their Kindle Fire and their Xbox 360 console, without losing their place," Bay said in the release. "Also, Watchlist is a great new feature that lets customers keep a running queue of videos they want to see in the future."

Users can't rent or buy videos through the new app. To access the rest of Amazon's library of more than 120,000 movies and TV episodes, customers will have to go online to purchase or rent movies. These movies will be loaded into the app's library.

Asus Promotion with Teases Transformer Video Technology

Asus Teases Transformer Technology in Video for Computex 2012. Computer maker Asus has released a YouTube teaser video for its Transformer family of products, though the video offers few hints at to what sort of Transformer offerings it is preparing us for, save for a vague refererence to “the shape of the cloud”, which the video describes as “ever-changing beyond time and boundaries. This has led to some speculation that the company is preparing to launch a cloud-based storage or file synching service during the Computex 2012 conference in Taipei.

The video may also be related to new hardware in the company’s Transformers line of Android-based tablets, or perhaps a Transformer tablet running Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system. At the end of the video, which half-mimics the music and visuals of a Hollywood blockbuster’s teaser trailer (complete with gravelly-voiced narrator) Asus suggests further announcements will be made on May 31, in advance of the conference, which runs from June 5 to June 9. Three additional videos are in the works, judging by a landing page for the video on Techinstyle.tv.

While the company is playing coy at the moment, Asus has yet to reveal release dates for its Eee Pad Transformer Infinity, first shown back in February at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) convention in Barcelona, or the PadFone, an Android device that snaps inside a PadFone Station tablet, also first shown at MWC. The next three videos may give viewers a bigger clue as to what Asus is up to.

The PadFone features a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S processor, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a front-facing camera and a quarter-high-definition (qHD) 960 by 540 Super AMOLED (active-matrix organic LED) display with a capacitive multi-touch panel and Gorilla Glass. The PadFone was expected to begin shipping in April, but pricing and other details have not yet been revealed. The Infinity is a cross-platform combination of tablet and notebook, which features full QWERTY keyboard dock and a high-definition touchscreen tablet component.

As it focuses more attention and resources on tablet devices, Asus is reportedly planning to streamline its family of notebooks and netbooks in 2012, consolidating the number of computer models it offers (Asus has around 50 notebook designs), such as the Eee PC line, which will be cut down to five models from 10 models. Meanwhile, a report last week from Taiwanese tech news publication DigiTimes sent the rumor mill into high gear with news that Google and Asus are working on a 7-inch tablet for release in July, with an initial shipment of 600,000 units starting in June, according to unnamed sources “in the supply chain”. The tablet would certainly run on the latest version of Google’s open-source Android operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, or the upcoming operating system, "Jelly Bean."

'Cisco' Requires Its Mounds, Keeps Creating Movie Conference Tools

Cisco Techniques possessed up to some miscalculations in its video cooperation technique but revealed off some ensuring upcoming abilities in a briefing with press this weeks time. The organization's video meeting company is best known for its TelePresence Conference Techniques, especially the high-profile three-screen meeting locations offering Cisco-designed fixtures and price tons of money. But 'cisco' is now looking beyond those trendy conditions toward cellular phones that can carry video events to members wherever they are.

One foundation developed as aspect of that technique, the organization's Android-based Cius product, has been cut from upcoming growth programs, said Robert O'Sullivan, mature v. p. and gm of the Collaboration Technological innovation Team, during the briefing at 'cisco' on Friday mid-day. 'cisco' mentioned the shift in a short article later on Friday. The Cius will still be available for organizations that particularly want a program released and firmly managed by the IT division, but 'cisco' won't be developing more type aspects for the foundation, O'Sullivan said.

Cisco now recognizes most organizations let workers carry their own pills to perform, stating its own study that said 95 % of organizations have a BYOD (bring your own device) plan.

"When we discuss to them about the Cius product, they say, we really like the cooperation encounter on Cius, but can you please take that program and put it on other devices?" O'Sullivan said.

"Our way of the long run is all about program," O'Sullivan said.

The next section in that force is a new customer for Jabber, Cisco's speech, video, instant-messaging and existence foundation, arriving September. Jabber customers are already available for Apple company iOS and for Analysis In Motion's BlackBerry foundation, as well as Microsoft windows PCs, and will soon come out for common Operating program pills, he said.

