instant video amazon Prime Instant Video Including‘Sopranos’ And ‘The Wire’

Classic HBO programming will soon be available on Amazon Prime Instant Video. The two companies announced the programming deal this morning. The first set of programming will hit the video streaming service starting on May 21. HBO Go will also finally hit the Amazon Fire TV by the end of 2014.
The programming list includes The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Big Love, Deadwood, Eastbound & Down, Family Tree, Enlightened, Treme, early seasons of Boardwalk Empire and True Blood, as well as mini-series like Band of Brothers and John Adams and comedy specials from Lewis Black, Ellen DeGeneres, Louis CK and Bill Maher. Previous seasons of other HBO shows, such as Girls, The Newsroom and Veep will become available three years after originally airing.
No word on Game of Thrones or Silicon Valley.
This is the first time HBO programming was licensed to an online-only subscription streaming service. It’s a big win for Amazon, giving the video streaming service a major advantage over competitors.
This move is likely a way to monetize older HBO content long forgotten and advertise its stellar pedigree. Before Game Of Thrones, The Wire and The Sopranos were the darlings of television. They’re fantastic shows. By making the whole series available for binge watching, HBO is effectively advertising its current content in the hopes of snagging more subscribers.
Netflix did not immediately respond for comment. They’re likely still reeling back in their office chairs and hyperventilating in discarded DVD mailers.

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Bose SoundTrue Review [Video]

Video provided by: Sound Guys YouTube Channel

While Bose originally made a name for itself with compact full stereo systems, it was only natural that as the company grew, so would its line of products. Now, if you can listen to music through it, there’s a fairly good chance that Bose makes it – Bluetooth speakers, in-ear headphones, over-ear headphones, you name it. While Bose is still most popular for its larger speaker systems, the company seems to be committing to its push into other areas by launching its newly branded SoundTrue headphones.

The Bose SoundTrue headphones are available in both around-ear and on-ear styles, depending on your preference. For noise isolation, the around-ear models are definitely the way to go, so that’s what we’re looking at today. Do these headphones hold up to Bose’s standard of high-quality sound?

What do you think of Bose’s newest headphones?

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Hands On With Facebook Nearby Friends [Video]: No More Checkins

Facebook Nearby Friends is based around broadcasting how far you are from friends, not your exact coordinates, and that’s why it could succeed where other location apps have failed. But while we might be comfortable sharing proximity, that doesn’t mean we’re comfortable doing it on Facebook.

Functionally, Facebook struck upon a smart innovation with proximity. For a deep look at how Facebook Nearby Friends works, read my article on its launch from Thursday. The opt in feature is rolling out to Facebook for iOS and Android over the coming weeks. Essentially it lets you show a bunch of friends your approximate distance from them, see a feed of nearby friends, and send specific people your exact on-going location for a few hours.

This hands on video and article look at how it feels using Nearby Friends and the barriers to its adoption.

Facebook Debuts Nearby Friends

With services like Google Latitude, it feels a bit creepy letting anyone see where you are all the time, even your closest friends. Occasionally checking in on apps like Foursquare can make you feel exposed too if you share that information widely. Plus just because someone is at a cafe down the street doesn’t mean they want to see you. They could be in a work meeting or on a date. In the end, your exact location is actually irrelevant to most people.

What really matters is if you’re close enough that it’d be convenient to meet up. That’s what Facebook Nearby Friends is about. If you are, you can communicate to see if you’re both interested in hanging out and then potentially share your exact locations. Until then, exact location is more creepy than helpful.

Location discovery only really works if you a have critical mass of users. So Facebook tried to lower the bar to sharing with this proximity-focused strategy and by building it into its main apps rather than a standalone app. Unfortunately, that leaves Nearby Friends feeling buried in the More tab of the interface. Notifications and feed stories should keep people from forgetting it, but because it’s turned off by default, it could take constant promotion and persuasion from Facebook to get people to dig in and turn it on. If I ended up using it a lot, I could foresee wanting it accessible from the Facebook homescreen or as a standalone, or potentially integrated with Messenger.

The basic proximity feature is relatively simple to use. The Nearby Friends feed intelligently ranks friends so you see close by besties at the top. The decision to measure distance to the tenth of a mile but cap accuracy at a half mile if someone is closer than that seems like a good balance on privacy. It does feel a bit strange to know the current cities of friends around the world, though, especially when there’s obviously no way to hang out with them. Facebook might consider not displaying people in the list if they’re over 100 or even 1000 miles away to make the feature less stalkerish.

Where Nearby Friends gets more clunky is when you decide to share your precise location with someone. The compass icon buttons that trigger this aren’t very intuitive. The little expiration slider works fine, but the 40 character messages you can send with your location are sometimes too long to fit in notifications or the map view. For safety, it’d be nice if Facebook sent a periodic reminder alert if you don’t set your real-time location to expire from someone’s view so you don’t leave it on forever.

