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YouTube Movies launches in UK

By Cheryl | Posted in Entertainment | October 31, 2011 – 12:38 pm

YouTube LogoYouTube, which is owned by Google, has launched its online movie rental service in the UK.

The service is still relatively new, with the UK launch marking just the third country in which YouTube online rentals are available, after the US and Canada.

The company has signed deals with some of the leading movie making companies, specifically for the UK market, including Universal, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros, and Lionsgate.

Will it take over LoveFilm in the UK?

The service puts it in direct competition with Amazon’s LoveFilm which offers both DVD-by-mail along with streaming video on demand.

LoveFilm was founded in 2002 and has firmly established itself as the leading movie rental service in the UK. The rental company has over 1.6 million customers around the UK and Europe, and as of January 2011, claimed to have over 67,000 titles and 4 million rentals per month across five countries. The online streaming service costs between £2.49 and £3.49 per film for non-members, with over 1000 titles available.

YouTube Movies currently has around 1000 titles ready to stream. The films cost between £2.49 and £3.29 to watch, with some older titles available for free. All movies are streamed with a number of 30 second adverts which cannot be skipped over.

LoveFilm has long established itself as the leading renting service in the UK and Google will find it hard to compete against them. One thing YouTube does have on its side though is that the site is currently the busiest video website on the web and this service is sure to attract a lot of interest.

Rumours are that Netflix will be heading over to the UK next year but as the saying goes, competition in the marketplace is always a good thing.

Wahwah.fm

By Cheryl | Posted in Apple, Entertainment | June 6, 2011 – 1:24 pm

wahwahfmIt may sound like a hungry baby, but wahwah.fm is to music what Foursquare is to locations.

The Wahwah app is designed to allow people share music while they’re mobile. The software lets you listen and broadcast your own music for multiple users to hear, giving you a shot at producing your very own radio station.

How does it work?

All you need to do is to choose a selection of songs that are stored on your iPhone to create your station playlist, and then start listening and broadcasting! The company have said that they hope the app will connect people by allowing them to listen to tracks at the same time.
Taking a similar route to Foursquare, you must ‘check-in’ to a playlist, which then enables you to share and discuss with the people around you.

Wah Wah fm founder and CEO, Philipp Eibach, had the following to say:

“People listen to other music in Austin than they do in Berlin or New York. You can check in and discover music that way by tapping into a city’s tastes. There’s a sort of serendipity that comes from patterns of movement, and who’s listening to what where.”

According to the official site, the app will be released in the spring and will be available for free, with chargeable added features also available.

Last.fm ends free mobile streaming

By Cheryl | Posted in Entertainment, Mobile, News, Twitter at 12 | February 11, 2011 – 1:00 pm

lastfm mobileLast.fm is calling time on its free mobile radio streaming from next week as it aims to turn a profit.

Last.fm members wishing to stream the service on their mobile will have to pay £3 per month for the pleasure, although there is an exception. Microsoft have subsidised the service so all Windows 7 mobile and Xbox Live users will still be able to use the mobile radio for free.

So, why did the company decide to do this now?

With the company yet to make an annual profit, the free service was just wasn’t feasible anymore.

Product Vice President, Matthew Hawn, had the following to say on the Last.fm blog: “On the Last.fm website an ad-supported, free-to-listeners model is what supports our online radio services in the US, UK and Germany.”

“In other markets and on emerging mobile and home entertainment devices, it is not practical for us to deliver an ad supported radio experience, but instead, we will migrate to what we believe is the highest quality, lowest cost ad-free music service in the world,” he added.

But most users shouldn’t worry as the desktop browser will remain free for everyone.

Backlash

A lot of users have already complained about the development, with the sites’ forum being used as a venting point for many.

On the back of the criticism, the company have announced they are ready to launch a new mobile application next week which will offer customers a better quality of service.

Will people jump ship?

Competitors such as Pandora (only available in the US) and Slacker still offer free mobile options, so it is probable that only the serious fans of Last.fm will pay for the app.

There is also serious competition with Spotify and although their service is £9.99 a month, users could be led to them as they offer a much larger collection of music.

Acer Revo 100 – The home theatre

By Cheryl | Posted in Entertainment, Gadgets, Twitter at 12 | January 26, 2011 – 1:04 pm

It may look like a PlayStation, but in fact it’s Acer’s new Revo 100.

The stylish desktop system is designed for your living room and is all about connecting media from PC to TV.

Designed with looks in mind, the PC is stylish and is one of the slimmest systems on the market. Adding to its uniqueness, it can be placed landscape or upright and comes with a simple looking stand and Windows 7 installed.

Social media is the big thing right now so being able to connect your Facebook, YouTube and Flickr accounts to share/upload images will be a big plus for many users.

Another feature that’s impressive is the systems ability to upload images from your phone. As soon as you step in to your house, or are in the Wi-Fi signal area, the PC will automatically upload the images. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on what type of pictures you take!

It’s the small things…

One of the most attractive features of the Revo is the slate-like keyboard and mouse. When not in use, the slate can be inserted in to the chassis, which also acts as a charging station and volume control wheel. There is also a mouse mode available, turning your keyboard in to a touch-mouse, similar to Apple’s Touchpad.

The downside?  As the keyboard is touch-type, it may not be the best for writing long text and you might find it slowing you down but a keyboard can be attached to the system to solve that problem.

Clear.fi

As you would imagine, Windows 7 doesn’t work very well as a TV interface, which is why Acer have created Clear.fi.

Clear.fi is Acer’s media sharing system making the sharing of multimedia content easier. Connecting a device to the network allows you to instantly share multi-format content and stream it across multi-platform devices.

Acer had the following to say about the product, “Clear.fi is the Acer media sharing system based on the idea that it’s easier if all multimedia content is simply brought into a single system with a common interface. No matter where they are”

One problem is the software is not fully developed yet and has no support for services such as iTunes and iPlayer available at present. Hopefully this will be completed this year and we’ll be left with a very impressive product.

Back to the device

What has let other devices of this kind down recently is lack of Blu-ray support. Luckily you won’t have to worry about it with this PC as it comes with an integrated Blu-ray drive AND is 3D compatible. Impressive.

The PC also comes with a 500GB hard drive, allowing for a lot of movie storage, and 2GB or RAM which can be upgraded to 4GB.

Verdict

Acer have made something special, and although the computer itself may not be the most powerful, if they can develop it in the way they have with the appearance Acer could be on to a winner.

Specification

AMD Athlon II Neo dual-core processor

Nvidia ION graphics

2GB standard (up to 4GB)

500GB Hard drive

Blu-ray

Wi-Fi

3 USB ports

Multi-in-1 card reader

HDMI port

Remaining stake for Lovefilm is bought by Amazon

By Jemma | Posted in Entertainment, News, Twitter at 12 | January 21, 2011 – 12:51 pm

We know, we know… we have already written about how fab Lovefilm is earlier this month, but with some new ‘hot off the press’ news yesterday, we had no choice but to comment.

Lovefilm has become the leading online DVD rental outlet in the UK over the past six years and has no intention of giving up.

This month Lovefilm is said to have over 1,500,00 members with 67,000 titles available. They state that four million rentals go out each month in over five countries. (Impressive!)

Amazon has give the go ahead to buy the remains of the rental service lovefilm. (Which is said to take place the first quarter of this year). This does not come as much of a surprise because the American internet retailer already has a sizable stake in the company.

Amazon bought a 42% stake in the business back in 2008 and they are now going to buy the remaining 58% of Lovefilm, the deal is thought to have the value of around £200 million.

Greg Greeley, Amazon’s Vice president of European retail, said: “Lovefilm has been innovating on behalf of movie rental customers across Europe for many years and with the advent of the Lovefilm player, they are further delighting customers by streaming digital movies for their immediate enjoyment. Lovefilm and Amazon have enjoyed a strong working relationship since Lovefilm acquired Amazon Europe’s DVD rental business in 2008, and we look forward to a productive and innovative future.”

Lovefilms popularity is sure to keep growing and here at Quadronation we have nothing but positive things to say about the company. We look forward to hearing more of its successes in the future…

Spotify team up with Logitech

By Cheryl | Posted in Entertainment, Gadgets, News, Twitter at 12 | January 17, 2011 – 12:59 pm

Looks like you’ll be ‘spotting’ Spotify a lot more following an announcement earlier this week that the firm will be partnering with Logitech.

The joint venture will see the popular software appear on Logitech Squeezebox Touch and Squeezebox Radio products.

Squeeze what?!

The Squeezebox is a media player that allows you to wirelessly transmit music through your home. The device gives users the opportunity to browse, organise and play tracks from their own collection, CD’s and even online stores such as iTunes. They are also able to enjoy thousands of free internet radio stations, making complaining about having nothing to listen to a thing of the past.

The player is easy on the eyes too and Logitech have obviously moved with the times, offering the ‘Squeezebox Touch’; the attractive touch-screen media player.

The partnership with see Spotify’s music streaming service available on the Logitech media player, allowing you to listen to all the latest tracks from a number of record labels.

Although Logitech already have partnerships with other music-streaming companies such as Rhapsody and Pandora, Spotify will surely be a popular acquisition for the company.

Romain Du Gardier, senior product manager for Logitech EMEA had the following to say about the partnership:-

“Whatever music you like from wherever in the world, Spotify and Squeezebox make it even easier for you to sit back, listen and relax in any room in your home,” added Du Gardier. “Logitech is delighted to add Spotify to its family of online music services for the Squeezebox product line.”

Spotify

Spotify is a music streaming service offering users the ability to listen to music from major record labels including Sony, Universal, EMI and Warner Music Group.

The news of the partnership comes at a time when people are hitting back over the company’s inability to move the service to the US. It seems the company is finding it hard to broker a deal with record labels in the US, meaning the release date has been constantly moved.

On a good note though, the partnership with Logitech proves that Spotify is a highly rated and much sought after service, meaning there will be a lot of people over the pond hoping they can thrash a plan out with the record labels sometime this year.

Spotify is currently available in Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

What do you need to get started?

All you’ll need is a premium Spotify account to use the software. This is available at £9.99 per month and can be used on any PC/Mac, mobile phone or Squeezebox.

SoundCloud

By Jemma | Posted in Entertainment, Social networking, Uncategorized | January 12, 2011 – 1:01 pm

Roll up, roll up, all wannabe musicians get on the SoundCloud…

SoundCloud was founded in 2007 in Germany. The idea of the project was to allow musicians to share recordings with each other but it eventually developed in to a full publishing tool allowing musicians to promote, collaborate and distribute their music tracks.

The app allows musicians to leave feedback on each others music but more specifically certain parts of the recording. This gives for a more personal experience and allows you to give constructive (hopefully) criticism to your fellow musicians on certain areas of a track.

There is no file size limit and SoundCloud player can be embedded on to different sites including blogs, helping musicians to publish their music around the web quickly and easily.

MySpace

As MySpace continues to dwindle in to obscurity, its sites such as Soundcloud that are taking over the members it left behind. MySpace enjoyed huge success after it was founded in 2003, but recently the numbers have continued to dwindle with a redesign earlier in the year unable to help the struggling social networking site. A lot of critics now believe sites such as SoundCloud are first choice for musicians to post their music.

Mobile

There is an official app available for Android which allows users to record sounds on the go and then upload then straight away. The best thing about it? It’s free!

Pricing

There is a free option available with the app and a 14-day free trial with all the paying packages. The Free package offers 120 upload minutes which is more than enough to give the software a good go.

Free – Free

Lite – €29 / year

Solo – €79 / year

Pro – €250 / year

Pro Plus – €500 / year

LoveFilm

By Cheryl | Posted in Entertainment, Retail, Twitter at 12 | January 10, 2011 – 12:54 pm

Love film? I do. Even though LoveFilm has been around since 2002 its customer base has never been stronger.

The British based company, which is now available in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, provides online rental-by-mail for DVD’s, Blu-ray and video games.

The idea of the site is to add rentals to your list using the search option or genre specific menu.  Titles can be added to your list using a simple high, medium or low priority option; this means that if your title is set to ‘high priority’ they will aim to send it out to you first if available.

Clicking on a title will lead you to a page dedicated to the film. The page features film reviews from professional movie reviewers (and even your fellow LoveFilm users) with a trailer for the movie also available to stream straight from the page. This has come in handy for me in the past, descriptions sometimes sound a lot better than the trailer looks!

Once you have watched a title you can leave a 5-star review or even write your own if you fancy yourself as a bit of a movie buff.

Title can be kept for as long as needed – for instance, if you are allowed 3 titles a month with 1 available at a time, you can keep that one DVD for as long as you need (even over a month), but it means you will not receive any more titles until that one is returned.

The disc comes in a simple paper sleeve which is to be used to send them back, with delivery of new titles taking roughly 2 days once the company receive your previous disc back.

Growth

The company claim to have the largest collection of DVD’s available in the UK, serving a customer base of over 1,000,000 members and delivering more than 4 million rentals per month.

In November LoveFilm continued to grow as it was released on to the PlayStation 3 for members on the £5.99 or more package.

LOVEFiLM Player

The company originally had a download service which they ceased in early 2009 and now offer a ‘watch online’ service. The player offers customers the ability to stream over 3,500 films online as part of a subscription package. Many of these films can be viewed for free, with premium titles available for a small fee.

LOVEFiLM shop

The rental site has an online store offering low prices on DVD’s, Blu-rays and games for purchase with free delivery around the UK.

Controversy

The company came in for criticism from ‘unlimited packages’ customers who found the company delayed the shipping on their DVD’s so as to reduce the amount of films that were rented each month. This complaint was upheld by the Advertising Standards Agency and LoveFilm hit back with its own claim that the fair usage policy means that all customers get the same standard of service.

As someone who has used their service for over a year I’ve had my share of good and bad titles, but what could be better than having movies delivered to your home?

Top Ten searched for Celebs

By Jemma | Posted in Entertainment, Fact Friday | December 24, 2010 – 12:56 pm

Have you ever ‘Googled’ yourself?

Yes we thought so… we all have. Have you ever Googled your favourite actor/actress like Robert Pattison? (Edward out of Twilight, like you didn’t know!)

Here at QuadroNation we were feeling rather helpful (once again) so we took the liberty of listing the top ten searched for celebs on the net. N.B. It had nothing to do with the lovely selection of male actors in the list of course!

1. The beautiful (if I don’t say so myself) Robert Pattison. The palest idol known, Robert has gone from a virtually unknown actor to one of the biggest (and adored might I add) actors on the planet. It is unsurprising that he comes in at number 1.

2.  Another major Twilight star Taylor Lautner (Jacob) is in at number 2, even with the ever growing conflict of the Twilight rivals he is clearly still extremely popular. Do I blame people? Absolutely not… he is just as much a heartthrob as Robert!

3. Daniel Radcliffe. The infamous Harry Potter is in a well deserved spot, number 3. It all started back in 1997 when the first novel The Philosophers Stone was released then the movie in 2001. He was just the young age of twelve when the first movie was made now nine years later he turns quite a few heads!

4. Most people have seen the film Basic Instinct and that’s were Mr Douglas steps in (Michael Douglas of course). Also famous for marrying the wonderful Catherine Zeta Jones, he has made some great movies and his place at number 4 proves age isn’t everything.

5. Also known as a teen idol, Corey Haim is next on our list. Although he unfortunately passed away earlier this year his legacy is still clearly going strong with an impressive spot at number 5.

6. The one and only Russell Brand is sixth. Married to the lovely Katy Perry he has had nothing but success this year. He has starred in some great well known films such as Get him to the Greek and Despicable me.

7. The Lord of the Rings was a major success worldwide so it is no surprise that the handsome Orlando Bloom is seventh. Having also starred in The Pirates of the Caribbean, Orlando is extremely popular with the ladies but unfortunately has already been snatched up by model Miranda Kerr. (sob, sob)

8. Has recently starred in the smash hit animated movie Megamind and is one of the most envied men on the planet, you guessed it Brad Pitt is eighth. He has made countless great movies and is currently dating the woman once voted sexiest woman alive. (Never mind boys)

9. Now here is someone with a massive fan base and I can understand why. Johnny Depp is ninth and has played some weird and wonderful characters through his career such as Captain Jack sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland and of course Mr Scissor Hands himself.

10. Last but certainly not least is Leonardo Di Caprio. Famous for the amazing film Titanic, his most recent film was the very popular Inception which is believed to be action packed and very exciting. At the age of 36, I have to say he is still looking good…

Name that tune in one – Music downloads are on the increase

By Jemma | Posted in Entertainment, Twitter at 12 | December 22, 2010 – 12:54 pm

music downloadsWe all love a bit of Michael Buble on the bus on our way into work (it brightens our morning), but how much is the free downloading of music costing the music Industry?

Apparently, it currently stands at a total of a staggering £219 million pounds.

About 7.7 million people have downloaded music illegally this year alone and there is no sign of that amount decreasing. People just don’t seem to be keen on the idea of paying for the music they listen to by the sounds of it (sorry for the pun!) but with sites such as Torrent for example, can you really blame them?

Another fine example is Limewire, this was recently closed down for the exact same reason, illegal downloads.

The British Recorded Music Industry have researched this problem and said that more than three quarters of the music downloaded in the UK is illegal with no payment to music companies, musicians and song writers for producing it.

Geoff Taylor Chief Executive of the BPI said: “It is a parasite that threatens to deprive a generation of talented young people of their chance to make a career in music, and is holding back investment in the burgeoning digital entertainment sector”.

The generation of today has a belief that music is available to download for free off the internet at any time, but if it carries on, the music Industry could fall into quite a bit of debt.

This being said earlier this year BPI music sales in the UK had grown for the first time in six years.

I say lets all just go back to the old fashioned way; buying singles in HMV is the way forward!

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