Gizmodo: me too

Sony Ericsson Upgrading PlayNow to Real Live Music Store With 5 Million Tracks From the Big Four

Matt Buchanan — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 03:45:57 EST

In addition to the trio of new handsets they intro'd today, Sony Ericsson also announced plans for an upgraded PlayNow music service. Launching this spring, it could feature up to 5 million tracks in "MP3 and Windows Media digital rights management, or DRM-enabled formats" from all of the Big Four, though no track price has been relayed. On the upside (or downside, if you spend compulsively), you can have your tab tacked onto your cellphone bill. Interestingly, SE's planning to cut service providers in on revenues from OTA downloads. Sounds like it's off to a better start than Nokia's competing venture at any rate. [WSJ]

Samsung's YouTube Phone Invading Europe Later This Month

Matt Buchanan — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:45:07 EDT

Korean handset makers are all about YouTube on your cellphone it seems: Samsung is following up LG's announcement of an upcoming YouTube-optimized phone with their own YouTube wunderkind, the SGH-L760. Difference? Samsung's drops in Europe this month.

Like LG's months-out phone, this 3G slider lets you directly upload and share clips recorded with the 2MP camera to YouTube, uBlog or Buzznet—perfect for making your 15-second mark on the intertubes. Other features include an FM radio, MP3 player, web browser, RSS reader (insert Safari/iPhone comparison here) and a microSD card slot.

Mobile YouTube's definitely a trend at this point, and very possibly on its way to higher-end phone standard featuredom. Those of you with YouTube already in your pocket, what's your take so far? [I4U News]

Philips Reveals Copycat Apple TV Clone?

Charlie White — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 08:38:54 EDT

Philips has reportedly put together an answer to the Apple TV, and just about all we have so far are these pictures snagged at Computex 2007 in Taiwan showing a nondescript brushed aluminum box that looks like a cross between the Apple TV and a piggy bank with a coin slot up front.

Just like Apple TV, it streams audio and video from a network drive, but this one does it wirelessly, and unfortunately we're hearing its hard drive is a meager 40GB. Take a look at the ass-end of this sucker after the jump.

Hey, look at that, there's an HDMI port, and optical digital audio output, too.

Philips wasn't showing the interface of this upcoming Apple TV clone yet, nor was it revealing much more, but with that relatively puny 40GB hard drive, it's certainly not HDTV-friendly yet, and already has some catching up to do.

Also, there's something fishy about this picture: notice where the logo would normally be, it looks like the Photoshop clone tool may have been used. Hmm. As soon as we find out more about this intriguing mystery, you'll be the first to know. – Charlie White

Computex 2007: Philips Takes on AppleTV [Trusted Reviews]

GM to Build Plug-In Hybrid?

Charlie White — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:20:08 EDT

As we keep you posted on the latest developments in hybrid vehicles, we can't help but notice that General Motors has been lagging behind, and has even discontinued building promising cars that run on anything but internal combustion engines. But now, our greasemonkey brothers at Jalopnik tip us off about how the me-too suits at GM might be thinking about building a plug-in hybrid, according to "someone familiar with the company's plans."

Such a plug-in car would give drivers a choice of running on electricity only, or also having an internal combustion engine to kick in when the batteries run out. We're thinking the timing is pretty fortunate that such a story would leak out, what with the GM- and big-oil-critical documentary just about to be released, Who Killed the Electric Car. – Charlie White

GM Planning Plug-In Hybrid? [Jalopnik]