Posts Tagged ‘mostly-confined’
Hulu For The iPhone? Yes, Please. But Don’t Get Your Hopes Up Just Yet.
Ask people what their favorite website is, and increasingly you’ll hear Hulu (at least in the US). The NBC and Fox-backed online video service just kicks ass when it comes to content, interface and overall execution. And now it’s apparently going to attempt to translate that into a kickass iPhone app, according to Business Insider.
Sure, there are other iPhone apps that offer video streaming such as Joost, i.TV and TV.com, but none come close to Hulu in terms of content and public appeal so far. But the most interesting part may be that the Hulu app would apparently work over 3G connections, as well as WiFi. The current crop of video streaming apps are mostly confined to WiFi usage — no doubt at least in part because AT&T doesn’t want streaming video clogging the pipes.
In fact, there’s a rumor going around right now that AT&T is the reason that Apple rejected an app by SlingPlayer from the App Store. That hasn’t been confirmed, but the thought is that just like the supposed Hulu app, the SlingPlayer app would have worked over 3G. So if a Hulu app does carry the same functionality, it stands to reason that it would be rejected as well.
But, the new iPhone 3.0 software, due this summer, touts live video streaming as one of its core new features. Perhaps Hulu could work with Apple to get such an app working. And the rumored new version of the iPhone supposedly will offer faster connection speeds, which could help ease the bandwidth strain AT&T would see on its end.
Hulu has gotten itself into a bit of controversy on the web recently as it has been in a sparring match with the popular media center software startup Boxee. Hulu’s content partners, it seems, don’t want their content easily accessible on a television — a process which Boxee greatly simplifies for many people. But their position for Hulu on a device like the iPhone could be different because it gives them another outlet to monetize their content via ads.
Of course, you have to wonder what Apple would think about a Hulu app, because it sells through iTunes many of the television shows Hulu streams for free. You can’t currently browse to Hulu through the iPhone’s web browser because the iPhone doesn’t support Flash, which Hulu uses.
Business Insider’s Dan Frommer tells me his source on this Hulu app is a trusted one, but that the time frame for the launch is hazy. That, mixed with the potential problems with AT&T and Apple leads me to warn everyone: Don’t get your hopes up just yet.
[photo: flickr/tivol]
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People Who Switch To Macs Like To Dance, And Other Strange Hunches
it’s been only three weeks since the launch of Q&A site Hunch, but already it’s amassed answers to 4.3 million questions. By taking visitors through a series of questions to get to know them better, Hunch can begin to make guesses about the right kinds of answers for each individual by making correlations across between people who answer similarly across different topics. It’s sort of like collaborative filtering for information.
Co-founder Caterina Fake of Flickr fame shares some of the correlations Hunch has been able to find so far. Some of her findings:
* People who believe that alien abductions are real are more likely to blame Nancy Pelosi for the financial crisis.
* One of the best predictors of whether people agree they should switch to a Mac: whether they like to dance. Are PC users less fun? The data has spoken.
* Fake ID users are more likely to be happy at startups.
Also, people who like sports video games are more likely to have had a broken leg at one point (which would explain why they like to sit on the couch and play football instead of go out and, you know, actually play football).
And on the subject of Facebook versus Twitter, the Hunch data suggests that “Facebook people” are more social than Twitterers in actual social situations like a party. Facebook people mingle with more people, including strangers, whereas Twitterers stick to people they know. Other differences? Facebook people spend more on shampoo and like to drink more. Whereas “Twitterers report that they have oily skin.” In other words, Twitter is for geeks. I knew it! Don’t tell Oprah
Hunch’s data set will become available to researchers next week through a special “researchers API.” Can’t wait to find out what other correlations come out of it.
(Photo by Ira Mejías)
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