| WD TV adds streaming options, tunes televisions near and far to your Slingbox Jun 6th 2012, 23:04  A raft of goodies has been tacked on to Western Digital's TV Live and TV Live Hub media players including new streams and Vudu movie downloading, but the addition of SlingPlayer might be the most intriguing. Depending on your region, you'll see new channels on the WD set-tops, including The AOL On Network, Red Bull TV, ABC iview (Australia), Acetrax Movies, Maxdome and BILD TV-App. Walmart's Vudu service will also be added, letting domestic and some foreign users buy or rent from a library of 70,000 downloadable films and TV shows. Finally, if you're a frequent traveler, you can pack your WD box and fire up the new SlingPlayer on your hotel TV to watch hometown broadcasts wherever you may be. Provided you've got a Slingbox back home, of course. To find out more and see what's available in your country, check the source or PR below. Show full PR text New International and Domestic Entertainment Options Complement WD TV(R) Live[TM] and WD TV(R) Live Hub[TM]'s 'Play Anything' Popularity IRVINE, Calif., June 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Western Digital(R) (NASDAQ: WDC), the world's leader in external storage solutions and maker of the popular WD TV(R) media player family, today introduced a variety of new entertainment options for the WD TV Live[TM] and WD TV Live Hub[TM] media players. Current and new users can now enjoy Red Bull TV[TM], ABC iview (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), Acetrax[TM], Maxdome, the BILD TV-App, and the AOL On Network. They can also watch live and recorded TV with the new SlingPlayer(R) app and save their premium HD movies to the WD TV Live Hub's internal storage with VUDU. WD's new entertainment choices add to the WD TV media player family's prodigious ability to play personal content such as videos, photos and music by supporting a wide range of media formats. Users can watch content located on any networked PC or Mac(R) computer in the home, from a network drive such as WD's My Book(R) Live[TM] personal cloud storage, and from any directly connected digital camcorder, camera, or USB drive. WD TV Live Hub owners can also save and share pictures and videos from outside the home, using the WD Photos[TM] app for iPhone(R), iPad(R) and Android[TM] mobile devices. "WD continuously listens to its customers, and adds the content options they want," said Scott Vouri, vice president and general manager, WD connected home solutions. "With today's addition of hot international and domestic channels, live TV through SlingPlayer, and HD movie rentals, purchases and downloads through VUDU, the WD TV media players truly provide the most entertainment." The WD TV Live Hub is the only media player to offer direct HD movie download service for today's hottest new movie releases purchased from VUDU's large library of movies and TV shows. VUDU is a subscription-free, HD video streaming service, which offers more than 70,000 blockbuster titles including new releases, Hollywood classics, independent films, and TV shows. Because it has an integrated 1TB hard drive, the WD TV Live Hub can save and play back purchased digital content from VUDU, including the high-quality HDX[TM] video format that features 1080p Full HD and rich Dolby Digital Plus[TM] 7.1 audio. "By centralizing their entertainment on the WD TV Live Hub, our customers get high-performance full-HD movie playback without overloading their home network or cluttering up the hard drives of other PCs in the house," added Vouri. From "Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol" to "The Muppets" WD brings today's top movies to the WD TV Live Hub for a cinema-like experience at home through the available VUDU service. New Services[1] Now Available: SlingPlayer (worldwide) - With a Slingbox(R) connected in your home, the SlingPlayer app brings your living room TV experience to your connected device in any room - around the home or around the world. The AOL On Network (US) - The AOL HD app, part of The AOL On Network, features high-definition technology, lifestyle, celebrity and entertainment content updated daily from The AOL On Network, which features video from brands like Engadget, TechCrunch, The Huffington Post and Moviefone. Red Bull TV (worldwide) - A unique online portal offering exclusive high quality programs from the World of Red Bull in HD. Available to nearly all devices - Red Bull TV offers worldwide live webcasts and a thematic catalogue of VODs complementing exclusive shows of the multimedia content of redbull.com. ABC iview (Australia) - ABC iview is Australia's most popular catch-up TV service and is run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). It features 14-day catch-up from channels ABC1, ABC2, ABC3, ABC4Kids and ABC News 24. Acetrax movies (UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy and Austria) - Available on the WD TV Live only, this service offers blockbuster new release and library movies from the major Hollywood studios. maxdome (Germany) - Available on the WD TV Live only, the most popular German video-on-demand service maxdome delivers over 45,000 major film and TV titles. BILD TV-App (Germany) - With the BILD TV-App users navigate easily and comfortably with the remote control through Germany's largest news and entertainment portal. The application offers the latest news and videos from politics, lifestyle, entertainment and sports, as well as the pictures of the day. Availability The WD TV Live and WD TV Live Hub can be purchased at select retailers and online at wdstore.com. About WD WD, a storage industry pioneer and long-time leader, provides products and services for people and organizations that collect, manage and use digital information. The company designs and produces reliable, high-performance hard drives and solid state drives that keep users' data accessible and secure from loss. Its storage technologies serve a wide range of host applications including client and enterprise computing, embedded systems and consumer electronics, as well