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Is your local Redbox hiding a touch of Blu?
If you're like some of us, and Redbox's Blu-ray availability search came up empty even after the company announced it's expanding high definition rentals to all locations, it may be time to look again. At several locations in Michigan, and also experienced by our friends at HighDefDiscNews, even though the official search page still says there's no BluBoxes to be found, checking the Blu-ray category of local Redbox kiosks online (as seen above) reveals they've already added a few movies as recently as this week. It's like the state motto says "If you seek $1.50 Blu-ray rentals, look about you," or something like that.
Rumor: PlayStation Move demo kiosks coming in September
Haven't had a chance to get your hands on the PlayStation Move during one of its appearances at industry trade shows? According to a report from Destructoid, you'll get your chance to try out the peripheral before its September 19 launch date, as anonymous sources claim Sony is hiring tons of representatives to work demo kiosks which will start appearing in Best Buys and Walmarts across the country starting September 11. According to the report, the units should stay in stores until late January 2011, giving you plenty of time to determine whether or not the Move is worth your hard-earned cash -- or plenty of time to hard-earn said cash, if you decide to apply to become one of Sony's Move representatives. We've contacted Sony to get a comment on all of these reports.
Redbox rolling out $1.50 Blu-ray rentals at 13,000-plus kiosks, nationwide by fall
It's really no surprise that Redbox is going nationwide with its $1.50 Blu-ray rentals, at every step along the way of its Hollywood dealmaking, the company has pointed out its aim towards procuring a supply of high definition movies, and now the day is finally here. The high definition disc packing kiosks currently number 13,300, and the plan is to have Blu-ray in all 26,000 locations by the fall. While we spotted plenty of Blu-ray enabled locations with a San Francisco zip code, other areas in the Midwest and East Coast weren't so lucky. The site points out a few of the movies on offer, including Green Zone, Book of Eli and Bounty Hunter, but there's no way to check which movies are in stock at each box. Of course, at this price, we might be willing to take our chances until Redbox gets things straightened out, or starts offering an online competitor to Netflix.
Redbox updates site for Blu-ray search, most kiosks still not updated for Blu-ray find
The good news is now there's a dedicated page on the Redbox website for finding kiosks stocked with $1.50/night rental Blu-ray discs, but the bad news is... we can't find one anywhere near our zip code. Apparently if we did live on such hallowed ground, it would even point out recent Blu-ray movies added to the kiosks making the decision to watch Matt Damon in The Green Zone tonight as easy as possible. Hit the source link to begin your own search for high definition movies, hopefully it turns out better than ours so far.
Malaysia Airlines now offers iPad check-in (video)
It's getting easier and easier to enjoy in-flight entertainment on Apple's briskly moving tablet, but why wait till you get to the gate to dive in? If you're flying out of Kuala Lumpur, you can play with that 9.7-inch IPS touchscreen while you daydream of that time that watched Entrapment with your soulmate, book your flight, find departure times and even check in at dedicated kiosks. Adapting its iPhone application MHMobile for iPad use, Malaysia Airlines has installed five terminals at Kuala Lumpur Sentral so far -- where the company presently serves just 900 customers a day. See the interface in action after the break, or just download the existing app at our more coverage link if you're in search of that elusive globetrotter feeling.
Redbox CEO suggests $1.50 rate for Blu-ray rentals
Along with the repeated indications Redbox would expand its Blu-ray rentals this year, there's been hints that it would have to raise prices beyond its standard $1 / night DVD rate. Home Media Magazine reports President Mitch Lowe mentioned during his keynote address at the Entertainment Supply Chain Academy Edge conference that the likely price is $1.50, which seems low enough to keep customers happy and -- judging by the recent slew of deals -- will apparently keep Hollywood studios happy also. to that end, his speech also cited NPD data indicating customers said they wouldn't rent or purchase many of the movies they obtain at the kiosks any other way, while 41% of customers rent before making a decision to buy. Also on deck for Redbox are sales of catalog titles for $5 / $7 / $9 -- so let us know, would you appreciate the option to buy, not just rent, from your nearest vending machine?