The new Jabber customer will allow customers to take video calling on PCs, pills and 'cisco' TelePresence systems and exchange the calling from one foundation to another. 'cisco' APIs (application coding interfaces) allow Jabber features to be incorporated into Ms Perspective so customers can discover associates and begin Jabber calling from Perspective, and this incorporation will be extended in the new editions.

At the briefing, 'cisco' confirmed Jabber classes being shifted among different systems. It also revealed customers of third-party video conferencing systems, such as Ms Lync and a Polycom HDX program, becoming complete members in a 'cisco' TelePresence meeting. Cisco's addition of industry requirements such as SIP (Session Start Protocol), H.323 and H.264 create this possible, the organization said.

The full-scale TelePresence foundation is still walking ahead despite the new focus on providing in different customers. And real-time interpretation of telepresence events is returning on Cisco's map. In overdue 2008, 'cisco' video primary Marthin De Alcohol said that he predicted that function to go available with 20 dialects in the second 50 % of 2009. But a season later, 'cisco' said the body precision wasn't great enough and the organization didn't even have a prediction for when it would go available.

Cisco is still operating on it, said De Alcohol, now mature v. p. of Cisco's Movie and Collaboration Team.

"It's arriving along. It's not quite real-time yet," De Alcohol said. "It's a little bit too costly still to do that and the technology's not ... mastered enough." But De Alcohol once again desires the function to be over the counter available within a season or two. 'cisco' does provide interpretation of a registered meeting within a few moments, he said.

The 'cisco' TelePresence systems already set up in organizations are being used about six time per day on regular, De Alcohol said. But new cellular video alternatives may be injuring another company 'cisco' once marketed as a big prospective industry, of video conferencing packages for lease in resorts and air-ports, he said.

"It is being used. It has not gone persistent, it has not gone big," De Alcohol said. "We've marketed probably a large number of systems in that area." The Marriott resort cycle has set up packages in several of its places, he said. But the accommodations, which in some situations were costing 100's of money hourly, may not be necessary down the line. "Now that video becomes persistent on your iPad, on your mobile phone and your PC, maybe that use situation will actually reduce," De Alcohol said.

Diablo III Repairs Coming Next Weeks time, Market Home Late Again

Blizzard said recently that it will problem its first spot for Diablo III sometime a few weeks, but it has determined to again wait the discharge of its real-money, Diablo III community auction house. A number of hotfixes have been used since the mission's May 15 launch, while "tweaks" have been created to increase assistance balance, Blizzard said in a Friday Battle.net po.

"Moving ahead, extra hosting server maintenances will be required - and sometime a few weeks, we plan to launch a activity title upgrade by means of a spot that will further deal with customer concerns and use extra bug fixes," Blizzard said. On the auction-house front side, meanwhile, Blizzard has twice-delayed the rollout of the assistance, and that will seemingly occur once again.

"In light of the post-launch obstructions we've experienced, we have established to shift the discharge of the real-money community auction house beyond the formerly approximated May period," the organization said. "As we described in our unique statement, our objective has always been to make sure everyone has the easiest experience possible when the real-money community auction house releases, and we need a bit more a chance to metal out the current common balance and game play concerns before that function goes stay."

A new launch time frame has not yet been set. The community auction home a exclusive bazaar in which players can trade exclusive products discovered within the overall activity. Players, however, can choose between a "gold" community auction house, where debts are paid in exclusive money, or actual cash. There's also a "hardcore only" silver community auction house.

Blizzard also burdened that Diablo III does not have a protection problem. "First and major, we want to inform you that the Fight.net and Diablo III hosts have not been affected," the organization said. There have been no breaches beyond "traditional" breakins that usually include signing in with a person's current details.

Reports of "session spoofing" a gamblers identification after he or she connects a community activity, meanwhile, appear to be misguided. "Regarding this particular example, we've considered the problem and discovered no proof to indicate puts at risk are happening in this style, and we've established the techniques being recommended to do so are officially difficult," Blizzard said.

Any revealed problems with Diablo III does not appear to have moistened players' passion. Blizzard said Friday that players grabbed more than 3.5 thousand duplicates of Diablo III in the first 24 hours available, establishing a new history for the fastest-selling PC activity. Including in subscribers, a complete of 4.7 thousand international players were ready to play Diablo III on the first day of its launch.