Mobileography

Techcrunch reports that MySpace, the world’s largest social networking site is launching mobile video on their mobile site, m.myspace.com. It uses a special transcoding service from RipCode to transcode the videos to the appropriate resolution and codec for each particular device as needed. It’s a pretty cool technology.

YouTube apparently has had a similar service in place at m.youtube.com for quite some time, but given the massive size of MySpace and their huge mobile presence, this a big step in taking online video mobile. This will work on the iPhone, T-Mobile G1, BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Storm devices, among others. MySpace’s mobile site manages to get around 3 billion monthly page views from 10 million users. My guess is either MySpace or Facebook are the most popular mobile websites out there, but I can’t verify that for sure.

admin News cellphones, myspace, video, youtube

Blackberry OS 4.5 is expected to be released sometime in the middle of this month. Â This update will include things like:

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• Video recording
• Media player updates
• Ability to update Office docs
• HTML e-mails
• Automatic login via wi-fi (for some devices)

admin AT&T, Software, blackberry 4.5, AT&T, blackberry, office, os, video

There’s been a ton of news today about the new iPhone, so I thought I’d try to give a brief summary:

The good

• July 11 release
• 3G, as expected.
• GPS. There are already some great looking applications to take advantage of it.
• $199 for the 8 gig model, $299 for the 16 gig. They both require a two-year contract from AT&T.
• 300 hours of standby time
• 5-6 hours of browsing
• 7 hours of video
• 24 hours of audio
• Talk time is 5-10, depending if you’re using 3G or not.
• A ton of new apps you can download.
• Slightly modified design — thinner body, more tapered edges
• Free upgrade to version 2.0 for existing iPhones, though they obviously won’t get 3G or GPS. $9.95 to upgrade your iPod Touch.

The bad

• Still no MMS. Why?
• No native video support, though I presume that you’ll be able to download an app to handle it.
• No 32 gig version.
• No front camera for live video chat, as was suggested in a few places.
• Same camera on the back. I was expecting an upgrade there.

All in all it looks to be a very solid update, but nothing remarkable. I was very impressed by the $199 price, but that’s tempered a bit now that I know it requires a two-year contract.

Now, do I try to get the new iPhone or do I keep using my N95?

admin AT&T, Apple, Hardware, Software 3g, Apple, camera, gps, iphone, ipod, mms, photo, video

Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, had some wild speculations about features for the original iPhone. He predicted two battery compartments, a slide-out keyboard and some other things, none of which happened.

He’s at it again. Now he’s predicting that the new iPhone coming this summer, which we know will have 3G support, will have two-way video chat using a dual-camera set-up — the high quality camera on the back, and a lower quality camera on the front, similar to the N95. You’ll be able to chat with other iPhone users or anyone that is using iChat on their Mac. This could be a major game-changer, and make sites like Qik seem like old news.

Given his reputation for inaccurate info before, we have to take this with a grain of salt. Still, it’s fun to think about. Here’s the video where Kevin makes his prediction:

admin Apple Apple, digg, iphone, mac, N95, video