Tools Toys and Technology

About the Tools You Use and the Toys That Make Life Interesting

Tools Toys and Technology - About the Tools You Use and the Toys That Make Life Interesting

Netflix Launches New Windows 8 App

With the eminent formal availability of Windows 8 (October 26), the big “IF” that has everyone questioning its viability for mobile devices is the limited number of available apps vs. established competitors like Apple and Android.

One big hole in the entertainment app category has been the absence of a Netflix app. That hole has just been filled. A touchscreen optimized app for Netflix has just been added to the Windows Store. While it will work on any computer running Windows 8, it is clearly targeted at Windows 8 mobile devices with touch screens (tablets and hybrid tablet/notebooks).

I suspect the disparity in the number of apps for Windows 8 vs. the established mobile competitors will shrink rapidly once the new devices start to hit the streets. When Windows 8 devices become prevalent and numerous, app developers will find this market too lucrative to ignore for long.

 

Cloud Application #2: Your Hard Drive in the Sky

Copyright © 2012 Richard Beaty

Last month I began a new series on consumer applications of the “cloud” … aka, programs and utilities that make use the Internet for specific functions. We started out with: “Cloud Application #1: Online Backup.” This month I’ll talk about cloud solutions for data storage, sharing and file syncing.

Your Hard Drive in the Sky

When you think of computer data storage, you think of a hard drive. The hard drive in your computer makes your data conveniently available to programs that run on that computer. If you want to move data from one computer to another, you can store your data on an external hard drive, a little black box that you can easily move between multiple computers. But for real data portability, nothing beats storing your data on the cloud.

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