Before set-top boxes and smart TVs made watching streaming media an everyday occurrence, Sling Media had its Slingbox streaming your home TV anywhere in the world. It’s still making cable and DVR content available anywhere with two updated products and a new set of features to make those finding shows easier.
The Sling M1 and SlingTV replace the Slingbox 350 and Slingbox 500, respectively. The new M1 also is Sling’s cheapest TV-anywhere devicee to date at $149.99. The SlingTV shares the same unconventional styling of its predecessor with a swooping top that’s definitely not made for stacking.
The Sling M1 is meant to be an entry-level device with a desktop app that makes set up a 10 minute affair. It includes dual-band Wi-Fi and an Ethernet port and connects to your cable box or DVR via component or composite.
The SlingTV is the more robust of the two with a price of $299.99 to match its superiority over the M1. The SlingTV, as its name suggests, is meant to be connected to the TV and act as a set-top box. The Sling TV includes a new on-screen menu system meant to facilitate discovery and can filter content via genre and if a show is live or recorded. It includes Rotten Tomato ratings for all movies and, for sports fans, can display the score of a game without having to switch channels to said sporting event.
Plus both boxes will share all that content from your home cable box or DVR with you anywhere in the world via the Sling mobile apps or online without fees. So that’s nice when you’re on vacation in another country and for some reason they don’t broadcast True Blood and you need your vampire fix. The Sling M1 will be available July 20 and the SlingTV will ship in August. The SlingTV software will be available on Sling 500 boxes for free.
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, Gree and Ubisoft sign-up to bring their games to GamePop
GamePop, the ‘Netflix for games’ service from Bluestacks that brings mobile games to your TV, has announced today that Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment, Gree and Ubisoft will all make titles available for the platform.
Among the confirmed games that’ll be making their way across are Nutty Fluffies Rollercoaster and Motoheroz from Ubisoft, and Lego Speedorz and Man of Steel from Warner Bros. Gree’s titles are yet to be confirmed.
Where rival Ouya is looking to diversify its business model to incorporate a range of different devices, GamePop is currently focused on providing its service on its console and TV-connected devices (“the Gamepop service is compatible with any Android or Linux-based Smart TV or cable box,” the company says). A spokesperson told us that the GamePop console will be available late in Q2 this year. It’s seemingly already a little late – it was expected before the end of 2013 .
➤ GamePop
Featured Image Credit – Thinkstock
Xbox One voice messaging is coming this April
Xbox One users will soon be able to send voice messages to each other. The new feature will arrive with an update for the console coming in April.
In addition to sending private voice messages, you’ll also be able to chat in groups — thanks to dedicated servers meant to handle the extra data load.
Voice messaging has been available on the Xbox 360 since it launched in 2006, but the feature didn’t carry over to the Xbox One when it launched in 2013. With the update, users of both consoles will be able to record and send messages to each other.
It also adds richer achievement notifications and a more personalized view in the dashboard’s ‘What’s On’ section.
The April update doesn’t yet have an exact release date, but our powerful sense of intuition tells us it’s probably coming sometime next month.
➤ Xbox One April System Update: Voice Messages, Party Chat Updates and More Now in Preview [Major Nelson via The Verge ]