The more conservative, opt-in approach was wise for Facebook as forcing Nearby Friends on people could have caused extremely heavy backlash. You have to turn it on, can set a smaller Friend List or group as who sees your proximity info, and there’s an easy way to turn it off. People should still consider setting the visibility of their proximity to a smaller group than the default of all friends. Overall, though, the privacy controls seem strong yet simple.

But even though Facebook’s social graph gives it a big advantage building something like Nearby Friends, and it built it well, people just might not want to share this info on Mark Zuckerberg’s social network. Years of stumbles on privacy might come back to bite Facebook in the ass when it asks people to turn on Nearby Friends. It doesn’t help that I’ve confirmed Facebook will use your Nearby Friends Location History to target you with hyper-local ads. That means using the feature is a value exchange where you get help gathering if you give up your GPS data.

There’s probably an opportunity for someone to create an independent clone of Nearby Friends. [Disclosure: I advise a stealth startup in the location space.] Take the same smooth concept of proximity broadcasting and real-time location sharing with specific friends, and build it off address book phone numbers instead. It would be tough to gain the same potential ubiquity that Facebook has access to through its enormous existing smartphone user base. But a startup with a heavy focus on privacy and security, not unlike Secret, might be able to convince people who are apprehensive about Facebook to share where they are.

For now, though, we’ll have to watch how the world warms up to proximity sharing through Facebook. The staggered roll out process isn’t doing Facebook any favors with making it go viral, unfortunately. Some of my friends have it but it seems some of them don’t, and there are huge network effects to be won by getting whole clusters using it.

Personally, I’ve already found Nearby Friends useful to see which friends were at a concert, and who lives in my neighborhood to grab brunch with. I’m looking forward to trying to use it to meet up with friends in SF’s Dolores Park, one of the use cases that it’s creator and former Glancee CEO Andrea Vaccari tell me inspired the feature.

For Nearby Friends to thrive, Facebook needs to make people understand how its privacy works, and why it’s different than other location apps. It should also try to strip out as much creepiness as possible, such as by taking people over a thousand miles away out of the feed, and reminding people if they’re currently sharing their general or exact location with some indicator on the homescreen. At its best, Nearby Friends could turn missed connections into blissful intersections. But first it has to instill a new perception that proximity is safe to share.

How to disable Facebook video auto-play on Android and PC

Loie Favre 2014-04-17T16:00:01Z1 day ago

Loie Favre

Loie Favre is a Canadian-German, food-loving, live-music-craving globe-trotter. Coming from a humble background in the Canadian Prairies centred around nature and the Arts, she studied Translation and Languages in Edmonton. She left his home on the Pacific Coast of Canada, to seek her fortune in Berlin. She is now an Editor and Manager for AndroidPIT.com and is enjoying discovering about everything and anything under the sun about Android.

Aside from changing the look of the Facebook user interface with the recent update, which hasn’t been that warmly welcomed by users, there is yet another Facebook feature that can be quite annoying: video auto-play. Not only do you not always want to see what people are showing, but this also uses up more of the data (if your plan isn’t unlimited) and battery of your Android. Here is how to disable this feature on Android and PC.

© AndroidPIT.

First off, I just want to clarify that you can’t actually disable automatic video playback completely. The only available option in the update is to choose whether or not the auto-play videos will occur on Wi-Fi only. This means that when the box isn’t ticked, auto-play will happen when using mobile data. Check this box so that none of your precious data is used for some silly videos.

© AndroidPIT

To do this, swipe to the furthest tab on the Facebook app for Android and tap on App Settings. Right there under the General Settings, tap on ‘Auto-play videos on Wi-Fi only’ to tick off the box.

Facebook on your PC

When on the Facebook website on your personal computer, you can switch this feature off completely, though it won’t affect the settings on your phone. Sadly, the features on the website do not often coincide with the ones on Android, which we discovered with the privacy and security settings for Facebook. Go to settings, then videos and from the drop down menu, select off.

© AndroidPIT

Did you figure it out? What other features do you wish you could disable?

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Google Glass Gets KitKat Support And Improved Photo Browsing, Loses Video Calls

Anybody will be able to buy Google Glass tomorrow, but ahead of this, Google is giving the Glass software an update. There are a couple of new features in this update, including new tools for making working with photos easier, but Google has also decided to remove the option to do video calls from Glass for the time being.

Google says video calls from Glass didn’t live out to the company’s “high standards.” Only about 10 percent of Glass users currently use them, and because of this, the Glass team has made “the hard decision to remove video calls from Glass until the experience is better.”

It’s unclear when this feature will return, but Google tells Glass users to keep an eye out for video-streaming apps in the MyGlass app library for third-party solutions. Given that video calls from Glass were always one of the device’s marquee features, it does come as quite a surprise that Google would remove this, even if just a few percent of its current users use it. 

