Home automation company MyLiveGuard, has extends its home automation and security solution to include Android base devices. Now, owners of these devices such as Android televisions can include them in the list of manage devices. With an Android TV device and MyLiveGuard a homeowner is able to use a smartphone to remotely view the activities in his/her home from anywhere in the world, provided there is an internet connection.
For most of us buying gifts this Christmas will undoubtedly have a request for a tablet. If the request is not brand specific then the Sony Xperia Tablet S is worth considering. The price is reasonable (just about) for what you are getting and the features are comparable to other tablets on the market.
Master of the Living Room
Mobile devices are too small to give the quality sound that some music deserves; therefore, to get the quality you want dock/connect the device to an adapted entertainment system. Phorus has decided to address both issues with a new DTS based solution. They have adopted the DTS Play-Fi wireless technology to create a new entertainment package for Android based devices. The Play-Fi solution has a Receiver, Android App and Speakers.
Now YouTube is on the mobile to TV streaming, the company announced on their blog that their work in progress is coming to fruition. With the YouTube app for Android, you can find the video you would like to watch and stream it to you Google TV. The app plus your phone will behave just like your remote control, you will be able to pause, skip or scroll to the next video from your mobile or tablet - click the TV icon that appears, and the video will play instantly on your Google TV.
Virgin Media customers are in for a treat this Christmas; the company has launched its cloud-based entertainment service, “Virgin TV Anywhere”. The Virgin TV Anywhere service will allow Virgin customers to watch Cable via their smartphone or tablet using a downloaded app or via a browser. There are social functionalities integrated in the service that allows customers to comment on TV shows.
Philips has joined the smart lighting club with the release of Hue smart lighting solution. The LED bulbs come with its own management App for Apple iOS or Google Android devices. Unlike standard bulbs you will use less energy with these, up to 80 per cent less. Connect wirelessly to them and personalize you own lighting scheme.
It is the operating systems on our TVs that make it smart and with most of us now buying smart TVs there is an emerging threat of hackers writing infectious malware to infect our televisions. This has lead Sophos to form partnership with Ocean Blue to developed an antivirus software for smart TVs. The solution combines Sophos antivirus platform with Ocean Blue’s middleware for smart TVs and Set-top Boxes.
It was never meant to be a competition in the way it has turned out, but there is a battle brewing between the two leading smart device operating systems (OS), Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Whether by design or co-incidence, Apple devices now play a major role in facilitating home automation; I would go as far as saying apple has now added home automation to its already established cool computing and entertainment solutions. Following very closely behind Apple’s iOS is Google’s Android platform as a possible option.
Google and Sony are sticking to their partnership to develop the Google TV platform. For the first time Google TV services will be available outside the US. Sony has announced that its Google Android base NSZ-GS7 player will be available in the UK, in July. According to Sony the new Internet player is due to launch in Canada next followed by Australia, France, Germany and Netherlands, Brazil and Mexico.
Entropic has launched a new System-on-Chip solution for set-top box (STB) market. The new “TSC17x/18x” STB SoC family features a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processors and advanced security to provide the latest platform for service operators and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). It offers support for a wide range of mobile software technologies such as Google Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandiwich” and established industry security standards (NOCS, CSA3, AES, NDS NSK etc).