Online photo sites such as Flickr are perfect for sharing your pics with your friends wherever they happen to be, but how do you make sure your photos are seen only by the people you want to see them?

The fact is that online photo services are not a perfect solution for everyone.

There are privacy issues, security issues, and cost issues (Flickr’s not free for example. If you need to upload any more than 100MB a month – which is just 10 photos from a 12 megapixel camera in RAW format – you’ll need to start paying $25 a year), not to mention the issue of what happens to all your pics if the whole site suddenly goes down or the company goes out of business.

So what can you do? How can you get the same photo sharing capabilities that Flickr gives you while retaining much more control over your photos?

The answer is to buy the Western Digital My Book Home Network Storage box and create your own Flickr at home using Western Digital’s brand new iPhone and Android apps.

Let’s see how it works.

How to use the WD My Book to share your photos in your home

The WD My Book range is a set of home network storage boxes with huge capacities. The WD My Book World Edition, for example, comes with 1TB of storage space, while the WD My Book Live comes with a whopping 2TB of storage space.

Once you’ve connected the My Book to your network, every machine on that network can access any of the files stored on it.

But don’t worry about copying the files over – the MyBook will automatically back up any file or folder – or even your whole hard drive – that you tell it to. Once backed up, all these files, photos and videos can be viewed by anyone connected to your network, letting you share your media wherever you are in the house (and don’t worry – you can restrict access if you need to!)

How to share your photos across the Web

Of course, sharing photos across your home is all very well, but Flickr lets you share them across the Web as well.

So does the My Book! Using the My Book’s secure remote access feature, you can access your files from anywhere that has an Internet connection, whether you’re at work or on the other side of the world!

How to share your photos on your mobile phone

It gets better, though! Using WD’s new WD Photo Viewer app for iPhone or Android smartphones, you can view all of your pics from your mobile phone. All photos are automatically resized for optimal viewing on your phone, and there’s a smart filtering feature that lets you find exactly the photos you want quickly and easily.

You can even share your pics to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Picasa or email with just a single click, giving you the best of both worlds!

Your own personal Flickr

Western Digital have knocked the ball out the park with the My Drive range. They’ve turned a simple network backup solution into your own personal Flickr, and created a device that not only gives you the peace of mind of securely backing up all your precious memories, it lets you share them with your friends wherever you are in the world.

It really is your own personal Flickr – but with much more control.

Check out the WD My Book and My Book Live now.

But tracking down the best of these Internet Hi-Fis is not easy. Some are simply gimmicks, with sound quality that doesn’t match the promises offered. Others offer no more than a simply USB port.

But some offer much more. Of the five we’ve tracked down, some will let you stream your tunes from your mobile phone as well as your PC; others will let you stream your tunes wirelessly from your iPod or iPhone; and will even act as an extrenal sound card for your PC!

All these Internet Hi-Fis have several things in common, though – they’ll all connect to the Internet, they’ve all got great quality Hi-Fi sound, and they all come with built-in amplifiers, so you don’t need a Hi-Fi to plug them into – they are your Hi-Fi!

so if you’re looking for a hi-Fi that does more than just play tunes, check out these 5 Internet Hi-Fis.

Sony CMTMX750Ni DAB WiFi iPod Micro System

What is it: Possibly the best social Hi-Fi ever invented – at least in terms of features!

What you’ll love: This beast does everything. Stream tunes from your PC over WiFi? Check. Listen to 1,000s of Internet radio stations including SHOUTcast radio – without even switching your PC on? Check. Stream tunes from your DLNA-equipped mobile phone via DLNA? Check! How about iPod dock, USB port, CD player, DAB and DAB+ tuners and 100W amp? Check! It even looks great!

What you won’t like: The sound quality isn’t as good as some of the other systems here, but the features are superb.

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Marantz M-CR603

What is it: The ultimate Hi-fi to free your music, hoovering it up from your PC or the Internet, and pumping it out loudly in perfect audio quality.

What you’ll love: The Marantz’s sheer versatility. You can stream tunes from your PC via (wired) Ethernet, plug in your iPod or MP3 player into its front-facing USB port, listen to your old CDs via its CD player, or just listen to DAB and DAB+ radio. At 60W per channel, it’s also twice as powerful as the Denon. It’ll even work as a sound card for your PC, giving you superior quality sound for your music and your games.

What’s not so good: Wired-only Internet connection, plus it’s not cheap, but its sound is better than most.

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Yamaha MCR-140

What is it: A micro system in many colours with great sound, wireless streaming, and a good price.

