Roku Moves On To The Next Level

   As a Roku enthusiast, I am always excited about any new updates and/or news from them. As such, it was great to see this January 5th entry on the Roku blog. 

   There has been some negative chatter regarding this announcement - primarily aimed at Smart TVs in general. Most people gripe about how many Smart TVs can only operate using the OS installed on them with no other or very limited inputs allowed. So these people argue that they feel it's better to simply purchase a "dumb" TV and hook up any external devices they want while still maintaining normal TV functionality. However, I personally like to take the "wait and see" approach to any new tech such as this. Maybe Roku has listened to some of this negative chatter and will take these concerns to the designers and manufacturers of the new sets. 

   Be sure to check out the full announcement, and feel free to share what you think about this move by Roku.

Roku Channel Review - PlayOn

 
 In The Truth About Cutting The Cord – Part 3: Suggested Software, I explained - "One final server I will mention that you may want to download onto your dedicated PC to access via your Roku is called PlayOn. But, I only want to MENTION it and not necessarily SUGGEST it.http://www.playon.tv/playon

 The reason being is that as of date, I have not found PlayOn to be living up to the claims found on their website. Many of the “live” channels they claim to have simply don’t work, or are in fact NOT “live” at all. In fact, the only “live” channel I can get to work on it is HBO Comedy This in itself may be worth it to you (I paid the $24.99 per year fee – may drop it at the end of the term). But hey – that’s YOUR call!"

   Sad to say, my view of PlayOn has not changed months later. In all fairness, I've tried to give PlayOn a fighting chance - I truly have. But the fact that most of the "channels" that PlayOn offers tend to return errors, or only contain clips of shows under folders marked "Full Episodes", really makes it pretty much impossible to recommend.

   The idea behind PlayOn (and what sells it) is that it aggregates live channel streams into one. Unfortunately this is inconsistent at best, more often simply non-existent. On the occasion that I have gotten a live stream to work (as mentioned above, I seem to have the best luck with HBO Comedy), I was left with the feeling that the stream was coming from some 12-year-old kid who figured out how to live stream his parent's cable - this after waiting for about 5 minutes for the stream to actually load. This lack of true content alone is horrible to say the least because the channel line up that PlayOn presents on the main screen is quite impressive - from your typical CBS stations all the way up to the NFL Network.

   Want to add more channels? PlayOn's website offers a list of official channels, as well as it's own underbelly of channels created by freelance developers. Again, this approach is somewhat awesome. But the fact of the matter is that many of these developers create a PlayOn channel, stream to it or maintain the link for the respective channel's stream for a while, and the channel eventually becomes useless (which usually means they simply get sick of maintaining the channel).

   On the bright side, the PlayOn Server itself is actually very well developed. PlayOn is upfront about system requirements - I'm impressed by the fact that they basically flat out tell you that if you don't have at least a dual-core processor, don't even bother. Adding channels is a breeze - even those developer community created channels. The server interface is clutter free and intuitive, with tabbed categories that make sense. But sadly a great server is for not without being the great tool it claims to be.

   I will also give PlayOn credit for continuing to try to develop and evolve - with added features like Play Mark, Play Later, and the recent addition of HD. However, PlayOn team, what good are all the bells and whistles if the train itself isn't even moving?

Roku Channel Review - AOL On

   There was a time when AOL seemed to rule the internet. In fact, from time to time, I still hear the old familiar notification "You've got mail" from someone. And who hasn't seen at least a joke or two about those good old FREE TRIAL CDs that AOL used to send to us in the mail almost weekly back in the '90s? (Tech Crunch posted an article about how much the company spent on sending those out. It's here for your reading pleasure!).

   I personally don't have anything good or bad to say about AOL as a company or service because I quite frankly never used anything of theirs that I can recall. But I always knew about them - they just seemed to always "be there". And then, not so much. From time to time, I would read an article in which AOL would be mentioned, and I would actually be surprised to hear the name.


   Then their Roku channel was announced - On.

   In order to correctly review this Roku channel, I think it's only fair to AOL to explain what On actually is - it's a network of content, from Tech Crunch, to Huffpost Live and Moviefone. AOL has been busy expanding this network of content, and I for one applaud their effort. I think this is definitely a great direction they have chosen to take, and they even have On apps for both Android and IOS devices.

   On's Roku channel home screen is a familiar grid layout broken into the usual categories - news, entertainment, tech, etc. Navigation is simple and familiar as well - simply choose your story of interest and play starts. And that, for me, is where the trouble starts. Upon launch of a news story or two it becomes immediately clear what the AOL On channel for Roku is - an online news video aggregator. For some, this may not be an issue because On truly is grabbing stories from multiple sources - primarily Newsy, Huffpost and Tech Crunch. However, the issue I have found is that with some clips I actually only got a partial report that ended with "for more, visit [insert news website].com". This, to say the least, is extremely annoying especially when you're engrossed in a story, only to be told to go to your computer to visit a website to see the rest. If I wanted to do that I would have already been at my computer, after all.

   And then there are the commercials. I understand that ad revenue is the best way for companies to develop and provide their streaming channels for free, but considering the afore mentioned partial clip situation, throwing in commercials only feels like salt in the wound.

   Lastly, there is the issue of the actual content that On is delivering. On grabs a huge percentage of its content from Huffpost (which actually makes sense, seeing as they own it), which puts an obviously huge slant on much of the reporting. While researching for this entry, I found several other reviewers voice this same concern, as well as a couple On mobile app users say the same. Having a slant isn't something I'm necessarily criticizing AOL for. After all, the "big guys" like Fox and NBC do so as well with their streaming channels. But with On seemingly attempting to position itself as a true, all around news aggregator, having such a slant quickly makes that position null and void. 

Tonight on HuffPost Live, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin phonetically pronounced the River Thames as "thames".

  In the end, I can recommend AOL On if you enjoy primarily Huffpost and Tech Crunch content, though the more special interest type categories such as Food, Travel and Autos offer a bit more variety.The commercials aren't a huge negative factor, especially in today's world where they are pretty much everywhere anyway. But the partial clips can get really aggravating. 

   Have you checked out AOL On? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Don't Panic. It's Just GMail

   First came the controversial changes to YouTube, and now this. If you use GMail, you received a notification in which Big G informed you of a new feature called Email via Google+. This new feature allows anyone with a Google+ account to send messages to your GMail inbox, regardless if they have your email address or not. And like the Great YouTube Comments Controversy of 2013, this too has caused quite an uproar. I've seen countless posts from angry people - some even threatening to delete their GMail accounts and abandoning anything Google related.

   But, like most anything else, there is a simple solution. That's right folks - you can disable this feature.

Simply do this -

1. Go to Gmail in your web browser and log in to your account.

2. Click on the gear icon on the right and select "Settings".

3. The screen will open under the "General" tab. Scroll down a bit and you will find "Emial via Google+"

4. Select the drop-down. There you will see multiple choices (from your circles only to no one).

5. To disable this feature, simply select "No One" from the drop down.

6. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the screen and click "Save Changes".

   And, that's it! No need to panic - simply disable this feature if this isn't something you want, and you're back to business as usual.