iBracket turns your iPad into an iKiosk
Gravity Switch has been designing and developing touch-screen kiosks, websites and custom applications for 14 years, so it's not a surprise that their attention would move to the iPad. Apple's newest device is perfect for touchscreen kiosk applications, as well as much less expensive than most traditional kiosk setups. The aluminum iBracket (US$349, $399 for the gallery version) features a beautiful anodized aluminum finish in one of 14 colors, and can be hung either vertically or horizontally. The gallery version of the iBracket (seen above) has 4 built-in speakers, so it's easy to have the iPad play music or a narration through the iPod app while displaying a custom application or photos. You simply slide an iPad into the iBracket, connect the speakers and power, and then mount it on the wall. The iBracket has a locking mounting bracket, so there's no fear of someone walking off with your iPad and the bracket. Gravity Switch is currently taking orders for the iBracket, and you can also inquire about custom finishes if one of the existing colors just doesn't trip your trigger. As Jason Mark of Gravity Switch mentioned, the iPad is truly a "game-changer" in the touchscreen kiosk world, and with the iBracket, we're sure to see a lot more iPad-based kiosks popping up everywhere.
Cynergy's magazine kiosk concept serves up digital content a la carte (video)
Not that we've never seen Surface-like touch tables interacting with mobile devices before, but now that the whole thing is being repackaged as "the magazine stand of the future" and those trendy tablets are involved, we might as well have a look. Cynergy is demonstrating a seamless method for purchasing digital content from one of these kiosks using your e-reader or tablet pc. It's just a matter of plopping your device -- which already knows your identity and available credit -- atop the display table and then flicking the particular magazine or newspaper you want onto your storage. It looks effortless and all, but it also requires that you have the "custom designed and built" software from Cynergy, which you'll have to pump funds into in order to get the seamlessness going. We don't know how we feel about yet another proprietary ecosystem floating about, but you can make your own mind up after watching the video after the break.
Redbox to delay renting Warner movies in return for lower costs and access to Blu-ray
As we figured they would, Warner Bros. and Redbox have come to an agreement that will see the movie house supply DVDs and Blu-ray discs straight to the kiosk renter, after a 28 day delay, as well as a promise to destroy the copies after they are taken out of rental circulation. Much like Warner's deal with Netflix, it sees the delay as a way to protect its high margin sales and pricier VOD rentals, then provide the equivalent of a dollar movie theater down the road as flicks hit budget renters. On Redbox's end, it's looking forward to reduced costs for movies and access to Blu-ray titles in return for dropping its lawsuit, and has a deal in place with yet another content provider. No word on any expansion of Blu-ray availability in kiosks, but the new deal kicks off with The Blind Side in March, can you wait that long to save a few bucks?
Hong Kong International Airport gets PS3 kiosks
[Image: Flickr user charchlam] While we Americans are forced to spend our layovers trying not to get chosen for random cavity searches, folks who end up with some free time at Hong Kong International Airport are given a much more pleasant distraction. According to travel news site The Moodie Report, HKIA now plays host to more than a dozen PS3 "game poles," which give visitors a chance to check out a number of the platform's biggest titles, like Final Fantasy XIII and Uncharted 2. Sounds like a pretty neat idea -- we're just glad Modern Warfare 2 isn't one of the featured games. That'd be ... uncomfortable. [Via Kotaku]
Game vending machines 'pop' up in UK
POP247 kiosks are popping up at 150 locations around the UK, particularly in locations of heavy human traffic. The dispensaries, which apparently exist in the US too, can hold up to 400 units of games, DVDs and Blu-ray movies. The boxes are a collaboration between Sony Pictures and Universal Studios. The kiosks will soon provide downloadable games and movies, as well, transferable to Sony memory sticks. This is a feature that should prove convenient for travelers on the go -- especially the PSP Go.
Blockbuster, Redbox adding rental kiosks at ridiculous speed
The DVD rental kiosk war continues to heat up, with NCR acquiring competitor DVDPlay to add around 1,300 kiosks under its Blockbuster Express umbrella, while Coinstar joyfully announced its surpassed expectations with the rollout of Redbox, now numbering 22,210 installations. For the last six months its maintained a pace of more than one kiosk every hour, 24/7. Is there anywhere you'd like to see one of these automated dispensaries that doesn't have one yet? Odds are there will be three new ones by the time you finish reading this post.