What you’ll love: The MCR-140 comes with Yamaha’s high-quality AirWired wireless streaming technology. Plug your iPhone or iPod into the supplied transmitter, and you can stream your tunes from your mobile directly through the MCR-140′s 15W amp.

What you won’t like: Great for bass, but not so good for vocals. Wireless streaming only available for the iPhone/iPod.

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Denon D-M38DAB

What is it: The award-winning Best CD system of 2010.

What you’ll love: The D-M38DAB is a 30W per channel CD system with iPod dock and USB port. It’s not the cheapest hi-fi here, but its sound is beaten only by the UnitiQute – which costs over £1,000 more! So if you want the best sounding Hi-Fi for your iPhone or iPod, this is the one to buy.

What’s not so good: Although you’re fine if you own an iPod or iPhone, there’s no streaming options on the D-M38DAB, making connecitivty to other devices and services limited. Which is a bit of a problem for an Internet Hi-Fi, but there aren’t many good ones around!

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Naim UnitiQute

What is it: it’s a top-end audiophile Hi-Fi from legendary Hi-Fi company Naim.

What you’ll love: The gloriously-named Uniti-Qute can pull music from any source you care to throw at it, including DAB, Internet radio, network streaming from your PC (wired or wireless), an MP3 player via USB, or your iPod or iPhone. You can even control it using an iPhone app. Best of all, though, is the sound. No other machine here will beat it, so if you want the best sound quality you can get, you need to get the UnitiQute.

What’s not so good: The price! It’s £1350 and there’s no CD player, but it did win What Hi-Fi’s Systems Product of the Year.

Summary

It took me surprisingly long to pull this list together. Hi-Fi manufacturers seem reluctant to boast about their Internet Hi-Fis and Hi-Fi review sites seem reluctant to review them! Maybe both are too worried that network-connected Hi-Fis will be too easily dismissed by audiophiles and that they won’t be taken seriously enough.

If so, then the entry of Naim with its stunning UnitiQute should certainly start to change that. Naim is a big name in the audiophile world with superb quality products. The UnitiQute is one of the coolest Hi-Fi products around at the moment, but at £1350, it’s unfortunately a product I can only dream about at the moment!

It achieves this by using an autostereoscopic display, which is similar to the Nintendo 3DS’s display. If you want to watch the 3D video you just captured on something larger than its 2.4″ screen, you can plug it straight into your 3DTV via the built-in HDMI connector.

Sharing 3D video

It gets even better, though. As well as shooting 3D video, you can share it as well, as YouTube now has a 3D video channel, which you can upload your 3DV5′s content to. You’ll need to use glasses to see the resultant 3D if you’re watching via YouTube, though, as your home monitor isn’t autostereoscopic.

The one downside to the 3DV5 – and it’s an issue that although easily solvable, is frankly ridiculous when you first see it – is the onboard storage. The 3DV5 comes with 10MB of onboard RAM. Yes, that’s MB, as in Megabytes, or about half a second of 720p 3D video!! You’ll clearly need to buy an SD card to do anything with the 3DV5, which, given their price these days, is like selling a portable gadget without batteries: very tight!

That aside, though, the 3DV5 looks like an interesting alternative to the Flip Mino and the other pocket camcorders out there. I’m not convinced that 3D’s ready for anyone other than the early adopters at the moment, at least in terms of the super-expensive 3D TVs, but at least with the 3DV5 and YouTube, you have an easy and inexpensive way of dipping your toe into the technology and seeing if it’s for you.

And with 3D video requiring a whole new different way of working to capture the best videos, if you’re a budding film maker, it’s a great way to start experimenting with different creative techniques, as it’s clearly the way all video content is going.

[Source: Engadget]

But does it work as well as the hype suggests it does? Can you really install Android apps from the Android marketplace on your TV, and can you control your TV with your Android phone?

More importantly, will Google TV transform TV as we know it, and is the Logitech Revue worth the $299 it’ll cost when launched?

We decided to find out!

What’s inside the box?

The Logitech Revue comes with a small Set Top Box and a giant controller!

The Revue controller

The controller has a fuill size QWERTY keyboard, trackpad in the top right corner and a plethora of buttons for one-touch access to Google TV’s main features (buttons such as Search, Home, Favourite, and a few navigation buttons as well!).

Because the controller controls all other STBs in your house (see below), there are also buttons to switch them and your TV on and off.

