Tag: streaming

Wait, we have to even make this a thing?

When my local police force retweeted it, I honestly thought this was a joke. Do people actually do this? Would anybody be so stupid? Sadly it seems that yes, there are people who do this. It’s not just watching movies or TV shows – something I see truck-drivers …

Google Play Music family plan now available in the UK too.

If you like your tunes and the rest of your family does, have a look at this. Right here in the UK you can now get the Google Play Music family plan. You become the “family manager” and basically become responsible for the billing. Then everyone in your …

Get the Deezer Geezer for 6 months Free(zer)

Following a rather mad advertising campaign, Deezer have a little gift for Three customers. Their paid-for service normally costs £9.99 for the ad-free, high-quality, off-line-listening version. That monthly subscription also lets you import your dodgy MP3’s that “fell off the internet” and delivers unlimited mobile listening. However, if …

Amazon launches streaming music service in the UK

Hot on the heels of Apple, Amazon has just launched its own streaming music service in the UK.  This is certainly a crowded market place these days, and Amazon’s mission is not helped by the fact that it has significantly less music than its rivals.  It claims to have …

Google Music, now free, with some hefty caveats

Google Music is great, but you need to pay for it. Booo. But wait, you can now get it free via an ad-supported version via the website plus it’s coming to Android and iOS. You’ll get adverts, but apart from that we can see absolutely no reason why you wouldn’t want this. …

Broadcast Yourself with Stre.am

Periscope has been been finding quite a following recently. It’s all over Twitter and it’s made by… Twitter. The app allows iPhone users to broadcast a live video stream around the world from their phone. However, despite being released by Twitter themselves, the app is only available for …

Can a smartphone or tablet REALLY replace my TV?

For Christmas my son managed to upgrade his old Nintendo Wii to a new Nintendo Wii U. Thanks Santa, very good of you. He’s been enjoying the new higher-resolution games and is a big Mario fan. Somehow I’ve lost quite a few races against him on Mario Kart …

Never Fall Behind with Smartphones

At the train station today I noticed a stack of people just staring at their phones. I was one of them, and if I’m honest I’ve become a phone zombie too. However, despite how mainstream mobile phones have become in society, many people don’t use them to their …

Google Nexus Player announced

Along with the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 announced yesterday, Google also told us about a brand new device called the Nexus Player. The Nexus Player is an Android TV device that has a 1.8GHz quad-core Intel Atom processor at its heart, has onboard wi-fi and connects to …

Google’s new music streaming service, YouTube Music Key.

Google’s Play Music All Access music service is rumoured to be changing things up in a big way. According to Android Police, Google’s new music streaming service will be called YouTube Music Key, offering content from Google Play All Access, as well as from YouTube Music Key. The …

A look at the Sky Sports Mobile TV App for Smartphones

It’s the start of a new football season and many people will be looking for a way to watch Sky Sports on their Smartphones. Sky have provided access to their Sky Go App for a while, which allows Sky Digital customers to watch live sky streams on their …

How well does Chromecast work on the iPhone?

Google Chromecast is a cost effective way of projecting your small screen on line media from your Smartphone to your big screen TV. Developed by Google, there is a natural assumption that Chromecast has a better affinity to Android devices then with other mobile OS’s. However, the device …

UnoTelly – Streaming service review

One thing we are not short of is apps or services that stream TV channels. The problem is that many of these are tied to your location. For instance, I can easily watch live World Cup games using TVCatchup, the BBC iPlayer or ITV players apps. Upon visiting the US a …

Buying music to download? Oh, that’s so 2010

The world of music and entertainment has changed significantly over the last decade or so. Before that, we saw vinyl getting replaced by CD’s and then MP3’s. In the last decade people have switched from traditional brick-and-mortar shops to downloading tunes online. However, streaming music services like Spotify …

TuneIn Radio fixes those little irritants

The recently refreshed TuneIn Radio app introduced us to a brand new UI and a clean design, however it also brought with it some additional “features” which weren’t well received. First was the lack of an exit button, which had been available before, whilst the second annoyance was …

Streaming music service Deezer in talks with Samsung.

There are currently a multitude of streaming music services Spotify, Rdo, Mog, Sony’s music unlimited, Pandora, and Deezer to name but a few. But due to licencing some services are only available in certain parts of the world. Here in the UK there is Blinkbox music (owned by …

Chromecast gets loaded with new apps

Chromecast has now been available in the US for a number of months and has slowly seen more functionality added as time passes.  This slow increase has now seen a major step change as Google today revealed that 10 new apps have been made available right now. The …

MixPal.fm – Internet radio with bells on

I’ve got a secret to confess. I don’t buy music. Sure, I listen to it, but I rarely buy it. Call me weird, but that’s me. Most of the time I listen to one internet radio station, but the MixPal.fm app has a bit of a twist – …

Chromecast App available in the UK, is Chromecast imminent?