Redbox testing out movie distribution without discs, boxes, red
Downloads and streaming may not be ready to overtake discs yet, but it's become standard practice for anyone in the business of delivering round platters to peek into online options and Redbox is the latest one. Word from VideoBusiness is the company has a trial program going with everyone's favorite partner CinemaNow where customers prepay for rental packages and get a gift card that can be redeemed for the online movies. At a $1 a day, we don't think Redbox is close to being overtaken by the online space, but obviously it is trying to figure out where to go next with its business, and a hybrid deal for movies we don't have to get off the couch -- or put pants on -- to watch is as good of a plan as any.
Blockbuster kiosks to offer movies on SD cards, you some candy as you checkout
Blockbuster's been trying all sorts of, um, innovative things to get more foot traffic in its stores, but thanks to a dastardly invention known only as "Netflix," that very task has proven exceptionally difficult. Now, it seems the flagging movie rental company is giving one more far-flung idea a whirl: movies on SD cards. Around six Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stores will soon begin offering titles on SD cards, though the included DRM only allows customers 30 days from the purchase date to view it, and once it's fired up, you've just 48 hours before it vanishes completely. Each rental will cost $1.99, and while we definitely see the benefit of renting something that you don't have to return, we're still skeptical that folks will be more willing to make even one trek for a card when Netflix brings it all to one's mailbox (and PC, etc.) for just $8.99 per month.
Blockbuster DVD kiosks creeping into New England supermarkets
Look out Redbox, Blockbuster is coming. The rental giant is expanding its test program with NCR, planning to deploy kiosks in all 57 Big Y locations in Massachussetts and Connecticut by September 3, with a familiar $1 per night pricing scheme. No word on any Blu-ray discs being tucked into these automated movie towers, and while 57 locations is hardly on the level of Redbox's thousands of self service locations, we wonder if this is just the beginning of a push to the "10,000 kiosks installed within 18 months" goal stated by NCR CEO Bill Nuti a year ago, but we suppose we'll know they're big time when the movie studios start suing.
WWDC Demo: Videro, a digital signage tool for Macs
Videro is one of those silent-but-cool application suites you've probably never heard of, but you may see it being used every day. I met some of the Videro team at WWDC, and they were happy to demo a little of what the tools do: electronic signage and interactive kiosks. If you happen to need an animated in-store (or museum) display, fed from a server, easy to set up and deploy, complete with iPhone access to check on the servers (so they say), then Videro is an impressive tool. To start, Videro has a composition tool that allows you to drag and drop your animations, complete with images, video and audio. In fact, Videro has extensive in-app tools for cropping, rotating and otherwise "fixing" your assets for display. But wait, there's more! This isn't just Keynote all gussied up. Videro is designed for business, and a server application makes sure mission-critical displays are functioning properly. There's solid asset management support both in the client and the server applications, making sure your displays never fire off with a dreaded "black box of nothing" where a product shot should be.Videro mentioned an iPhone app in the video but I have been unable to locate it in the store and a search on their website revealed nothing. Still, it wouldn't be terribly difficult to provide some baseline stats via password-protected web app. We weren't able to get Wi-Fi at our location, so some features weren't visible and this might have been one of them.Unfortunately Videro's site mentions nothing about price. In my experience that means we're talking about an expensive solution, and likely a custom one for the high-end customers. If you're looking for something simpler, don't miss Dave's excellent post about using Keynote and Dropbox to create an updating and easy presentation solution that would work in a pinch.