There are also buttons for switching instantly to TV, for calling up your Electronic Programme Guide with one touch, and for going directly to your DVR to see all the programmes you’ve recorded.

Naturally you can also control the usual TV features, such as volume, and also change channel up and down, which is perfect if you’re a channel surfer. There are even dedicated buttons to control your recorded programmes, including fast-forward, rewind, record and pause.

The Revue Set Top Box

The Set Top Box, meanwhile, looks like any other STB – it’s small, sleek and black with a minimal numbre of lights on the front. All the important action takes place round the back.

Here you’ll find the ports that connect the Revue to all of the important things in your home entertainment setup. The Revue comes with the following:

• HDMI in
• 2 USB ports for plugging in external devices, such as the Webcam
• Ethernet port
• HDMI out, for connecting to your TC
• SPDIF, for connecting the Revue to your HiFi’s amp or your AV Receiver

Note that the Revue also has built-in 802.11b/g/n WiFi if you don’t want to use (wired) Ethernet.

How does the Logitech Revue fit into your existing home entertainment system?

The Logitech Revue is itself a Set Top Box. But obviously, it’s not the only STB you’ve got. If you’re like me, you’ll have a STB from your cable or satellite provider (Sky, in my case, with its Sky+ box), or at the very least a Freeview box. You might also have a DVD or BluRay player, and possibly even a home theatre system.

That’s a lot of boxes, each with its own remote control.

And now you want to add another STB?! Just where will it fit, and how will it integrate with all of these other boxes?

Fortunately, Logitech has already figured this out.

The Logitech Revue hooks up to all of your other STBs, BluRay players and Sky+ boxes. The Revue then connects to your HDTV via its HDMI cable. You control all of the STBs, BluRay players, etc. from the Revue’s controller.

All of this is achieved thanks to Logitech’s Harmony technology, which it already uses in its Harmony Universal Remote, and which is integrated into the Revue box. The Revue’s controller communicates witth the Revue box via wireless (so doesn’t need line of sight to work), and the revue box communicates with all of your other STBs and what-nots via infraRed blasters.

In other words, the Revue controller controls the Revue box, which in turn controls every other box in your system. The Revue’s controller, therefore, acts as one universal remote for your entire home entertainment system.

As far as the TV itself is concerned, what you see is a browser (Google’s Chrome, naturally), with the TV signal running through the browser.

This really is impressive stuff!

How the Revue works its magic

The TV signal is fed through the browser. What this means is that the browser is always there, even if you can’t see it. So when you watch TV, you’re effectively watching it through a browser – you just can’t see it. But when you want to watch a video through YouTube, you can instantly see YouTube on screen – there’s no delay, no separate application to launch – it’s as quick and seamless as browsing to a different Web page.

For example, suppose you want to search for Top Gear. Simply click the search button on the keyboard and type in Top Gear in the search box that pops up at the top of the screen. The beauty of Google TV is that it will do a search across all media for the keywords you enter.

So in this example, you get results for Top Gear the TV programme (i.e. when it’s next showing from your TV provider); Top Gear videos on YouTube; Top Gear web pages; Top Gear on the BBC iPlayer; Top Gear results from Wikipedia; and if you had any Top Gear videos stored on your PC, they’d show up too.

Better still is the speed and ease at which you can choose these results. Because everything’s delivered through the browser, if you click on the YouTube link, you’re taken to YouTube instantly. Come out of YouTube and switch back to the TV instantly.

And if you want the best of both worlds, there’s live picture in picture – the TV programme will shrink down to the bottom right corner while you view a Web page about that TV programme. Perfect for watching the Apprentice, or X Factor or any other programme where you shout at the TV screen, while reading Twitter at the same and on the same screen!

Can you install Android Apps on your TV?

If being able to view the entire Web isn’t enough for you – and by the entire Web, I even mean those that require Flash (and full Flash at that, not just Flash Lite) – then the Revue will also let you install and use apps.

Out the box, the Revue comes with the following apps:

• Netflix (TV and movie streaming)
• Pandora (music streaming service)
• Logitech Vid HD (videocalling, when used with Logitech’s Webcam)
• Logitech Media Player (access all your photos, music and video directly from your PC and view/listen to them on your HDTV and home theatre.
• Napster
• Logitec Alert Camera Viewer
• CNBC app (real-time stock quotes, video and business news)
• Twitter

From early next year, apps from the Android market will also work on Google TV on the Revue as well.

Can you control your TV from your Android phone or iPhone?