Google released the Chromecast in the US back in July where it has been rather well received and as such it is a point of consternation that it cannot be obtained worldwide direct from Google. That however could be about to change, at least here in the UK, …

iTunes Radio to hit the UK in 2014

Music streaming services are fast becoming all the rage and in particular services that are tailored to the individuals listening preferences. With Google having already entered the fray internationally and services such as Spotify already offering a radio streaming service, Apple are slightly behind the curve. However, this …

Tesco Hudl Initial Impressions

Tesco have worked quite hard in the recent past to increase their digital offering.  They have bought Blinkbox for video streaming, We7 for music streaming and Mobcast for digital books.  They have created Clubcard TV and merged their acquisitions in order to create an all in one streaming …

Tesco offers half-price Blinkbox action

If you’ve got a clever TV, console, tablet or computer; you can watch TV and movies on-demand. Blinkbox offer just such a service and, because Tesco owns them, they’re pretty cheap. First up, there’s no subscription and you only pay for what you want to watch, when you …

Bloom.fm gets a full Android app

Not heard of Bloom.fm ? Well, it’ll let you combine radio and music discovery in one big experience (I’m reading from the press release, sorry). There’s a catalogue of 22 million songs which you can preview or borrow if you want to hear more. Borrow? Yes, borrow. You …

Streaming data, it’s both a sales pitch and a problem

As I’ve mentioned earlier I’ve switched networks recently and, whilst looking around, I checked into my usage habits. Streaming. That’s a big one. I love TuneIn because, put simply, every single station I find on FM radio is very samey and full of similar-sounding DJ’s saying similar-sounding things. …

MVNO Feature – giffgaff

We’ve covered a number of virtual network operators recently but perhaps the most well known is giffgaff. Sure, let’s be upfront, they’ve had a couple of bumps in the road with outages and the fact that a small selection of customers abused their “unlimited” data packages, but what …

Customer service the way it should be.

What do you want from your smartphone? The answer to the above question is different for every single smartphone user but there is are some common trends.  Decent battery life, a wonderfully bright screen, a one thousand megapixel camera, a full qwerty keyboard and so on and on. …

Google Music to challenge Spotify?

Back in February we covered rumours that Google were about to enter the music streaming game and launch a challenger to Spotify. Well, tonight The Verge are reporting that this is no longer a rumour but actually that Google have signed a deal with Universal and Sony Music for distribution …

Times are hard. Get paid for 3 minutes on camera ;)

Watch out, I’m gonna go for a slash. A forward slash that is, because this is Hang w/ – a new app which lets you stream live video and , get this, you get paid for your broadcast. Yeah, I know, mental. They’ve got a nice promotional video …

Google to enter the music streaming arena?

A captive audience of 73% of the entire worlds smartphone market can lead to some interesting propositions. Of course, the company is Google and their seemingly unassailable position in the smartphone market which gives them a captive audience. According to the Financial Times, Google are about to exploit that captive …

4oD App finally turns up on Android

Yeah, we know, it’s been available on the iPhone since 2011. But now, at last, Android users get a 4oD app too. Grab the free app here and you can enjoy “a wide selection of programmes” from Channel 4, E4 and More 4. You can select from the …

Google Play Music – Review

As discussed on our latest podcast, Google Music has finally arrived here on the shores of the UK and finally for all of those who didn’t know about or care to use the workaround can get a taste of what those on the other side of the pond …

Sky Sports TV, now for Android too

It’s been available for the iPhone for a while now, but – just in time for the new football season – the Sky Sports TV app has now arrived on Android. We’ve given it a spin already and.. it REALLY doesn’t like rooted phones by the looks of …

More Partners for 4G Britain

Some weeks ago we announced that Coolsmartphone became an official supporter of 4G Britain. Now another 8 companies have joined the calls to enable Britain to have a fully fledged 4G network as soon as possible. The new supporters are  Kier Group, Macworld, Muzicall, Myallsearch.com, Net Trajectory, PC World, Stuff magazine and Zentek Forensics.  This list goes …

TV Catchup Beta Now available for Android

TV Catchup, the service that lets you stream live freeview channels direct to your handset for free is now available in beta format for Android. TV Catchup say “As this is a beta, there may still be one or two issues that need resolving which is  where you …

US: MGM Joins the Play Revolution

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have today joined forces with Google Play and You Tube to add over 600 titles for rental in the United States and Canada. This means there are now five of the six major studios and over ten independent movie studios, currently offering movies for rent on YouTube and …

Sopcast Now Available On Android

Sopcast, the popular streaming application is now available on the Android platform. Currently in beta, the app runs on any Android device currently using version 2.2 or above. Sopcast say that as well as supporting P2P live channels it can play most types of local audio and video …

HTC Watch rentals discounted over Easter

Got a HTC phone? Used the Watch service? It’s definitely worth a try this weekend, because they’ve reduced the rental price on a whole splodge of new movies down to just 5p. Once you’ve rented you have 30 days to watch it, so don’t worry if you don’t …