As for the photo updates, Google now finally bundles photos together so when you scroll through your timelines, it’s not cluttered by lots of photos, and the photos you take are easier to find. Glass now bundles all your videos, photos and vignettes into a single bundle for each day. If you take a lot of photos on Glass, that’s definitely a major improvement.

Despite losing the video calling feature, Hangouts on Glass are still an option for chats, and with this update, Google now allows users to more easily send photos in Hangout messages.

Other new updates include a voice command menu that’s now sorted by frequency and recency, as well as the ability to more easily send feedback about Glass right from the device.

According to Google, there are a few more features in this update, too, but it hasn’t updated its Glass Journal blog yet. We will update this post with a list of all the new features as Google makes this information available.

This Video Is a Primer to Gymnasium Etiquette 2014

This Video Is a Primer to Gymnasium Etiquette 2014

When you sign up for a fitness center membership, or you transfer somewhere with a fitness heart, you could get a fast tour, but no one tells you the right way to use the tools, or learn how to be courteous and considerate of your fellow exercisers while you work out. This entertaining video from I Am Alpha M reveals you the ropes.

To be fair, some of these things are common sense if you're at all a considerate person (put your weights away when you're finished with them, keep your voice down, don't hog the equipment when others clearly want a turn,) but others may be new to you if you've never spent any time in a gym—or worse, exercised in a fitness center where there might be people's apartments next door. For example, every gym I've ever visited still has that one guy who loves to drop his weights so they slam on the ground when he's done a set—don't do that. Similarly, remember to wipe up your cardio equipment with paper towels or sanitary wipes after you use them—you wouldn't want to get on a damp, sweaty elliptical, so don't subject other people to the same fate.

Another thing the video notes is to pay attention to what you wear. Most of us work out in what's comfortable to us, but remember jeans or clothes with buckles and fasteners can damage vinyl coverings on equipment. Similarly, make sure your shoes are clean before you head into the gym—don't track dirt or mud all over. Hit the link below to read more, or just press play on the video.

Gymnasium and Health Heart Etiquette | I Am Alpha M

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Ran Harnevo On AOL’s Video Strategy And The Web’s “Massive Wave” Of Original Content

Aol’s Ran Harnevo on the NewFronts’ Effect on Digital Media

We’re a few weeks away from the Digital Content NewFronts, where the big online companies pitch their upcoming programs to advertisers. So it seemed like a good time to sit down with Ran Harnevo, AOL’s president of video, to talk about the company’s plans, and about broader trends in the industry.

Harnevo suggested that House of Cards on Netflix became “a defining moment” in “a massive wave” in original programming on the web. In its own way, AOL is participating in that wave too, he said, with 15 new shows launched last year and “a totally different breadth of content” to be announced at the NewFronts.

“I think that the beautiful thing about the Internet, from its beginning, is that it’s non-linear and essentially there’s much more creative freedom,” Harnevo said. “A talent like Steve Buscemi or Sarah Jessica Parker or whomever, if they have passion proejcts that they really really care about, if you go on TV and it doesn’t work [in the] first episode, second episode, you’re either out or you need to change. Primetime is so expensive that there’s not a lot of flexibility and not a lot of authenticity.”

Even with those celebrity names, it may seem strange to discuss AOL (which owns TechCrunch) as a major video publisher. Harnevo said that when it comes to video, the company may have less name recognition because it’s taking more “open” approach, distributing its videos across a number of properties.

“Vimeo and YouTube are easier to grasp because it’s big, but it’s one product,” he said.

The Efficiency Advantages of Discrete Video Playing cards (Even for Non-Players) 2014

The Efficiency Advantages of Discrete Video Playing cards (Even for Non-Players) 2014

If you're a PC gamer, you already know that upgrading your computer's video card will give you the most effective gaming performance boost. PCWorld argues, however, that a discrete graphics card belongs in most individuals's desktop PCs-not just gamers.

AMD's and Intel's integrated graphics (graphics technologies coupled with the processor) are pretty capable these days, but they're still far less powerful than discrete video cards when it comes to performance—and not just in games, either:

Games aren't the only applications that benefit from the power of a discrete GPU. AMD's and Nvidia's GPUs are made up of thousands of processors that can carry out multiple operations simultaneously. Any application that benefits from such parallel processing—be it an image-editing program like Photoshop, data-encryption software, or a distributed-computing project like Folding@Home or Seti@Home—will run faster with the assistance of a more powerful GPU.

PCWorld's tests show performance boosts of 3% to 19% on PCMark's productivity benchmarks when using discrete graphics cards (a ~$300 AMD Radeon R9 XFX card) versus integrated ones in the same systems. The greatest boosts were for the home suite than the work suite.

Even casual, browser-based games like Farmville and Angry Birds would have significant performance gains (about 1.5 to 2X the performance) from a discrete video card upgrade. The only place they didn't seem to help was in video playback.

Of course, plunking down hundreds of dollars for a new video card won't be worth it if the rest of the system is a bottleneck (an older processor or not enough memory). And there are other upgrades that will give you more bang for your buck, depending on your usage.

The tests suggest, though, that a discrete video card might not be just for gamers. Keep that in mind if you have the cash and are upgrading or building your own desktop PC to future proof it.

Tested: Why nearly every desktop PC could use a video card upgrade | PCWorld

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TapTalk Is A New Video Messaging App That Adds Location

My TechCrunch colleague Natasha Lomas recently argued – quite convincingly – that startups should stop trying to make proximity-based social networking “happen” — that most attempts had failed, and even ongoing ventures like Foursquare have had to tone down the idea. And yet these apps still keep appearing. And who can blame them — we might as well do something social with that GPS chip.

TapTalk is a new iOS and Android app to send friends a photo or video, but it’s way more interesting and fun than that might initially sound.

After connecting via Facebook, the app lets you tap the image of a friend to take a picture – in itself an innovative new kind of UI. But hold their picture down, and you record a short video of a few seconds. Using the front-facing camera you can send a selfie or, as is often the case, a short video message to your friend. Click on the bottom half of the camera field and you can type in a short message.

Talking a cue from SnapChat, any photo of video you send can’t be retrieved after you’ve seen it. You also can’t pre-take a photo and upload it. Everything you send to others is unique.

Because the app displays both the photo/and a map of where you are — in the case of sending a video — this means the app is turning into a sort of video Walkie-Talkie.

TapTalk has been created but the same Berlin-based team that brought us Ding Dong – which does something similar, but is built more around location.

TapTalk is not really a photo app. In fact all this suggests that TapTalk is using location as a feature, not as the focus. If that’s the case it should get some kind of traction. If not, it’ll be yet another app trying to make proximity-based social networking happen, when – unless people use it for sex (Tinder, Grindr) – it probably won’t.

HTC One M8 camera hands-on video review

Loie Favre 2014-04-07T18:00:01Z1 day ago

Loie Favre

Loie Favre is a Canadian-German, food-loving, live-music-craving globe-trotter. Coming from a humble background in the Canadian Prairies centred around nature and the Arts, she studied Translation and Languages in Edmonton. She left his home on the Pacific Coast of Canada, to seek her fortune in Berlin. She is now an Editor and Manager for AndroidPIT.com and is enjoying discovering about everything and anything under the sun about Android.

Yesterday we took an in-depth look at the camera and its features on the HTC One (M8), and today we were able to demonstrate the many features on the UltraPixel duo camera in our hands-on video, such as 3D effects, UFocus, filters and more.

 © AndroidPIT

Throughout our hands-on test of the HTC One M8 camera, we got through the various features and explain them one by one. HTC was able to put some really cool features on its new flagship, though many could be considered a tad gimmicky, such as the stickers and ''Seasons'' (leaves, snow etc) overlays.

The duo camera allows for more depth information in the pictures, which gives us some nice features like UFocus and 3D Dimensions Plus, the first allowing you to manually choose the focused and blurred parts of the pictures, while the second makes the image appear 3D, allowing you to save the picture in a brand-new angle.

Manual mode is a highlight for the camera believe it or not, because you are able to adjust the various settings in a very intuitive way, like white balance, contrast, ISO, shutter speed and then actually see the changes on the viewfinder screen before even taking the picture. The same goes for HDR and the other modes, so there is a lot less surprise in the end result. All this and more is demonstrated in the video. With these added features, HTC is catching up to Samsung in terms of the amount of camera features and may have even surpassed their rival in certain areas. Check it out for yourself in as we explore the various features.

Link to video

What do you think of the HTC One M8 camera? Do you think the features are useful?

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Mindie Adds Direct Video Messaging

Music video app Mindie has released version 2.0 of its app in the App Store, which adds a number of new features including a private messaging feature. This new use case looks and feels more like Snapchat than Vine’s new direct messaging feature. Other features include the ability to add text on your videos, share on Instagram and more.

At heart, Mindie remains a music video sharing app. When you record a Mindie, you first pick a song. Then, you shoot a few seconds of video like you would in Vine, and share it on Mindie, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

This video format is what makes Mindie unique. “It’s very complicated to shoot an interesting video, but if you put music on an awful video, it will make it interesting,” co-founder and CEO Grégoire Henrion told me when he first presented me the app.

But now, the main difference is that you can send videos to a person in particular. He or she will get a notification — and you don’t have to publicly share your video at all.

In some ways, the overall posting experience is very reminiscent of Snapchat, except instead of taking a picture, you shoot a music video. But after that, you can add text directly on the video, like you would in Snapchat. You hit the next button, select your recipients and hit the send button.

At the top of the recipient list, you will find a “Public” option, which used to be Mindie’s default option. if you select that, it will push your video to your followers in the main feed. You will see a final step to let you share on Facebook, Twitter and now Instagram.