This is one of the coolest features of the Revue. You can download a free Harmony app for Android or iPhone and control your TV from your phone! Using gestures with your finger on your smartphone’s touchscreen, you can navigate through the menus with a swipe of your finger.

If finger-control isn’t right for you, just talk into the phone, and use your voice to control the TV.

It gets better than that, though. Suppose you find a YouTube video on your phone, and you start watching it, but your phone’s screen is a bit too small. Simply select the video, long touch it, and up will pop a share menu. One of the options will be “Harmony” – click this, and the video you’ve just been trying to watch on your phone’s screen will magically appear on your HDTV!

Can you view content from your PC?

This is another super-cool feature of the Logitech Revue. It uses DLNA to connect to your PC, from where you can view all your media content – photos, videos, music, the works. Better still, because this is Google TV, you can search for the content on your PC using the same search box that you search for other content, and all from your HDTV.

So if you were looking for a smart media streamer or media hub, give the Logitech Revue a try – it does the exact same thing, but with the benefit of Google TV thrown in, which provides a unified search interface across all your media, whether it’s on your PC, the Web, YouTube or the TV.

Video reviews of the Logitech Revue

If you’re not excited by all this, then take a look at these early video reviews of the Revue

So is Google TV going to change the world of TV?

In a word, yes. Not immediately. It’s only the first version, and there are obviously a few kinks that will need to be worked out. The controller, for one. Personally, I love the keyboard idea, and the Mini Keyboard that Logitech also sell is much better for home use. But the controller for Sony’s forthcoming HDTV with Google TV built-in looks ridiculous!

Equally, the integration with TV companies’ programme guides will need to be much tighter to make the whole experience completely seamless.

But all this will come. Just as Android on the phone took a year before it became capable of challenging the iPhone, so Google TV wil lneed a bit of bedding down as well.

But the good news is, Google TV updates itself automatically. Just like Android on your phone, whenever Google releases a new version of it, you don’t need to buy a new STB – your existing one is automatically updated, giving you new features for free!

So within two years at most, I predict Google TV really will be the revolution in TV that Internet TV has promised for so long.

Finally, is the Logitech Revue worth $299?

Yes!

Of course, you’ll need to make this judgment yourself. It’ll obviously come down in price over time, and once other companies release their own versions of Google TV, we’ll get some interesting competition going on. Sony, for example, aren’t just releasing a TV with Google TV built-in, they’re alos releasing a BluRay player with Google TV.

But as the first Google TV STB, the Logitech STB is a fantastic effort. If you want the future of TV now, as well as the coolness of being able to fling videos, pictures and Web pages from your phone to your TV, then go and order the Logitech Revue now!

[Source: IntoMobile, Logitech, Google]

Kymera Magic Wand IR Remote Control (As seen on Dragons’ Den)

The Kymera is a unique blend of Wiimote-style motion controller and Harry Potter wizardry! With the flick of the Kymera magic wand, you can control all your home appliances, inclduing your TV, DVD player and Hi-Fi – in fact, anything with an infra-red remote control.

Deal: £42 (saving: £16.69)

Sonos BU150SP – Two Zones, Controller and Speakers Now Only £709 – Save £150

We’ve loved the Sonos for ages, and rightfully so. With its superb sound reproduction, effortless wireless streaming all across the house, and now the ability to stream Internet radio fro services such as Pandora and Last.FM, it’s the perfect Social Music Gadget.

It’s only downside is its price, but that’s what you have to pay for top quality audio, which the Sonos delivers in spades. Fortunately, with this deal from AdvancedMP3Players, you can start your Sonos collection with a nifty £150 saving for the Sonos Bundle 150.

The Sonos Bundle 150 gives you everything you need to wirelessly play music in two rooms of your house. And with SonosNet’s superior wireless range, no room is out of reach. Just connect the ZonePlayer 90 (ZP90) to your home theater or stereo and place the ZonePlayer 120 (ZP120) with built-in amplifier in any room where you want music. Connect one ZonePlayer or ZoneBridge (sold separately) to your network and all the rest work wirelessly. For the ultimate in convenience, choose the Sonos Bundle 150 with Loudspeakers and you’ll also have a pair of powerful bookshelf speakers to attach to your ZP120.

Deal: £709.00 (Save £150.00)

Sonos CR100 Controller Now Only £229 – Save £50

If you already have a Sonos ZonePlayer, and would like the glorious Sonos Controller for the ultimate in couch potato heaven, there’s a deal on that, too, saving you a cool £50.

