Tivo has a new mobile site at m.tivo.com that lets you program you Tivo using your phone wherever you are.  That's not all it does either, Tivo Mobile also provides a television programing guide that can be used even if you are not a Tivo subscriber.  Just enter your zip-code and provider and Tivo Mobile will list daily favorites and  let you search for shows.  Show listings include time, channel, synopsis, cast list, ratings and an "If you like this..." link to the recommendation engine.  Unlike most other online guides. there is no hour by hour grid.

Tivo Mobile appears to be US only.  At least it wouldn't recognize Canadian postal codes.  But then again may be it's doing IP sniffing and knows I'm not in Canada.  If you get this to work north or south of the border (or in Taiwan or Australia) I'd love to hear about it. Source: MobileCrunch

Filed in: Wap Review Directory - Entertainment/TV

Ratings: Content:  Usability: 

Mobile Link: m.tivo.com

"Adobe’s Flash Player is on 98 percent of all desktop computers, but it is still struggling to make the jump to mobile phones. If you want Flash on a mobile device, right now you have to settle for a compromised version: Flash Lite. But Adobe is committed to bring the full Flash Player experience to mobile phones, as evidenced by its Open Screen Project. On Monday, at its Adobe MAX developer conference, it will demonstrate Flash Player 10 running on a Windows Mobile phone. (However, Flash won’t actually ship on Windows Mobile until late next year)."

Adobe MAX has come and gone and during that time Adobe has announced that would release Flash technology to the Windows Mobile platform and even demonstrated versions of Flash running on Windows Mobile and Google Android. It is really interesting to see Flash running on Google's Android platform as these handsets are virtually brand spanking new. It is amazing to see how quickly big name companies such as Adobe are jumping on consumer smartphone bandwagon since the release of the Apple iPhone and Google Android platforms. Sometimes I wish Microsoft could inspire that kind of innovation and excitement in the mobile industry. It is an incredibly exciting time to be a smartphone user, no matter which device or operating system is in your pocket. However I am still annoyed that it has taking this long for Adobe to get around to bringing Flash to our handsets.

iPhones are more than twice as reliable as Blackberry smartphones after one year of operation, according to a study by Square Trade research. Square Trade, a company that sells add-on warranties covering electronic devices beyond their manufacturer warranty periods, looked at the failure rates of 15,000 phones covered under its plans. According to their data, the malfunction rate for iPhones after one year is 5.6 percent, compared to 11.2 percent for the Blackberry and 16.2 percent for the Treo.

The study projects the failure rate for the iPhone after two years will be between 9.2 and 11.3 percent, compared to actual two-year failure rates of 14.3 percent for BlackBerries and 21.0 percent for Treos.

Of course, the sample size producing these numbers is a tiny fraction of the millions of smartphones on the market and may or may not be a truly accurate picture of the actual failure rates of the three kinds of phone.

Interestingly, the study found neither battery life nor call quality problems to be major issues for the iPhones that did fail. As was true with all three models in the study, the predominance of failure-related issues had to do with the touchscreen interface.

One area where iPhone does appear to lag its two main competitors is in failure due to accident: 12 percent of iPhone failures happen because the owner drops it, spills liquid on it, or otherwise stops treating it like the sensitive mobile computing device it is.

Via MobileCrunch

Given AT&T’s craze for the WiFi it shouldn’t come as surprise that it has acquired Wayport another WiFi operator in the U.S. The acquisition comes prized at $275 million increasing AT&T’s network of hotspots to 20,000. The need for such rapid expansion comes primarily due to the advent of WiFi enabled phones like the iPhone, Android invading the cellular market. The number for such mobile devices may cross over one billion in the next five years as more manufacturers pull out more phones with internet capabilities.

[via MobileCrunch]

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Skyfire’s list of features include a Super Bar, their own version of the standard address bar (taking the idea from Opera and Chrome), a content sharing way through SMS. Skyfire’s browser also supports Silverlight, Quicktime, and Windows Media; enough to leave an impression. The current browser version is available for Windows Mobile only, and will shortly be available for others as well.

[via: MobileCrunch]

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The application, allows you to link your iPhone to any iTunes library or AppleTV setup.

The update also adds the ability to remotely create Genius playlists on any Mac or PC running iTunes 8.

After the application update the users with remote speakers will see that the interface for managing speakers has been moved to the “Now Playing” screen after tapping on the album artwork.

The new application and its update is a free download from the iTunes App Store.

Refernces:
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2008/09/16/iphone-remote-app-gets-genius-and
-playlist-editing-support/

You have until August 30th the signup at www.skyfire.com/sign-up and you need to enter Michael8 in the Beta Code field.  The code is of course a reference to Michael Phelps' eight Olympic medals.  Skyfire supports Flash and Silverlight so you can actually watch the live Olympics videos on NBCOlympics.com with it.

I wonder if Skyfire really means open to "all" or only to US residents.  Up to now the Skyfire Beta has required a US mobile number to complete the registration process.  Anyone tried this from outside the US?

AddictingGames, a popular Flash game portal, has announced plans to hold a large-scale awards show pertaining to casual games. The show will take place in 2009, with a series of voting rounds conducted on the site that will allow AddictingGames’ users to decide the final outcome (though judges will have some say).

The show will be open to any casual game on the web, but the results will likely be heavily skewed towards games on AddictingGames, since that’s where voting will actually take place. Few details have been released, but the Nickelodeon-owned site promises content spread on websites and television programs across “the entire Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group”.

While the execution is flawed (the voting will be totally biased), developers could use an incentive to create casual games that are more involved than the mind numbing junk games that litter countless sites and development platforms across the web. Alongside a compensation program that AddictingGames will be rolling out for its most popular developers, this could at least help gamers pick out the best of the crop.

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Xobni, the Y Combinator email startup that turned down an acquisition offer from Microsoft earlier this year, has just lost its VP Engineering and first employee, Gabor Cselle. Cselle joined the company in March 2007, sporting a seemingly perfect resume that included work on the Gmail team and a Master’s thesis on “Organizing Email”.

The departure may not be abrupt (Cselle won’t be leaving until the end of August), but it is unexpected, and frankly, doesn’t make much sense. Since launching at TechCrunch40, Xobni has shown impressive growth and received widespread acclaim - Bill Gates demoed the service at the Office Development Conference earlier this year.

CEO Jeff Bonforte (who joined the company only five months ago) says that Cselle simply decided that he was no longer happy at Xobni, and wanted to try building his own startup. Bonforte says that Cselle likely wants his own shot at glory, and because of Xobni’s quick rise to success, members of the team may believe that launching a startup is far easier than it really is.

Cselle’s blog post on his depature seems to confirm this, at least in part:

“Ever since reading a biography of Bill Gates when I was 14 years old, I’ve wanted to be a founder of a company that makes a difference. I’ve wanted to build a workplace where people can be creative, productive, and happy, and a product that delights users and improves their lives. I feel like the time is now.”

Cselle may be itching to try his own luck, but Bonforte’s explanation still doesn’t sit well with us. Microsoft just threw $20 million at the company, which it turned down, likely in hopes of a better offer somewhere down the road. Why wouldn’t Cselle wait for his payday and then jump ship to start his own company?

We’ve heard that Cselle has been unhappy at the company for months, but we haven’t been able to reach him for any further details (we’ll update the post as soon as we do). In his blog post, he says that after leaving Xobni in August, he’s going to travel the world, raising money along the way for a new email startup.

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