If you’re a fan of anime, you might have heard of Crunchyroll. The website legally streams anime and other Asian entertainment for the American audience who can’t watch them through normal means (i.e. Cable, Satellite, etc.). Now, iPhone users can watch nearly all content that is hosted on Crunchyroll via the Crunchyroll App.
The app’s menus are very simple and easy to navigate. If you know the name of the show you’d like to watch, simply type it in and it will pop up. You can also browse through all of the titles Crunchyroll offers. When you start a video, a 15 second ad will play, but if you are a Crunchyroll member, you can bypass the ad. Subtitles are also possible through the app, but they need to be manually enabled for each video. Videos can only be accessed through a WI-FI connection, so no anime for you 3Gers.
The Crunchyroll App can be downloaded right now from the iTunes App Store for the low, low price of FREE.
Motorola is pushing their Android efforts into Korea after making something of a splash in North America with the droid. The motoroi is a touchscreen slate with 3.6” WVGA display, 8 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, HDMI-out, TMB mobile TV, pinch-zooming, and Android 2.1. It doesn’t look like blur is on there, or any other real significant custom work on the user interface, but the motoroi does include an OCR app to translate business cards to address book entries and a docking station. There are still rumblings that a little something codenamed Shadow or Mirage will be coming to Asia, boasting an even bigger screen, but until (if) that pans out, the motoroi will remain the king of the Android hill, so to speak. For those interested and in the area, SK Telecom (NYSE: SKM) will begin offering the motoroi starting early February. Now, who do have to talk to at Motorola (NYSE: MOT) to get them to fix their damned capslock key?
Cydle has decided that CES would be a good time to unveil it’s new flagship product:, a portable, pocket-size ATSC TV Receiver.
The Cydle i30 is compliant with ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) Mobile DTV, which is the technical standard that defines mobile digital TV (DTV) broadcasting in the US. The standard enables local TV stations to broadcast to mobile devices on the frequency they already use. The Cydle i30 is designed for smartphones through the new ATSC Mobile DTV standard.
“If you use a smartphone and want to watch your favorite television shows in real-time, now you can,” said Woody Lee, U.S. director of sales, Cydle. “The Cydle i30 a real achievement, given how versatile smartphones already are. Whether looking at form factor or functionality, the i30 complements today’s devices extremely well.”
The Cydle i30 also includes a novel battery-sharing system, which ensures that the smartphone doesn’t run out of juice mid-call, mid-message or mid-program, by tapping the i30’s power source.
Once we get some pics of the device itself, we’ll be sure to post them up, gallery-fashion!
Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM)-owned FLO TV Incorporated announced the expansion of its content distribution agreement with The Walt Disney Company to add content from the ABC Television Network and Disney Channel to its lineup.
Here’s what the FLO TV subscribers will get with these two new programs (from the press release):
The ABC Mobile channel features full-length episodes of popular primetime shows such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives,” “FlashForward,” “Ugly Betty” and “Lost” (when it returns in February 2010), as well as select content from ABC Family and SOAPnet. Additionally, the mobile channel offers a variety of short-form content from ABC Entertainment and ABC News.
Disney Channel will run a simulcast on the FLO TV service, offering consumers access to full-length episodes of hit Disney Channel series “Hannah Montana,” “Wizards of Waverly Place,” “The Suite Life on Deck” and “JONAS,” as well as films from the wildly popular Disney Channel Original Movie franchise. The service also includes Playhouse Disney, a daily morning programming block for preschoolers and their caregivers featuring a wide array of content, such as critically acclaimed series “Handy Manny” and “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.”
As a reminder, mobile phone users can access FLO TV through AT&T (NYSE: T) (AT&T Mobile TV) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) (V CAST Mobile TV).
After a sneak peek, the LG GW880 OPhone has been announced by China Mobile (NYSE: CHL). The GW880 packs a 3.5-inch, 800 x 480 touchscreen, Bluetooth, 5-megapixel camera, 256MB of RAM/512MB of ROM, CMMB mobile TV and running on Android over China’s TD-SCDMA network. Of course, the apps will all be approved by big daddy China Mobile before making it to the market, but it should still give the iPhone a bit of a fight over there. The Android scene is just getting started in China, too; Lenovo and Motorola are likely launching their own handsets also running on China Mobile’s Open Mobile Phone framework. No word on release date or price point for the GW880, but we’ll be keeping an ear open.