as its own storage systems. Its home entertainment products enable rich engagement with stored digital content. WD was founded in 1970. The company's products are marketed to leading OEMs, systems manufacturers, selected resellers and retailers under the Western Digital(R), WD(R) and HGST[TM] brand names. Visit the Investor section of the company's website (www.westerndigital.com) to access a variety of financial and investor information. Western Digital, WD, the WD logo, WD TV, and My Book are registered trademarks in the U.S. and other countries; WD TV Live and My Book Live are trademarks of Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. Pictures shown may vary from actual products. Not all products may be available in all regions of the world. All product and packaging specifications subject to change without notice. As used for storage capacity, one terabyte (TB) = one trillion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. Source: PR Newswire (http://s.tt/1dpR0) WD TV adds streaming options, tunes televisions near and far to your Slingbox originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jun 2012 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | ASUS first out the gate with 802.11ac laptop according to Broadcom Jun 6th 2012, 22:49  Oddly, ASUS has been mum on this particular Computex announcement, but we're going to take Broadcom at its word for now. According to the wireless chip manufacturer, ASUS's G75VW gaming laptop will have the honor of being the first machine on the market with an 802.11ac radio inside. During a press event, Broadcom's Michael Hurlston dubbed the PC the "World's first 5G Wi-Fi laptop," saying that it would be available "very shortly." Our cohorts over at Engadget Spanish got hands-on with the lappy last month, but found it's spec sheet decidedly lacking in next-gen WiFi brags. The G75VW had Ivy Bridge under the hood, a 1080p display and a GeForce GTX 670M -- but no 802.11ac. Presumably the discrepancy is due to a planned product refresh, and not to an error on Broadcom's part. ASUS also has an 802.11ac router on deck, and Hurlston claims a desktop motherboard is in the works too. For more, check out the watch on your wrist... it's waiting time. ASUS first out the gate with 802.11ac laptop according to Broadcom originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jun 2012 18:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | The Verge, Engadget Spanish | Email this | Comments | | HTC reportedly excluded from next-gen Windows tablets, Microsoft doubts company's 'experience' Jun 6th 2012, 22:01  Microsoft's reset on its tablet game is going to require a fairly substantial push from manufacturers and developers alike, but according to Bloomberg, at least one respected company won't be allowed to partake in the effort. Take this with a grain of salt, but it's reported that HTC has been excluded from the development of Windows RT / Windows 8 tablets, apparently due to its lack of experience in the arena. This is all according to confidential sources, of course, which also claim that HTC "doesn't sell enough devices," as another reason for the decision. If the rumor is indeed accurate, talk about bad news for both parties -- it'll simply be one less troop to wage war against the mighty juggernauts from Cupertino and Mountain View. Perhaps HTC will ramp up its Android tablet efforts out of spite? HTC reportedly excluded from next-gen Windows tablets, Microsoft doubts company's 'experience' originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jun 2012 18:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Bloomberg | Email this | Comments | | Visualized: what your screen looks like after 22 straight hours of Fruit Ninja Jun 6th 2012, 21:36  Twenty-two and a half hours, actually. Qualcomm's gaming marathon is nearing its end right now. Thirty-two gamers set out to break the Guinness world record for the "longest video game marathon on a tablet" at 2:30PM PT yesterday -- when we popped in this afternoon, 26 were still standing (well, sitting), a couple having fallen to that human weakness that is sleep. Those Galaxy Tabs that were still in use, however, had certainly seen better days. More photos of the event, which caps off at 4:30PM PT today, in the gallery below. All of these overtired gamers are competing for a grand prize of $20,000 -- more than enough to buy a nice new screen shammy. Visualized: what your screen looks like after 22 straight hours of Fruit Ninja originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jun 2012 17:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Qualcomm | Email this | Comments | | Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 available now in the UK for tiny hands and the people that have them Jun 6th 2012, 21:20  A Mini 2 to migrate you (okay, your Mum) from dumb to smart? That's just what Samsung intends to do as it makes the 3.27-inch Galaxy phone available across the UK this week. The wee Gingerbread handset, sporting a colorful sunny yellow plastic backing, is dressed to impress, but that's because this low-ender doesn't fuss with the specs. Under that cheerful casing lies a single-core 800MHz CPU, 512MB RAM, 4GB of storage and a 1,300mAh battery that should prove adequate for this pocket-sized affair. The company's certainly wary of how this slight fella might be perceived, so it's gone above and beyond the call of PR duty (see below) to make sure the world knows this is a phone for first-timers. We gave it a go back at MWC earlier this year and, despite its compact look and budget bearings, were please to note it packs just enough of a surprising performance punch. Hit up the break to peruse the self-conscious presser for yourself. Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 available now in the UK for tiny hands and the people that have them Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 available now in the UK for tiny hands and the people that have them originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jun 2012 17:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | |