lifestream
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Looxcie outs iOS-compatible lifecasting camera, early adopters get the boot
Thinking of grabbing Looxcie's remarkable Bluetooth-based Borg-cam as a $200 stocking stuffer this year? Hold on a twirl, and make sure you're paying for the one that actually plays nice with your mark's favorite smartphone. You see, the company had to make a hardware modification this week to the original Looxcie to make it compatible with iOS devices, and while that's complete now, you'll want to buy the new Looxcie LX1 if your giftee owns an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. Otherwise, you'll be buying a device that's Android-exclusive for the very same price. Got an Android phone to begin with? We expect the seething anger of Looxcie early adopters will soon afford you some deep discounts on the now-inferior original. PR after the break.
Revised AIM app for iPhone hooks into new Lifestream service
There's a first time for everything: while the updated premium version of AOL Instant Messenger for the iPhone [iTunes link] was scheduled to arrive later this month, CNET reported that it actually went through the approval process early (no!) and as such it represents the first of the AIM clients to support the new AIM Lifestream multi-service status update capability. If you check out the landing page for the service at lifestream.aim.com, you'll be able to update and monitor your posts and pictures on Delicious, Digg, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter alongside your AIM status (and with your AIM buddies in the mix). The Mac and Windows clients for the service are expected on 9/22; it's not known yet when the Lifestream goodness will make its way to the free & ad-supported AIM client for iPhone. Although you can certainly handle multiple social services from several Mac apps (EventBox, Tweetdeck, MoodBlast), and the iPhone has multi-chat tools like Nimbuzz and Beejive, having the flow of statuses pouring in for AIM users will up the ante considerably. We'll keep an eye out for the official Lifestream launch next week. Forgot to mention: Can we please, please have an AIM client for iPhone that supports group chat? If we're going to pony up $2.99 for the premium AOL client or even more for Beejive, it should have this bit of functionality, don't you think? [via DLS] Note: AOL is the parent company of Weblogs, Inc. and TUAW.
Juhu for Jaiku: A Mac OS X client for the other lifestream service
We've definitely caught the Twitter wave here at TUAW (we even have our own account), but it is by no means the only 'what are you doing' or lifestream service on the block. Another big player is Jaiku, which brings a fairly different perspective and set of features to the table. While Twitter focuses primarily on asking 'what are you doing?' and offers straight text input, Jaiku allows you to add RSS feeds from virtually any other blogs, sites or communities you post content, generating a sort of play-by-play for almost everything you're creating on the web. This definitely swings Jaiku over to the lifestream category, and it has a number of other features that will likely appeal to those who are looking for more than a plain text mini-blog, such as 'channels' that allow Jaiku users to all post in one theme-specific area (likening it to a giant chat room), as well as an actual comment system on posts. A major boost for web services like Jaiku (where we also have an account), in my opinion, is great software that can hook into them. While using a browser to interact with these services is fun and all, nothing beats the speed, flexibility and (ideally) extensibility of a well-written desktop client, and Juhu for Jaiku is exactly what I'm talking about. Doing for Jaiku what Twitterrific does for Twitter, Juhu is an app that lives in the menubar, giving you a resizable window for peeking in on what your Jaiku contacts are posting. Posts, RSS links and channel chatter are all available in Juhu's nice, compact UI, as are some of the nice little touches Jaiku offers, such as adding an icon to your posts and specifying your location. All in all, Juhu is a great client for a feature-packed service that's been progressing very nicely. Fortunately, just like Jaiku, Juhu is provided free and is also open source under the MIT license. If you've been looking for a different take on the lifestream service, Juhu makes Jaiku a great option for Mac OS X users.
