04/16, 7:50am
Roku media hub arrives with slight premium
Roku on Monday kicked off its Canadian launch. The country will get two higher-end models in the lineup, the Roku 2 XD and Roku 2 XS, both of which can handle 1080p video; the XS bundles in the Wii-like motion remote and includes both Ethernet and USB for wired access and local content. Canadians get much of the same content, including Netflix, Rdio music, and major sports like the MLB and NHL, although US-specific services like Hulu Plus are out of contention.
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03/20, 3:00am
Sonos Controller 3.7 hands-on
Sonos lived up to its word early Tuesday and released its revamped edition of the Controller for Macs and Windows PCs. The 3.7 update is its first major rework in some time and brings some parts of the mobile apps over to the desktop. We've had an opportunity to try it in advance with some quick impressions.
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02/27, 12:05pm
Sync coming to Europe in Ford B-Max first
Ford at MWC revealed it will debut its Sync in-car infotainment system in Europe on the upcoming B-Max minivan. The service will be available in nine languages, including UK English, EU French, EU Spanish, EU Portuguese, German, Italian, Turkish, Dutch, and Russian. At the same time, the carmaker introduced Sync AppLink globally, the system meant to allow drivers to operate their handsets using their voice.
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02/10, 7:40am
Roku branches out to UK in earnest
Roku's international plans became real Friday after it began UK and Ireland. The Roku LT and Roku 2 XS are now available for £50 and £100 respectively (60 and 120 euros). British customers are simultaneously getting BBC iPlayer to catch up on the past one to two weeks of TV shows.
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01/12, 7:40pm
Ford Sync updates get our teardown
Ford brought out a slew of updates to its Sync system in time for CES, and we've had the opportunity to try them all in time for CES. Sync Destinations has been given an update that now lets drivers send directions directly to the phone rather than just talking to Ford's cloud services. We saw it in action, and it's a very straightforward process that uses your device's Sync Destinations app as a form of direction store: a Bluetooth (Android or BlackBerry) or USB (these plus iOS) link uploads the files, and the phone can get directions pushed to it from Google Maps on the web.
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01/04, 11:05pm
Feature initially limited to Android
TuneIn has updated its mobile app for Android devices, adding a "car mode" that enables users to access some features without using touch input. The company has integrated a voice recognition engine that listens to commands referencing specific bands or radio stations.
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