Deal: £229.00 (Save £50.00)

Next week will see Sony showing off the first ever HDTV with integrated Google TV, meaning the Web has finally come to the best screen in the house, and TV and web have finally become one.

Which all sounds very nice, but it does leave one important question: just what is Google TV anyway?!

Google TV – Internet TV the way it should be

Internet TV has been a technology waiting for prime-time adoption for years, now, but so far, no-one seems to have been able to implement it in a way that consumers actually want to use. Even Apple tried with Apple TV which achieved as much success as every other Internet TV manufacturer.

So what makes Google TV so different? let’s look look at the highlights.

The Search Bar

The Google TV search bar could well become one of this decade’s iconic images, sitting there like a gateway to a new way of watching TV.

It is what is says on the tin – a search bar – , but when used in the context of TV it becomes something much more interesting.

For example, let’s say you search for Formula 1 – it’ll bring up details of the next race in Japan, plus the details of it sshowing on BBC1, plus any other Formula 1 shows coming up or recorded, as well as We links galore. Plus it’ll bring up any apps you have relating to F1 and also link to video on YouTube.

Alternatively, if you look up a programme series, such as CSI, it’ll link to relevant sites like IMDB and TV.com, where you can find out more details about the programme and its actors.

Apps

It seems everything has apps nowadays – I’m expecting my cooker to grow them before long – but with Google TV’s Android heritage, TV apps take on a whole new dimension of excitement.

Apps will be available from Pandora (streaming radio), CNBC, Napster, Amazon, Netflix and Google themselves, and with thousands already developing for Android phones and tablets, the leap to the big screen may come sooner than we think. Games, web apps, weather apps and more, plus innovative apps that use the TV & web combination will soon become a reality.

All Android apps that currently work on your Android smartphone will also work on Google TV (although some, such as the jogging app, might nto work quite so well when not placed in your pocket!)

The Web

Not only is the Web the fuel that drives Google TV, it’s there for you to browse – with full Flash support. We’ve had browsing before on TVs, mainly with consoles from the Nintendo Wii (torturous) to the PS3 (not bad but no Flash), and it sort-of works.

But with the power of Google behind it, sites will begin to offer TV-friendly versions of their sites in much the same way they do with mobile versions.

These new TV Websites can help making sofa browsing a reality and even take the web in a totally different direction.

In addition, Google TV will also also offer the regular Web too, with all the browsing you can handle from the house’s comfiest chair, plus the usual Web fun with Twitter and Facebook – and all picture in picture with live action.

Video On Demand

In addition to videos from YouTube, you can also stream video on Google TV from the likes of Netflix and Amazon, enabling you to watch films with just a simple click of the mouse.

While these Video On Demand (VOD) services won’t be available to us in the UK just yet, we do have VOD services of our own from major TV companies such as Sky, BBC, ITV, C4 and Five that may well be adapted for Google TV, plus the forthcoming YouView – the merged service of BBC/C4/Five/ITV – may well find a welcome in the G box.

Plus there’s always Web video too from YouTube and Google Video, and let’s not forget the BBC’s iPlayer.

Your TV’s new Homepage

With Google TV, your telly gets a homepage, which you can customise to your heart’s content. Kind of like an iGoogle for your TV, you can place apps, internet bookmarks, Electronic Programme Guides (EPGs), VOD queues – in fact anything you like.

This is very much in the Android mould of homescreen personalisation – let’s see if it’s per person, making the TV even more personal in a busy household.

Recording TV programmes with Google TV

Recording TV isn’t new, granted. But with Google TV you’re not restricted to recording TV from broadcast – put in what you want to watch and it’ll pull down other video sources too.

So say you want to record the very excellent Interpol playing their equally excellent music, Google TV will record shows tagged as Interpol, as well as placing links to online videos of Interpol – all in a smart queue, all without you having to trawl various channels and sites.

Smart, and something unique to Google TV.

Media Hub

Most media players can now hold their own as media hubs, showing films, photos and playing music from directly from your PC or a USB connection.

Google TV can also do all this, but because of its Web browser and Android app support, it also supports streaming music from major streaming radio services like Pandora and Napster. Plus if Android is anything to go by, it may only be a matter of time before Spotify makes an appearance on the platform (let’s face it, the app is already written), turning Google TV into an infinite jukebox.

The Coolest Remote

So surely a remote for this device is going to be huge – or frankly horrid to use if you don’t have a QWERTY keyboard?