Unlike Vine’s messaging features, you can’t mix videos and text messages. It’s all video. You won’t even get a threaded conversation. When you receive a video, it appears in your notifications. Like in Snapchat, you hold your finger on the screen to watch. The video will loop indefinitely until you remove your finger. Once you remove your finger, the video is gone.

In the previous update, Mindie added two other important features. You can choose your favorite part in the song for your video, and you can shoot in slow-motion on the iPhone 5s — slow-motion in particular is an interesting addition.

With today’s update, Mindie is covering a few more use cases. It’s interesting to see how Vine and Mindie’s approaches are different. Now, we will get to see whether video messaging is going to become a mainstream communication format.

Video: Galaxy S5 resists 1 hour in the pool and 1 hour in the washing machine

The new Galaxy S5 has an IP67 rating. But what the heck does that even mean? We walk you through Ingress Protection (IP) ratings here, but if you need a more hands-on explanation, the video above, from the folks at Tech Smartt, should be a good starting point.

To be precise, the Galaxy S5 is certified to resist water when submerged at depths of up to one meter for no longer than 30 minutes. So, why is the device in the video working after one hour at the bottom of the pool and another hour of tumbling in the washing machine? It’s because IP ratings are designed to reflect the baseline resistance of devices, the level of ingress protection that all non-defective units should have under normal circumstances.

Your phone may resist a dip in the diving pool, but anything beyond Samsung’s 30 minutes/1 meter rating is a risk you take, so you should probably play it safe. That’s the same advice we gave to users of the HTC One (M8), which can apparently take a dip, even if HTC doesn’t advertise water resistance as a feature.

For more on the Galaxy S5 and its durability, check out our fresh review.

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5 new Galaxy S5 software features (video)

The Galaxy S5 goes on sale this Friday, and if history and early reactions are an indication, Samsung’s new hero device will be another hit.

If you are one of the millions of people from around the world that will get an S5 in the next few weeks, you’ll probably want to know as much as possible about the phone’s software. In this post, we specifically look at the biggest, most interesting new software features coming on the Galaxy S5.

1. My Magazine

My Magazine gives you a mix of news, articles, and social updates from hundreds of sites and the most popular social networks. Accessible with a swipe from the left, My Magazine piggybacks on Flipboard, though you don’t get as many customization options as you get on the standalone app. Ultimately, My Magazine is a nice, easy to access way to catch up with up the world straight from your homescreen.

2. New multitasking

Samsung changed the way users can access the recent apps list on the S5, by ditching the Menu capacitive menu in favor of the new Recent Apps button. The move makes it way easier to switch between apps, and the redesigned multitasking interface is another step in the right direction.

3. Toolbox

Toolbox is a little widget that reminded us a bit of the Chat Heads feature of Facebook Home. The widget, which floats on top of most of your apps, contains shortcuts to five apps of your choice. The always-on-top part may be annoying, but if you have a specific workflow, Toolbox could prove very handy.

4. Download booster

Download booster seems to be one of those ideas that someone should’ve been done years ago. The feature combines Wi-Fi and data connectivity to increase download speeds. It works as advertised in most cases, though you will need to keep an eye on data consumption to avoid any surprises at the end of the month.

5. Ultra power saving mode

When you find yourself in a pickle with your phone about to die, you likely don’t care about pretty colors or Facebook updates. Ultra power saving mode sacrifices convenience for durability by making the screen monochrome and turning off all but the essential features. In theory, this should help you extend battery life by at least a few precious hours.

What’s the best new software feature on the Galaxy S5? Tell us in the comments.

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Copy Paste Any Text Instantly – Indie app of the day

Eyeview Brings Its Personalized Video Ads To Internet-Connected TVs

Personalized video advertising company Eyeview is announcing that its ads will now work on Internet-connected TVs, specifically those with Roku and Microsoft Xbox devices.

Eyeview’s technology allows ads to be customized using viewer data. For example, it allows a big chain to create a national ad that will include local stores and deals depending on where it’s is shown.

Co-founder and CEO Oren Harnevo already suggested that this was a likely direction for the company when he announced its Series C funding last year. He told me at the time that because the system works by creating “hundreds of thousands” of variations for each ad (rather than personalizing it by using a Flash overlay, like some competitors), Eyeview could bring its ads to other devices like connected TVs.

When discussing today’s announcement, Harnevo acknowledged that on TVs, smart or not, there are no cookies and therefore less data for Eyeview’s targeting and personalization. However, he suggested that the company will know the time of day, the location, and basic demographic information, which will allow it to deliver ads that are “a lot more relevant” than traditional TV campaigns.

Harnevo also acknowledged that the size of the current audience on smart TVs means that “the scale is not huge,” so it’s more likely that advertisers will see these ads as a “complementary” part of larger campaigns. That doesn’t mean it’s not valuable, though, and he argued that as audiences embrace the on-demand TV model and as companies like Eyeview enable this kind of advertising, “I think you’ll see the brand dollars shift very quickly.”

Eyeview says its ads can appear on “all broadcast and cable networks” on supported devices.

Project Ara: Google and Phonebloks explain modular phones in video

Loie Favre 2014-04-04T10:00:01Z4 hours ago

Loie Favre

Loie Favre is a Canadian-German, food-loving, live-music-craving globe-trotter. Coming from a humble background in the Canadian Prairies centred around nature and the Arts, she studied Translation and Languages in Edmonton. She left his home on the Pacific Coast of Canada, to seek her fortune in Berlin. She is now an Editor and Manager for AndroidPIT.com and is enjoying discovering about everything and anything under the sun about Android.

Project Ara has been increasingly gaining the limelight as Google presents more and more details about the modular smartphone revolution. A video preview of the team behind Ara and an update about Phonebloks appeared on YouTube to let us know where they are in their modular smartphone journey.

© Slash Gear

Lots has happened since we first heard of Project Ara. First Motorola announced that they were working closely with Phonebloks on this do-it-yourself smartphone concept. Then, Google went ahead and sold Motorola to Lenovo, but decided to keep the team that was responsible for Project Ara. Now, the company behind Project Ara, Phonebloks, has published a video to help us get to know the bright minds behind the endeavour and take a look behind the scenes.

Aside from the fancy-looking and colorful Google office and some jokes thrown around here and there, the video explains how a Phoneblok modular smartphone works, explains the tests being performed on the various phone modules as well as the different skeletons to hold the entire smartphone together. Another interesting part of the video is when a designer explains their choice to keep the various pieces of hardware found on a smartphone visible, instead of hidden behind a chassis, which they feel isn’t necessarily essential.

Link to video

It’s evident that the Project Ara team holds a great importance in not following conventions but in creating something new and unique.  A Project Ara Developer Conference is rapidly approaching (April 15-16, 2014), so we will hopefully know more about the project then.

What do you think of the modular smartphone concept, being able to pick and choose the various parts of your smartphone, instead of having a OEM dictate the hardware found in your phone? Too much freedom or the way of the future?

Source: PhoneBloks (YouTube)

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10 Free Android Video Editors To Help Perfect Your Videos On-The-Go

Recording your own video is so much easier now thanks to capable Android devices. Although it’s easy to record something, editing is another matter altogether. A good video editor is quite necessary to transform your boring video recording into something catchy and fun to watch.

We know how hard it is to find a proper video editor for Android, especially for free. But it doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. Here, we share with you 10 Free Android video editors to make video editing on-the-go a reality.

Recommended Reading: 10 Photo-Editing Apps To Fix Facial Imperfections Easily

1. VidStitch

If you ever need an app to create a video specifically for Instagram, look no further. VidStitch combines photos and videos into one beautiful collage and allows you to share it on Instagram with ease. Moreover, you can also use your own soundtrack for the collage that you’re creating.

VidStich allows you to choose from 50 different collage frames for your own video collage. You can also adjust the width of the frame, its color and even the saturation to fit your taste.

2. AndroVid Video Editor

This is a standard Android video editor that’s capable of merging, splitting, trimming and transcoding your videos on-the-go. Furthermore, this app enables you to add text, music, and video effects to further enhance your videos. It has all the necessary features to edit your videos.

Whether the video’s recorded from your smartphone or you ripped a high quality video from somewhere, AndroidVid can easily handle them. If all you need is a good video editor that efficiently does several things, then this is what you’re looking for.

3. WeVideo

WeVideo is a video editing app that allows you to edit your video on your mobile using its very simple interface. You can choose from a variety of themes, ranging from travel journal to a wedding theme, according to whatever suits your video. Next, just add an audio file and you can immediately publish it to the WeVideo server, with the choice of making it a public or private video.

WeVideo ensures that your video exists in its cloud server so that you can further edit it with its cloud editor. And since your video is in the cloud, you can easily access it from anywhere.

4. VidCutter

Videos may not always be the ideal length that you want. Often at times, you might just want a small part of the original video. With VidCutter, you can trim any of your videos easily and quickly without any issue.

All you need to do is set the start and end time at the part of the video that you want to cut and it will save it as a new video right away. VidCutter support formats in 3pg, avi, mpeg, mp4, and wmv thus making it one of the most reliable Android video cutter that you can get for free.

5. KlipMix

Ever wondered how to turn your videos and photos into a nicely edited video of your own? Try KlipMix, an app that’s capable of mixing videos and even photos together with your favourite music to create your own videos. Iff your recording happens to be upside down (mistakes like this can happen), you can fix it easily with KlipMix since it can handle various rotations of all your videos and photos.

Besides that, KlipMix also comes with a feature that allows you to set the duration of each video or photo as you wish. Now, you can have an edited video of your own that’s even free from watermarks.