Mac mini and Dropbox: Getting it done
Yesterday I wrote about my love of the Mac mini. So dependable and unobtrusive, it's the Honda Civic of computers. In the post, I briefly described how we use Dropbox to send routinely-updated Keynote files to the mini. A few of you wrote to ask for details, so I decided to share that information here on the blog. We use two pieces of software: Dropbox and iCal.DropboxHere's the setup. First, the Mac mini is connected to the projector in the Projection Room above the theater via DVI. Every day, it runs a slideshow before the orientation film. That slideshow contains sponsorship information, museum news, etc. It's updated once a week or so by someone in the art department (we'll call her "Janie"). Janie's desk is a couple hundred yards and two buildings away from the Projection Room. The Keynote file lives in a Dropbox folder that both Janie's PC and the mini can access. Of course, we don't want Janie editing the slideshow while it's running before a room full of guests. That's where iCal comes in.iCalWe stop showing the film at 4:00 PM and Janie arrives for the day at 9:00 AM, so we set up two repeating iCal events. The first event launches the slideshow in the morning. Every weekday at 8:45 AM (doors open at 9:00), there's a repeating iCal event with an alarm set to open the slideshow where it lives in Dropbox. Note that the show has been set to run at launch and loop indefinitely in Keynote.What about updating? Easy. We stop running the slideshow at 4:00 PM and Janie leaves for the day at 5:00 PM. A second repeating iCal event has an alarm that runs the following super-simple Applescript:Tell application "Keynote"quitEnd tellThe script does just what you expect -- it kills Keynote. This runs at 4:05 PM each weekday, and frees Janie to spend 10 or 15 minutes updating the file from her PC just before she goes home. The next morning, the first iCal event re-launches the slideshow and the cycle repeats.That's how two free pieces of software (iCal and Dropbox) combine with an inexpensive, consumer level one to create a simple and effective solution to a problem. Best of all, it doesn't require a computer science degree or even a week with a giant manual. The iCal events and script are invisible to Janie. All she knows is, "I open the folder on my PC, change the slideshow, hit Save and I'm done." Sure, we could have dumped it on a central server, set up some sort of FTP voodoo that would have given Janie a headache, etc. But why? If the simple solution works, use it.If you try something similar, let me know how it goes. Thanks to everyone who asked about this.
A look at Best Buy's new trade-in kiosk
After learning that Best Buy was testing new game trade-in kiosks in some areas of Texas, we visited our local location to find that one of the new stations had just been set up right by the front door. In fact, a nearby employee informed us that we were the first to use it. Shortly after we experimented with it, we watched a group of Best Buy employees gather around the kiosk in quiet awe.As it turns out, the kiosks aren't just for trading in games for store credit -- you can buy, trade, or even rent used games or movies from the device. The one we looked at had a tiny selection of both games and movies available (less than fifty total offerings), but that's most likely because of the early stage of the program. We snapped some pictures of the kiosk while we were trying it out. Head into our gallery if you ever wanted to see what a game case deposit slot or a disc dispenser looks like.%Gallery-66916%
Apple ponders kiosk-style movie and music downloads
This is not the first time we've heard talk of an Apple media download kiosk, nor does it seem any more plausible this time around, but who knows? According to patent docs dredged up by Apple Insider and dating back to the halcyon days of late 2007, the company has certainly put some thought into this, detailing a wireless iTunes station that would allow users to access the iTunes store on the go, using a "virtual physical connection" to the player. As for the kiosk, it would both access media stored locally (perennial faves and new releases) and the rest of the iTunes store over its Internet connection, with users ponying up by either providing their iTunes account credentials or by credit card. Not a bad idea, eh? Well, we won't hold our breath. One more pic for you after the jump, jump, jump...[Via Apple Insider]
HP TouchSmart airport kiosk hands-on
HP has hooked up with the City of Chicago to install a whole bunch of TouchSmart 2-powered kiosks for a period of six months, offering weary travelers an all-too-brief respite from their normal routine as they wander through O'Hare International Airport's many nooks and crannies. In terms of functionality, we're not talking about much action here -- don't expect to plop down and catch up on email or video call the fam on Skype -- but users can head over to the city's tourism website, watch a video about the TouchSmart's capabilities, and browse a whole bunch of sweet (and huge) images of the city courtesy of GigaPan. The high-megapixel imagery suits the system's multitouch capabilities to a T, but needless to say, the high-gloss display doesn't get along too well with Terminal 1's harsh lighting; check out the video after the break to see what we mean.
