Last month, we wrote about the problem of Android app piracy, and the ready availability of paid-for apps through sites such as The Pirate Bay. Games and pricey navigation apps topped the chart of most stolen Android software, but the maker of one of the leading satnav apps on the platform, CoPilot Live, is doing just fine. In fact, it’s booming.
Today Sky revealed plans to launch a new internet TV service. Arriving by the middle of this year, this service will allow anyone with a broadband connection to access Sky’s programming through pretty much any device: computer, set-top box, connected TV, games console, tablet, smartphone, you name it. And unlike the current Sky Go service, customers won’t have to subscribe: if they fancy watching a film one evening, they can rent only that film; there’s no requirement to purchase a monthly pass.
But while Sky’s service could put the willies up the likes of Netflix and Lovefilm, Apple could be the company that really loses out as a result. Why? Well, Sky just turned everything into a Sky box.
RIM’s been trumpeting some new findings from research firm Gfk today, claiming that the BlackBerry is the UK’s best selling smartphone. But if everything is hunky dory, why is RIM keeping the results so close to its chest? Let’s take a look.
This week, Kotaku’s Stephen Totilo published a report claiming that the next Xbox may use a system to prevent used games from being played. It’s a tricky situation in itself: the used games market is huge, and doesn’t directly provide games publishers with any revenue, although the situation is far more complex than the likes of THQ would have you believe.
But it also points to something else further down the line: it’s no longer just Sony who wants to sell and send you console games directly over the internet. Microsoft wants in too. It’s a shame our shoddy broadband network won’t be up to the job.
Over the next month, two new Windows Phones are set to go on sale in the UK: the colourful Nokia Lumia 710 and budget priced ZTE Tania. Neither alone will likely change the status quo at gunpoint, but they point to an extremely useful plan B that Microsoft has been working on: getting the price – and the experience – down to compete with the cheapest Android smartphones out there right now.
This week sees the yearly Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It’s a cacophony of tablets, car speaker systems, iPhone cases, washing machines, corpulent analysts in blazers and network infrastructure, but because the mainstream media has only so many column inches to spare, this vast show typically becomes a reductionist competition where hacks attempt to boil it down into as few sweeping trends as possible.
Two years ago, it was 3D TV. Last year, it was still 3D TV. This year, it’s all about smart TVs, hooked up to the internet for on-demand content.
Typically, what’s shown at CES eventually trickles into shops at some point in the summer, but this year it’s different. We’re being shown what we already have. Many of us have smart TV technology in our living rooms already, and we don’t even realise it: case in point, Netflix.
You might not have noticed, but Microsoft and its subsidiaries have been getting very cosy with the iPhone in recent weeks. First there was that HTML5 website designed to make your iPhone look like it was running Windows Phone. Then there was the My Xbox Live app, which let you tit about with your avatar on your iPhone.
But the most interesting app isn’t out until December 10: called ATLAS, it’s a set of maps cum tactical display on your smartphone which will give you a genuine advantage in Halo: Reach multiplayer games. And it’s headed to Windows Phone, Android, and iPhone. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that this will change the face of gaming, and Xbox Live, beloved by millions, in particular. It might even ruin it.
Gamers are spoiled for choice this Christmas. Skyrim, Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Uncharted 3, Modern Warfare 3, Arkham City, Gears Of War 3; the list goes on. If the holidays for you are, like me, about sitting at home, blazing through video games and eating chocolate, you really should play all these games. But not before you’ve completed Rayman Origins.