6. KineMaster

KineMaster is one of the best Android video editors that you can get on an Android device. It has all the features that you will ever need on mobile, such as color, saturation, brightness and even 3D transition effects. There’s a lot of themes to choose from that comes with specific music and visual effects.

However, there’s a downside to using KineMaster, where your videos will be watermarked when exported. Some find that it’s not really a big issue, but if you can’t live with that, just get the paid app for $2.99 to remove the watermark. Doing that will also give you more theme options.

7. Media Converter

Videos comes in many different formats and often you end up with one that may not play too well on your Android device. Well, this is no longer an issue with the Media Converter app. This app allows you to convert any of your videos into formats like mp4, 3gp, avi, mpeg and flv right away.

You can also set the parameter for your video/audio bitrate, resolution and the audio sample rate. The app layout is pretty straightforward, and it even comes with the capability to convert video to audio with ease.

8. VidTrim

VidTrim brands itself as a video editor and organizer on the Android platform. It performs well for tasks like video trimming, video conversion, frame grabbing and much more. Uploading a high resolution video to your favorite social media usually takes up a lot of your time. Instead, you can use VidTrim to scale down your video resolution to help reduce its overall size.

This is made possible because it comes with the transcoder that helps to convert, resize and compress your video on-the-go. So, if you often record videos in high quality and want to share your videos with the world, try out VidTrim.

9. VivaVideo

So far we’ve shared a few video editor apps but VivaVideo is one that works as both a video camera and a video editor. VivaVideo comes with features like themes, filters, video effects, titles and transitions that you can get within the app for free.

There really is no limit when it comes to perfecting your videos with this app, as you can even use it to capture video recordings with all kinds of capture modes like slow-motion, fast-motion, music video and FX.

10. VideoShow

VideoShow is a video editor that can create videos using a mix of videos and photos. It comes with additional features like voice to video recording, multiple text to video with timings, video effects, music, trimming and exporting. You can easily edit your own videos and export it quickly with minimal effort.

VideoShow also allows you to express yourself in your own edited video using any effect, text, or music. You can even feature your own voice with ease, if you want. VideoShow is perfect for people who want to create a short film in a snap without any watermark.

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Create Online Video Presentations Easily With Movenote

Presentations are a great way to explain things and get important information across to an audience. However, there are times when it’s just impossible to conduct a presentation in real-time, be it due to distance or simply lack of time. Sure, you could just email your slides or publish them online, but without the all-important human element, it can be hard to communicate and get your point across. If you’ve ever wished for an easy way to overcome this problem by combining slides with audio and visual narration, you can stop wishing. Say hello to Movenote.

Movenote is an app and website that lets you create video slidecasts, which the app calls Movenotes. Movenote lets you accompany your slides with a video narration. If giving a presentation in real life is impossible for whatever reason, Movenote might just be the next best thing. If this sounds useful to you, read on to find out more.

Recommended Reading: Create Beautiful Presentations Easily With Slidebean

Getting Started With Movenote

To get started using Movenote, just log on to the website and register a new account if you don’t have one. You can also log in using your Google, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts. However, it looks like you’ll only have Google Drive integration if you login using a Google account.

Once you’ve logged in, go through Movenote’s terms and conditions. Once you’re done with that, you can watch some YouTube videos with tips on getting started with Movenote. Finally, Movenote will ask for your permission to use your webcam.

Using Movenote

This is what the main Movenote interface looks like:

Your slides take up the bulk of the screen, with your webcam’s output on the right side of the screen. This is so that you can see yourself while you’re recording the Movenote. Press the pencil icon beside the presentation title to edit the Movenote’s title. Archive is where you access older Movenotes.

Adding slides is simple as clicking on Add Slides and choosing whether to add files from your computer or from your Google Drive account.

Once you’ve added your slides, either from your computer or from Google Drive, you can rearrange and delete them however you wish. Just press Re-order at the top of the slide display and a new window will pop up allowing you to re-order and delete slides.

Recording Your Presentation

Once you’re satisfied with your slides, you can start recording your Movenote. Just press the red Record button; Movenote will start a countdown and then begin recording. While recording, just narrate as you normally would, and click the arrows above the slide display in order to move through the slides. You can also turn your mouse cursor into a laser pointer by holding your mouse button down; this can be useful for highlighting certain parts of a slide.

Once you’re done recording, click Pause. You can then either resume recording, start over if you made a mistake, or press Save & preview if you’re satisfied with your recording.

Once you press Save & preview, Movenote will take a few minutes to generate your Movenote. How long Movenote takes depends on the length of the presentation.

You have a number of ways to share your completed Movenote. You can email the link via Gmail, copy the public link, or share it on social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Movenote also has AddThis integration, letting you share your Movenote on a lot of other social platforms such as Pinterest and Tumblr.