Well, in addition to dedicated remotes from the likes of Logitech, your iPhone or Android phone can also be your full colour touchscreen remote control, fully customisable and never lost (unless you have a habit of losing your expensive phones). So it can be a simple or as full featured as you want, and you’ll already be used to inputting text into it.

Summary

There are even more features we haven’t covered, like watching video from your phone on the TV screen to setting up recording direct from the search bar – there’s just so much Google TV can do.

Sony will be debuting their Bravia GT1 HDTV next week, and Logitech have already announced their Revue set-top box, so more details like release dates and pricing will soon become clear.

Google TV is going to be something special and genuinely represents the next step that TV and the web have been waiting for.

One for the Christmas list Santa!

[Source: Google TV]

Luckily, QNAP has launched the new QNAP NMP-1000P Network Media Player, which can support pretty much every kind of video and audio format you’ll ever come across, and decode it using a super-quick 667MHz audio/video decoder from Sigma Solutions.

That’s not the half of it, though. in order to do such trickery, the NMP-1000P needs to get its media from somewhere, and thanks to the magic of Ethernet and Wi-Fi, it can suck it up either from your PC or the Internet.

So what does the QNAP NMP-1000P Network Media Player actually do?

In layman’s terms, this means the NMP-1000P will playback any video and any tune you can throw it, and either send it to your HDTV, your home theatre system, or your hi-fi (depending on whether it’s a video or audio file, obviously!)

Any of your videos or tunes can either be streamed through the NMP-1000P from your PC, or simply stored on its internal hard drive for later use, in which case you won’t need to switch your PC on to play the file.

But what if you don’t have much media on your PC? No problem, the NMP-1000P will also stream content directly from the following Web apps:

• Mediafly
• Apple Movie Trailers
• CNN
• SHOUTcast
• Internet radio service
• Flickr
• Picasa

It’s even got a built-in FTP client and BitTorrent client, so you can download media from other computers connected to the Internet, and all without turning your own PC on.

What can you connect it to?

Round the back, it’s like a swiss-cheese of connection sockets! The NMP-1000P comes with the following ports:

• USB
• eSATA (for external hard drives)
• HDMI v1.3a (for connecting to your HDTV and streaming 1080p movies)
• Audio out
• Component Video
• Composite Video
• Analog stereo out (for connecting to your hi-fi)
• SP/DIF (for digital connection to your hi-fi via optical cable)

Add to that the built-in Wi-Fi receiver, plus the Ethernet port, and you can see that the NMP-1000P really will connect to anything – and is just about the geekiest gadget you’re ever likely to buy for your home media setup.

It gets better, though. If you think that’s geeky, just wait until you see what video formats it supports!

What media types can it play?

Video files are complicated beasts, and if you have a video that’s encoded in a format that your hardware doesn’t support, you won’t be able to watch it. Worse, the video itself will be encoded using a certain format (such as MPEG), and will then be contained in a container (such as AVI), which contains other files such as titles, playlists, subtitles, and other meta-data. Again, if your media player doesn’t support the container, it won’t be able to play the video.

With the NMP-1000P, though, it’s not a problem. Here’s the list of video formats it supports:

• MPEG1
• MPEG2
• MPEG4
• XVID
• H.264
• H.263
• WMV9
• VC1

And here’s the list of containers:

• AVI
• MPEG/MPG
• VCD (ISO, MPG, NRG)
• DVD (VOB, IFO, ISO, NRG)
• WMV
• ASF
• TP
• TS
• TRP
• M1V
• M2V
• M4V
• M2P
• M2T
• M2TS
• BDMV/BD ISO
• MTS
• MOV
• MP4
• RMP4
• MKV
• MOD
• 3GP

Phew! That’s pretty much every video format and container you can think of! And that doesn’t even include the list of audio and picture formats supported!

Like I say, the QNAP NMP-1000P really is a geeky but of kit, but if you need a media player that will connect to anything, decode anything, and stream anything using wires or wireless, you really should give this little box serious consideration.

[Source: SlashGear]

Let’s take a more detailed look…

Google Music Locker

Yes this is your music in the cloud, and here you can put the music you have purchased from the Google music store.

Additionally you may also be able to store tracks from your hard drive that Google has licence for, even if you’ve obtained them from another retailer (such as iTunes or Amazon) or other alternative ways, such as your own CDs and…well, you get the picture. These would then appear in your Google music library available for stream or download.

How To Listen

Google is obviously going to put the Google Music service into heavy use on its own platforms, and none comes bigger than the soon-to-be world’s most used mobile OS, Android. You’ll be able to stream direct from your handset or download for those areas with less than capable signals.

