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China’s UCWeb launches UC Browser for TV, moving beyond smartphones to target multiple screens

Mar04

by Sindy Cator on March 4, 2014 at 11:41 am

Posted In: Around the Web, Asia, browser, Product Launches, tv

China’s UCWeb has launched a browser for smart TVs today, in a bid to capture more eyeballs across a variety of platforms.

UCWeb is behind the popular mobile UC Browser, which has over 500 million users around the globe. UCWeb’s co-founder and president He Xiaopeng notes that expanding to multiple screens means users can get a similar browsing experience across mobile devices, PCs and TV.

UC Browser for TV, which is currently Chinese-only, comes with features including easy access to online video libraries from sources such as Youku, streamlined TV-based online shopping, and plugins that turn your smartphone into a TV remote. It also comes with cloud features, which likely means that users can log in with their UC accounts to sync settings and bookmarks.

As we noted before, China’s smart TV market is booming. By stepping into the scene, UCWeb’s TV browser will no doubt appeal to those in China who are already using its browser on their smartphones — and that is a large market, given that UCWeb says it owns over 50 percent of the browser market share in the country.

Headline image via Shutterstock

└ Tags: news, syndicated

QuizFortune for iPhone brings individual gameplay to the social trivia app mix

Mar04

by Sindy Cator on March 4, 2014 at 11:19 am

Posted In: Apps, Around the Web, Insider

QuizUp launched its social trivia app to much fanfare back in November, touting itself as the “biggest trivia game in the world,” with more than 100,000 questions across 300 categories. Now, a UK company is looking to capitalize on this excitement with its own take on what a hit quiz app should look like.

QuizFortune sports more than 100,000 questions and 700 quizzes, but in addition to the social ‘play your friends’ element it also has an individual gameplay feature for those looking to flex their mental muscles on their own.

Indeed, QuizFortune doesn’t require you to create an account to go it alone and ‘Play as a Guest’, though if you want to take up the social element and play with buddies, you will have to connect with Facebook or sign-up with email.

You have all the usual subjects you’d expect from a quiz, including ‘Film’, ‘Music’, ‘General Knowledge’ and ‘Sport, and you can drill down into not only specific sports, but also categories within them – such as ‘British Football’, ‘English’ Clubs’, ‘European Football’, and so on. Indeed, this is perhaps one of the app’s downfalls at times – while it definitely has a global appeal, sometimes it seems to have quite a UK- or Euro-centric market in mind.

There’s also the ‘Trending’ pack, which features quizzes on current events – this could be major sporting events such as the World Cup Final, or the Oscars. QuizFortune’s content is frequently refreshed, with the team able to build a quiz and set it live within the app in just a few minutes.

If you do decide to go down the social route, you can choose up to ten friends from Facebook to challenge on any given quiz (so this isn’t all about one-on-one), and create your own personal leaderboard too.

All in all, QuizFortune is a nice app and shows a lot of potential, however I did experience quite a bit of lag when loading quizzes. Sometimes it would take a while to pull the questions in, and other times it wouldn’t load them at all. Such issues should be easy to resolve though.

QuizFortune is optimized for iPhone and iPod touch, and is available to download for free now. You can buy more questions in-app too, with the likes of the ‘Family Pack’, ‘Social Society Pack’ and more available for $0.99 each.

➤ QuizFortune | App Store

└ Tags: syndicated

Japan’s DeNA shutters key features of its music service Groovy, including streaming and downloads

Mar04

by Sindy Cator on March 4, 2014 at 9:14 am

Posted In: Around the Web, Asia, Japan, music streaming, Product Updates

As we approach the one-year anniversary of Japan-only music service Groovy, its parent DeNA is shuttering some key features on March 25, including music streaming, purchases and downloads. Contrary to some reports that suggested the music service will be shut down, a DeNA spokesperson clarified that the app will still exist, but will only play the music that users already own.

“The reason for this decision is that the key performance indicators did not reach our goal,” the DeNA spokesperson tells TNW, adding that the company will be putting more resources in its other services.

Mobile gaming giant DeNA launched Groovy in March last year after acquiring a Japanese music app by the name of Discodeer. The move formed part of the company’s strategy to spread out to new distribution models. DeNA started off with games on mobile browsers and found success monetizing its service with virtual items and other tactics, but it has struggled to adapt to the dominance of app stores, which smartphone owners worldwide are increasingly using to access mobile content.

The firm therefore moved into verticals by launching a mobile messaging app Comm and music service Groovy – while manga has become its latest focus.

Even as Groovy disappoints, DeNA has reported good news for Manga Box. The app passed three million downloads as of March 2, less than three months since its launch in December last year. The majority may be Japanese users, but DeNA has just added Traditional Chinese as a compatible language for selected titles to make Manga Box a trilingual weekly manga magazine, which would likely attract more users.

Headline image via Toru Yamanaka/AFP/Getty Images

└ Tags: media, news, syndicated

Sony has sold over 6 million PlayStation 4 game consoles in less than 4 months since its launch

Mar04

by Sindy Cator on March 4, 2014 at 8:06 am

Posted In: Around the Web, Asia, Gadgets, Japan, playstation 4, Product Updates

Sony has sold more than six million units of its PlayStation 4 game console globally as of March 2, the company announced today (via Reuters). The latest figure, which includes 370,000 units sold in Japan since it was launched there on February 22, well surpasses the target Sony set in September last year, before the PS4 went on sale in November.

Sony’s increasing sales milestones will no doubt pile pressure on its rival Microsoft, which is already feeling the heat after the PS4 became the best-selling game console in the US in January, according to NPD. The PS4 dethroned Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which was NPD’s highest-selling console for years, with Sony claiming its latest console outsold the Xbox One by two-to-one. However, Microsoft took credit for selling the most games (albeit overall, across Xbox 360 and Xbox One).

In its latest announcement, Sony says PS4 software sales surpassed 13.7 million copies worldwide — via retail stores and through digital downloads on PlayStation Store — as of March 2. Furthermore, the company notes that the PlayStation app, which can be downloaded on iPhones and Android smartphones and tablets, has been installed more than 3.6 million times as of March 2.

Image via Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images