There are a few other controls at the bottom of the screen. The seekbar and the slide counter work in tandem with each other, in that moving through the slides also advances through the Movenote. Viewers also have the option to download the slides in .PDF format.

There’s also a settings menu that lets you do a few extra things, including adding a link, editing the slides, generating an embed code as well as deleting the Movenote.

Conclusion

Movenote is an incredibly useful tool if you want to accompany slides and presentations with audio-visual narration and explanations. If you’ve ever wanted to keep the human element of presentations while sharing information across the Internet, then Movenote is definitely something you’ll want to try out.

Movenote is also available for mobile platforms, both Android and iOS. There’s also a Movenote Chrome app as well as a Movenote for Gmail extension that lets you create Movenotes directly from Gmail.

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Drawbridge Says It Now Supports Video In Its Cross-Device Ad Targeting

Drawbridge, the Kleiner Perkins- and Sequoia-backed startup that targets ads across devices, announced today that it has added support for video ads, too.

It sounds like the targeting technology remains the same. Drawbridge is still looking at user behavior to suggest when multiple devices are likely being used by the same person, which in turn allows advertisers to use desktop data to improve the targeting of their mobile ads. It’s just adding video into the mix, as well.

However, co-founder and CEO Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan told me that this is still a significant move for the company. For one thing, there’s the general rise in video advertising, particularly on mobile. For another, she said that this should help Drawbridge expand into other advertising categories, such as entertainment and automotive.

For example, if someone watches a movie trailer on their computer, Sivaramakrishnan suggested that it’s useful for a movie studio to know that, so that they can deliver targeted marketing and promotions to their smartphone.

Moving forward, Sivaramakrishnan said she wants to do more to support different types of “creative dimensions” at Drawbridge.

“I don’t think we’ll ever be a creative shop,” she said. “What we will do is expand our arsenal to support a myriad of formats that are very relevant across a spectrum of performance.”

Drawbridge says it has added new metrics to its ad reporting as part of its video support — in addition to ad clicks and impressions, it’s also looking at completion rates, viewability, and drop-off points.

And the company can both host ads directly or integrate with existing video ad platforms. As part of today’s announcement, it’s unveiling its first partnership on this front with Twitter-owned MoPub.

“Partnering with Drawbridge provides immediate benefits to our clients, as well as advances video advertising in general,” said MoPub Director of Exchange Janae McDonough in the announcement release.

Vine for Android gets an update, introduces private video messaging

Vine is already a great way to share short video clips with the world, but a new app update is about to make the experience even better by introducing Vine messages.

The Vine Messages system is a new communication feature that allows you to sent direct Vine video messages to anyone, even those that aren’t part of the Vine community. To send Vines to non-members, you can use their email address or send them via SMS.

Aside from allowing you to share videos with the new messaging system, you can also start a conversation around it and friends can respond directly to the video message and add comments of their own. This allows for much deeper conversations than the one line comment system used on public videos.

While the Vine messaging system is the biggest change heading to the new update, the change-log also mentions that you can now customize your profile with colors. There’s several bug fixes and performance improvements promised as well.

To grab the latest version of Vine you’ll want to head on over to Google Play. For those that have already tried the new Vine Messages feature, what do you think so far?

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Project Ara gets a progress update video ahead of developers conference

Just in case your excitement level for Project Ara was dwindling, the Phonebloks crew has put up a video teaser – a little behind the scenes action of Project Ara and the folks that are making it possible.

The video comes at us less than two weeks ahead of the first Project Ara developers conference on April 15-16, and within days of the expected release of the Ara Module Developer’s Kit. We’d say that is good timing, indeed. Shot and pieced together by Dave Hakkens of Phonebloks, the video is a bit of a tour of what the Project Ara team has going on, and it is looking pretty good.

Let me just say one thing before you start the video – electro-permanent magnets are cool!

Instead of turning to screws, plastic clips or a full back cover, the engineers have a Project Ara prototype running that uses electro-permanent magnets to secure the individual modules in place on the main phone board. These magnets are made of various materials that operate as an electro-magnet, however, are able to hold a magnetic state without the need for constant electricity, just set it and forget it and your pieces stay attached.

The module connection technique allows the device to aesthetically embrace the modular design without needing to hide it all behind a cover. Allowing for ultimate customization, users can order modules in different colors, textures and designs. An Ara Configurator app will let you play with various designs and modules, and presumably allow you to order pieces, or an entire phone.

Finally, the video reveals what appears to be three distinct sizes of Ara devices, Mini and Medium appear to be in progress now, with Large coming in a future release. No indication is given what the actual sizes are, but Mini will provide a 2×5 module grid, Medium gets you up to 3×6 modules and Large will come in with a grid of 4×7 modules.

For more great Project Ara information, please take a look at our in-depth analysis here. What do you think, is Project Ara on track to take over the phone market, or is it just another gimmick?

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