There is also likely to be a Web-based player (let’s wait and see if it’ll have Adobe technology) so if you can browse to a page anywhere – you can listen. A boon to listen to your tracks when not at home, especially if the browser becomes integrated into devices like the Sonos music system, Revo’s Axis or even Web-aware TVs like Samsung’s UE40C8000.

Full Song Previews and Social Interaction

If you are a big fan of strokey-beard noodling jazz odysseys, you’ll know that a measly 30 seconds is not going to show the squawking genius of Miles to a non-believer. No, you want them to be wrapped up in Bitches Brew for the full 27-odd minutes to appreciate it – and Google hears your plea.

The service aims to offer a full track preview to listeners – just the once mind, so while you can listen to every track on it once, you still need to buy the album to listen to it again. What this means socially is you will be able to recommend a track, album or even playlist to a friend and they can check it out and get to judge each song on its full merits.

This puts the service somewhere between Apple’s Ping and Spotify, and could prove to be the 21st century mixtape.

At the moment, the whole service is shrouded in mystery and nothing has been confirmed. Billboard say that no favours have been made to Google in terms of pricing, with digital albums still costing $7 wholesale, with tracks at 70 cents average.

We’ll wait and see if the vast coffers of the big G will take a hit to get the service off the ground, but if nothing else it’ll give the legions of Android users present and future an excellent integrated music service that will bring devices like the Samsung Galaxy S and HTC’s forthcoming Desire HD into the ‘cool’ arena, and won’t leave their owners longing for Apple’s behemoth.
[Source: BIllboard]

At present the content is only from YouTube partners Young Hollywood, Howcast, Rocketboom and Next New Networks, but this isn’t to say in the future YouTube Live Streaming won’t offer channels from major broadcasters.

There’s no plans at present to offer the live broadcast facility to the public at large – lets face it, it would be a nightmare to censor the variety of oddities that would no doubt be on show. However if the trial is a success, YouTube has ambitious plans to roll it out to more partners.

Of course this is great news for those with you with web-enabled TVs like the excellent Panasonic TX-P42G20B plasma and media devices like the cracking LG HB405SU Blu-Ray surround system – with them already having YouTube built-in, they can begin playing the channels right now.

With this development YouTube, and by extension Google, can become major players in the fledgling IPTV world, with YouTube bringing the content and soon Google bringing the Google TV hardware plus the requisite piles and piles of cash.

Fortunately there’s a solution. The latest generation of digital cameras have all manner of social photo features that let you upload your pics to sites such as Flickr, Picasa and even Facebook with absolute ease.

We’ve rounded up 5 of the latest social snappers to see how they help you share your pics amongst your friends and across the world,

Kodak SLICE – The sleek-and-cool option

Let’s start with one of photography’s biggest guns – Kodak. This sleek number is one of Kodak’s newest devices, the Kodak SLICE, and it’s bursting with technology to bring your pictures to the web on a device barely bigger than a mobile phone.

The SLICE has a massive 14 megapixels with a 5x optical zoom (never trust digital zooms) and has a very cool 3.5″ touchscreen interface on the back making it simple and intuative to operate. It also has face recognition, so you can tell the SLICE the name that belongs to the face, and when you take pictures, it automatically tags them with the right names. This can save you hours on Facebook!

The best thing about the SLICE, though, is its one-touch upload feature to Facebook, Flickr or email (and even videos to YouTube). Simply find the photos you want to share, press the ‘Share’ button, and select where you want to share them to. The next time you plug the SLICE into your PC via USB, all the pics are automatically uploaded to the destinations you’d selected. There’s absolutely nothing for you to do, it’s all taken care of for you.

The Kodak SLICE is one of the smartest cameras today, and could be the one for you if you want the technology without the fuss.

Samsung ST1000 – The kitchen sink option

The Samsung ST1000 is a camera that has a trick up its sleeve for all you travellers out there – GPS. No, you can’t use it to find your way to Rickmansworth, the GPS is there for Geotagging, the simple process of adding location data to each shot.

So what esle does the ST1000 pack in to its little case? How about 12 megapixels through a very smart 5x inner zoom lens (yes, the zoom is still optical but it’s inside the lens housing!). Not enough? How about bluetooth to send the pictures to your smartphone for emailing? Or onboard WiFi to skip the PC completely and email them from the ST1000 itself? Or DLNA networking for viewing the photos and videos on any DLNA device, such as an HDTV?

