With WWDC behind us and Microsoft’s Surface tablet out of the bag, it’s Google’s turn to take the lid off its latest. It’s annual I/O developer conference, which starts Wednesday, should offer a heaping buffet of new products and software developments. But let’s start with the usual amuse-bouche: a crapload of rumors. So what might I/O bring this year? More »
Watch out, Sony, Vizio is chasing your tail. Just yesterday Sony revealed its latest Google TV hardware, a $199 remake of the company’s first GTV products. And now today, Vizio took to the wires and announced its first player in the Google TV game, the $99 Co-Star.
The Co-Star is a serious contender in this game, too. The product boasts all the Google TV functionality along with additional backed-in apps such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, iHeartRadio, and for the first time on a Google TV box, OnLive. With OnLive gamers can demo, watch and actually play games through the cloud gaming service. Plus, all this is available for $100 less than Sony charges.
“Our focus to deliver the best consumer experience continues with today’s announcement of the Co-Star, which delivers a superior smart TV interface that anyone can add to their existing HDTV,” said Matt McRae, VIZIO’s Chief Technology Officer said in a released statement. “We combined the powerful features of Google TV™ with an intuitive and easy to use interface, giving users the power to enjoy an entire world of entertainment.”
The Co-Star ships with a dual-sided Bluetooth remote (OnLive’s wireless controllers use Bluetooth) with one side featuring a number pad and touchpad with a QWERTY keypad on the other side. The box also sports 802.11n and USB connectivity options.
Vizio hasn’t yet detailed the expected ship date yet although pre-orders begin next month.
Last week the Ubuntu App Showdown Contest kicked off; a competition in which you lovely people have three weeks to create an awesome app that wows the judges on functionality, presentation/integration, innovation, usefulness, and quality. Up for grabs are System76 laptops and Nokia N9 phones as well as Ubuntu t-shirts and off course…the kudos and high regard of your fellow Ubuntu friends!
With just over a week of the contest completed, we are seeing some wonderful progress reports on the contest reddit page. It is great to see the friendly and competitive spirit and people enjoying building apps on the Ubuntu platform. If you want to join you still have two solid weeks of development time to cook up something awesome. Be sure to see the contest page, the tutorial video for creating your first Ubuntu app, our upcoming video tutorials and workshops, and feel free to ask any questions you need help on.
I thought it could be fun to show some of the screenshots of progress over the last week. I look forward to seeing these apps continue to grow and mature, and others join them… 
Let It Flow: a fun game (if you can’t see the video, see it here!
BooruView: image viewer for Booro systems.
Quickly GTK: a graphical interface for Quickly with full HUD support.
HumanTask: a simple task manager.
Web Form-er: a visual HTML form editor.
Ubutar: sync your Ubuntu user picture with your social networking sites (if you can’t see the video, see it here!.
Modem Manager: an app to read and send SMS, send USSD requests, display modem informaion, and enable/disable modem special features
Clamour: a Clam AV powered virus scanner
ShowMyFaves: favorites manages.
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Stock Quotes: stock quotes app for your desktop.
jpiiIRC: IRC client.
Houston: a desktop cloud dashboard
