Microsoft’s SkyDrive is far from being the only cloud storage out there on the market today, but it is about to get a very useful new feature that could certainly help it stand out. SkyDrive is now coming to the Xbox 360 through an Xbox app.

The Xbox 360 SkyDrive app allows you to share photos and videos across the cloud. This basically means that users can now stream their videos from the SkyDrive account to their TV. This could be movies or even home videos that you want to share with the family.

Other new features include a “Snap and See’ capability that lets you capture photos with a Windows Phone device and then view them on your TV via the Xbox 360 and SkyDrive. Another interesting feature for the app is a “Party Slide Show” option, which lets a user create a slide show of their favorite memories on the Xbox 360.

The SkyDrive app for the Xbox also supports Kinect voice and gesture controls. You can also use the remote or 360 controller, too. The new app is avaliable under the Xbox 360 apps section, within the social category.

With more integration showing up between Microsoft’s web services, operating systems, phones and consoles– Microsoft’s vision of the future is certainly starting to come together. What do you think of this new app coming to the Xbox 360, intrigued or not?

[ source ]

The post SkyDrive app coming to Xbox 360, Streaming Photos and Video Made Easy appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Samsung has come out with point-and-shoots earlier which featured Wi-Fi,  the SH100 and the ST80 are two, but this is the first time that Wi-Fi has made its way into the new DualView camera style.  The Samsung DV300F, which comes equipped with a 1.5-inch front-facing LCD (will help with self-portraits), has a 3-inch rear-facing display, 5x optical zoom, a 7.76mm 16 Megapixel CCD sensor, and a 4.5-22.5mm, f4.5 lens.

The camera should perform well when there is good lighting, but the pictures won’t be that perfect in dim lighting conditions so prepare to be blasted with flash for those dimly lit nightclub photos were all too used to snapping. There is also an image stabilization system, most probably an electronic one which will help low light situations too.

Its most useful feature though, is the Wi-Fi connectivity.  It will allow users to upload images and video directly to online sharing sites including Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, and YouTube. You will also be able to wirelessly transfer images to a computer, and the camera integrates with Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

Other features include a visual self-timer, a feature to merge three images together, and Motion Photo which will allow you to freeze objects around a moving object. And for keeping young children focussed on the camera, an animation displayed on the front LCD will help a lot, although that might not help with adults who can’t stay still.

The cam is expected to be available in March with a price tag of $200. It comes in black, red, silver, navy, and red. The Samsung DV300F Wi-Fi DualView camera is expected to be unveiled at CES next week.

The post Samsung DV300F Is The First DualView Camera With Wi-Fi appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

This list is alphabetical – you will have to choose for yourself which one suits you best.

First we have ADrive who is offering an outstanding 50GB of free storage.  A well established company that while they are offering lots of free storage space, it does lack support and there are lots of advertisements (understandably a necessity to keep the site operating).  ADrive makes the claim of being the leader of online storage; their service has received numerous awards and widespread press coverage.  Not a difficult site to maneuver and any file type can be uploaded.

Although G.ho.st is an online operating system, it also has 15GB of free storage space to offer.  G.ho.st, the Global Hosted Operating SysTem, has been declared “very secure” by Amazon, There is also a “lite” version which is available for use on your mobile phone. Operating G.ho.st is as easy as transferring files from one folder to another on your computer.  This really is quite an impressive site.

Google Storage offers 1GB to users who have a Google account. We hear it’s not pretty but you know Google, it’s sure as hell going to be reliable.

MediaMax with 2GB of storage space offers a very simplistic way of transferring your files and it looks very professional.  This site allows a scheduling of your designated files to be backed up and retains 30 of your latest backups.  Great site but we want more space.

Mozy Free is similar to SkyDrive but is known to be more up to date, easier to use and is esthetically more pleasing.  Another notable difference is that Mozy is only offering 2GB of free storage space, for a $5 monthly fee Mozy does offers unlimited backups.  The security on Mozy Free is top notch and they provide scheduled backups.

SkyDrive is owned by Microsoft and powered by Windows Live.  That fact alone is why this is a very safe and secure site to backup with.  Offering a hefty 25GB of free storage space with an easy to use interface and an option so you can make all of your uploaded files completely private or accessible to only those you choose.  It requires a free Live Account.  SkyDrive might be the most reliable site and is available anywhere.

We hope that by providing you with this list of reputable sites it will ease your mind about all those companies who took a huge part of the online backup storage market a few years back and then shut down, taking your info with them.

The post Free online backups – Accessible anywhere, hopefully forever appeared first on Mobile Magazine.