Phew! On top of all this, the ST1000 is Flickr compatible (of course) and also boasts working with Facebook, Picasa, YouTube and Samsungs own photo website. This is definitely one for the travelling social media enthusiast.

Samsung ST5500 – The amazing screen option

The must-have phone this year has arguably been Samsung’s Galaxy S, and its biggest draw has been its luscious AMOLED screen. Anyone who’s seen one will rave about their vibrant colours and unrivalled contrast.

So what kind of device could also benefit from a display with vibrant colours and unrivalled contrast? A device concerned with imaging maybe? Stwp forward the Samsung ST5500, the world’s first camera to have a beautiful 3.7″ AMOLED touch screen integrated right into its frame, giving superb and accurate previews of the photographs you’ve shot, taking much of the guesswork out of how well the colours and shade have come through its 14 megapixel 7x optical zoom lens.

However it’s not just a camera with a pretty screen. It’s got the same Wifi / DLNA / bluetooth connectivity of its little brother, the ST1000, and also like its sibling, it will upload to Flickr, Facebook, Picasa and YouTube. You can even use the wifi to email straight from the camera.

The ST5500 also has some clever ideas about control – yes, you can control it by touching that lovely screen, but you can also control it by tilts and shakes, scrolling through your pictures with a shake of the wrist!

If you like the look of the ST1000 but want that little bit more opulence and image control, the Samsung ST5500 is for you.

Kodak Easyshare C142 – The social media on pocket money option

The gear above is great, well specced and impressive, but it’s also expensive. A much less expensive option is the Kodak Easyshare C142. Coming in at nearly a quarter of the price of the SLICE, this is social media photography at its simplest.

A solid little camera, the C142 still packs an impressive 10 megapixels through a 3x optical lens, and it also boasts a 2.5″ LCD screen, so it’s no slouch technically. The C142 is the modern embodiment of the simple point-and-shoot you had for holidays, so while suited to the kids, it’s also at home with people who don’t want to worry about shutter stops, white balance and ISO speeds but just want to take snaps.

Nowadays we don’t get them developed in an hour at Boots, we upload them, so the Kodak makes that easy too – it’s not called Easyshare for nothing. There’s even a button for it, called – wait for it – Share, which you use to mark the images you want to er, share. Come on, it wouldn’t be easier if it uploaded them for you would it?

Hmm, well actually it does do that too, taking your share tagged images and uploading them to your profiles around the web. See, now it can’t be simpler unless it went on holiday for you and took the pictures itself, and where’s the fun in that?

The Kodak Easyshare C142 isn’t for photographers, it’s for you, the person who just wants a good value and simple to use camera to take a decent picture.

Eye-Fi – The I’ve-already-got-a-good-camera option

There will be some amongst you who have your perfect digital camera, such as a Panasonic Lumix, but find it’s not very good at sharing. However, you’re certainly not going to trade it in for one that does, as the camera you’ve got gives much better results (particularly true if it’s a DSLR you’ve got).

So what do you do? Simple: you buy an Eye-Fi. Using some sort of technology voodoo, the clever bods at Eye-Fi have shrunk a wireless dongle, 8GB of memory, geotagging and “endless memory” into a regular Secure Digital card that’ll pop in a SD card compatible camera (which is most of them).

With the Eye-Fi, you go out and take your pictures as usual, treating it like a regular 8GB memory card. Then when you return home, you switch on your PC and your camera and you go and make a cup of tea. While you do that, the Eye-Fi sends your images wirelessly to your PC – it really is as simple as that.

But what if you’re not near a PC? Well you can even set the Eye-Fi up beforehand with your favourite social site (and trust me, it’ll work with nearly all of them – Flickr, Picasa, MobileMe, SmugMug, Photbucket, webshots…you get the picture), and the Eye-Fi can upload them through Wifi. Let’s not forget Endless Memory either – it basically senses when the card is nearly full and automatically uploads your images, clearing space on the card invisibly to you.

Eye-Fi is an excellent solution for those who want to keep the camera they love, plus it’s also the best option if you want the easy life with its simple wireless uploading.

Summary

So that’s 5 devices to get your pictures out onto the web with the absolute minimum of fuss. There’s a wide variety from the great value C142 to the very cool SLICE, with some excellent gear inbetween. You can even get in on the social action even if your beloved camera isn’t quite modern enough.

So now you have no excuses not to go out into the world and bring back some memories to put on the web, without losing hair over it. So much better than leavin gyour pictures buried somewhere on your hard disk, lost amongst the thousands of others and never to be seen again!