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Can I Stream It makes movie night simpler
The way we watch movies and television is evolving, as more people adopt on-demand video. But still, the old question remains: "What's on that's worth watching?" The free web service Can I Stream It can help provide an answer. It lets you search for your favorite shows and movies to see if they are available on popular streaming, rental and digital purchase services. Can I Stream It will notify you when a currently unavailable program or film later becomes available on your selected services. Can I Stream It is available for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and as a Chrome extension. Just today, I was poking around and discovered Snatch, one of my favorite Guy Ritchie flims, available on YouTube for free. Being so used to watching streaming content via Netflix and Hulu Plus, I had forgotten YouTube streams many full-length movies because of large content providers like Crackle. The next time you find yourself in the mood for some Aaron Sorkin, Charlie Kaufman or Ernest P. Worrell, Can I Stream It can whisk you away into the cinematic worlds of The Newsroom, Synecdoche, New York or Kamp Kikakee.
Rara.com: a new music service for the techno techno technophobe (video)
Music lovin' grampas here and in Europe will be doing The Charleston when they hear about Rara.com, a cloud-based music service with them in mind, which launched today. Powered by Omnifone, the same whitelabel service behind Sony's Music Unlimited, Rara hopes to appeal to the 70 percent of people its research shows "do not 'do' digital music." There's access to the same ten-million-strong music library as other services, and pricing starts at a frugal 99c/p for the first three months (rising to 4.99 from there on in) for the web-only option. Those with a little more tech-smarts can use an Android service too, which launches at 1.99 (going to 9.99) with the web-service bundled in. Those directly north and south of the border can look forward to access later this week, with Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore lighting up before Christmas. An iOS app will complete the set soon. Tap the PR after the break for more.
Apple allows Google to use Lala
We're not sure how Apple plans to utilize its recent acquisition of Lala, but BusinessWeek reports today that Apple does plan to let Google keep utilizing the service. Google unveiled its own music search service in late October, which is backed by Lala. "We have enjoyed a good relationship with Apple for many years, and that continues to be the case," R.J. Pittman, Google director of product management, told BusinessWeek. "We are agreeing to continue to leave the service as it is." An Apple spokesman declined to comment to BusinessWeek regarding the issue. There is already speculation that Apple's Lala purchase could lead to a web-streaming model for iTunes, which would directly compete with Google's service.
Find My iPhone: If only I could find myself so easily ...
Mel gave you the instructions for how to set it up... but dear reader, we're going to go in-depth into the features of using MobileMe's Find My iPhone to see how well it works in locating and securing your phone from a remote location -- including performing a voluntary wipe. Locating where your phone is via map When you bring up the Find My iPhone page in MobileMe, the first thing you will see is a map giving the approximate location of your phone. As indicated above, my phone is somewhere inside of my apartment. Because the map is powered by Google, you can toggle it among plain map, satellite, and hybrid views of the location. However, the feature won't give off an exact address. So, if you happened to leave your phone inside of a shopping center complex, you'll still have to visit each store to track down the phone. Read on for more into Find My iPhone's features ...
TimeXchange offers a time-tracking API
TimeXchange is a relatively new addition to the pile of available online time-tracking applications. Its current incarnation on the web is pretty standard, covering bases like multiple time entry, report and invoice creation, and Quickbooks integration. The developers have been fielding a lot of feature requests ... more than they have the capacity to handle. Their solution: an API, announced today, which will allow third-party developers to create applications, mashups and integrations with other tools. A version of TimeXchange is already available for the iPhone, in both a $2.99US version and a free Lite version (iTunes links). The mobile applications make use of a private API, and demonstrate only a tiny bit of what could be accomplished with the new API. The "hooks" in the API are to be exposed as needed to developers, and custom hooks can be created to meet developers' needs. Beyond task management and mobile time/expense tracking, the API provides the opportunity for industry-specific applications, language localization, multiple currencies, and corporate branding. With no license restrictions, developers can customize an application with TimeXchange as its engine and keep 100% of the profits made on distribution. The idea of opening an API to third-party development is not a novel one. Harvest (my current time-tracking app) and some others already provide access to an API. Tickspot, which also provides an API, has just released an iPhone app (iTunes link) as well. It's an excellent trend, and things such as desktop widgets, Basecamp integration and mashups allowing time tracking through Twitter and IM have become possible. By providing custom-built API's to developers, TimeXchange hopes to be able to meet any need which might come up. TimeXchange provides an aggressive pricing scheme and a unique model. For a one-time fee of $19.95US, you get a lifetime membership. There are monthly and yearly payment plans, but a one-time fee is a pretty sweet deal. The major difference in models is that TimeXchange uses a peer-to-peer mentality, rather than a company setup. Every user has an account, and users can invite other users to join a project. It might not be a great model for larger companies, but for a freelancer, contractor or small company, this can be an ideal situation, given that the members of the team change frequently from project to project. Today's API news will hopefully spark some creative development on the Mac, iPhone and web to take advantage of the engine. Interested developers can visit the affiliate page for more information. To check out the service itself, just visit TimeXchange.net.
Get Yahoo Maps directions on your iPod
File this under "do it before they get a cease-and-desist" letter. iPod Directions is using the Yahoo Maps API and some clever coding to make it super easy for you to grab directions (and maps!) and put those in your iPod. Or is it on your iPod? Either way, this is a lot quicker than the way I've been doing it, which involves something known as "pen and paper" attaching the directions directly to my iPod with a "rubber band." That puts them on my iPod. Anyway, all you have to do is put in the start and finish address, and you get a nifty little ZIP file. Open it and put the contents in your iTunes Photos folder, sync, and away you go. Nifty.