SPB Software ported its popular subscription-free mobile IPTV viewer, SPB TV, to the Android platform. Similarly to its Windows Mobile and Symbian counterparts, the Android version of the application also features more than hundred live TV channels in more than 20 languages. Moreover, there’s the TV browser with quick channels preview and list of current & upcoming TV shows, full TV guide, ability to set Calendar reminders for TV shows of interest, picture-in-picture mode, transparent on-screen controls, as well as support for hardware button controls…
Want it? SPB TV is waiting for you in the Android Market from where you can grab it for 10 bucks ($9.95). Prior to pushing the trigger, make sure your device runs Android 1.5 aka Cupcake, which is required to run the app.
China’s official Xinhua News Agency launched a mobile TV service for China Telecom’s 3G subscribers in Shanghai. Xinhua will provide China Telecom Shanghai Branch with exclusive news about the Shanghai Expo, analysis reports and various news items; whereas the carrier will provide the infrastructure and accompanying telecommunications services.
For the record, China Telecom had 214 million land-line subscribers, 35 million mobile phone subscribers and 47 million broadband customers at the end of 2008. The company is currently rolling out a CDMA-based (EV-DO) 3G network…
Interactive mobile data solutions provider (whatever that means), weComm, has announced its partnership with Livestation to deliver live TV news across mobile platforms, Android and Blackberry (NSDQ: RIMM) devices included.
Livestation already delivers live TV streaming services on iPhone for such media companies as BBC World News and Al Jazeera. weComm, on its end, will provide its On-Demand Mobile Application Platform to enable Livestation to deliver live broadcasts from Livestation’s global news TV partners to other mobile operating systems — note here that Symbian and Windows Mobile are not mentioned in the press release.
The companies will distribute the service in a number of easy-to-subscribe methods including through the major mobile handset-manufacturers’ application stores…
Rest of the press release includes quotes from the companies’ executives which we won’t repeat here. You can check LiveStation’s and weComm’s websites for more information.
Streaming? iPhone? Is that even possible? Sure is. And Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is going to stream the first ever live concert to the iPhone, for free nonetheless! Tonight, Saturday, August 8, 2009 at 9:00PM PST (that’s West Coast time), Apple will be streaming the Underworld concert to iPhones using Apple’s own HTTP streaming standard. By using variable bitrates to continuously adapt the stream to handle increasing loads, Apple’s new HTTP streaming standard promises to deliver an optimal viewing experience for all iPhone users. The only catch? AT&T (NYSE: T)’s already stressed 3G network.
While Apple would love to have their live stream publicized like Paris Hilton’s bare kitty, they know AT&T’s strained 3G network would have trouble serving data to millions upon millions of iPhones without taking a giant dump. That’s likely the reason Apple has chosen to keep the streaming Underworld concert close to the vest.
So, now that you know about Apple’s plan to stream the Underworld concert for free to the iPhone, you probably want to know what you need to do. Simply point your iPhone to iphone.akamai.com or underworldlive.com.
MobileCrunch has picked up an interesting story from AV Watch – who themselves have spotted a USB tuner that plugs in to your TV, and then streams out 1-Seg (that’s a Japanese TV standard) formatted TV that your iPhone/iPod Touch can pick up via an App running over WiFi. Nice.
The iPhone has been at somewhat of a disadvantage for a time, because unlike a lot of other phones in Japan, it can’t natively pick up a TV signal – Japan is one of the places where Mobile TV has worked (but there are a number of specific reasons for that….), so this little bit of kit solves an issue for people who need their TV fix.
The USB device is called the SEG Clip, and is sold by I-O data (check it here, image from that source also BTW) – it follows a previous device that was more of a standalone unit from Softbank (OTCPK: SFTBF) Mobile – that one was it’s own receiver, transmitted the data by WiFi, but also double as an extra battery if you plugged it in to an iPhone.
Personally I think the addition of the portable battery function is an extremely valid – in fact, I’d even considering buying one to keep my iPhone juiced when I’m out and about! If I had to add TV to that, I wouldn’t be complaining
Cydle has decided that CES would be a good time to unveil it’s new flagship product:, a portable, pocket-size ATSC TV Receiver.
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China’s official Xinhua News Agency launched a mobile TV service for China Telecom’s 3G subscribers in Shanghai. Xinhua will provide China Telecom Shanghai Branch with exclusive news about the Shanghai Expo, analysis reports and various news items; whereas the carrier will provide the infrastructure and accompanying telecommunications services.
