Can't wait for Android 2.2 Froyo

Android 2.2 is rumored to be coming out in a few days for my Verizon HTC Droid Incredible. I can't wait!

Nice little blog post on PC Mag on the new release:

Hands-On: Flash for Android and Android 2.2 "Froyo" | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

The big ticket items I'm looking forward too are the huge speed boost and full support for Adobe Flash, meaning I can have full unencumbered access to all the video on the web.

I'm also hoping it will fix a few minor annoyances I have with the phone such as the screen dimming / undimming erratically when I'm on a call.

Another big ticket question is will it fully support tethering so I can use it to connect my laptop to the Internet when on the road or has Verizon has somehow disabled the feature? It's supposed to be a key feature of the Android 2.2 release but cell phone carriers like Verizon are infamous for disabling features that don't suit their fancy so I'll believe it when I see it.

Among other things I've been putting off setting up a computer next to the TV to use as a media center because once I can run Flash on my Android phone I can use it as a full blown media center. I will even have a number of options to control it including VNC and potentially a bluetooth remote though I'll likely stick with VNC since I tend to work on my laptop or at least keep it handy when watching tv.

The idea of using my Android phone as a media center is no small potatoes thing, it was on the original reasons why I got the phone

1) full web access
2) camera
3) GPS
4) media player

While full Flash support completes the Android phone's capabilities as a full on media player / media center even without the ability to watch video in Flash I use applications like Pandora and Slacker to listen to music constantly at work. I think my data usage was 3.5gigs last month, so obviously these are a couple of my most used appications right next to google's Gmail app.

Ironically I've not yet bothered to put my extensive MP3 collection on it and may not so long as applications like Pandora and Slacker suit my needs.

I've also become fond of an application called BeyondPod which is a podcast aggregater for Android. I've not yet been able to fully utilize it yet because of a few probably minor bugs but I have been using it to follow some of my favorite podcasts like MTBcast's coverage of the Tour Divide (the mountain bike race down the great divide).

I'm hopeful that in the future applications like Boxee will come to Android and further enhance it's ease of use with an integrated media playing experience.

Boxee and the future of the television

From: Boxee Generates Buzz by the NYTimes.com

Boxee is betting that consumers accustomed to the freedom of the Internet will not be interested in a dribble of online services on their televisions but will want more comprehensive access to Web video.

“Consumers and developers aren’t going to put up with the idea of one piece of hardware talking to only a few services,” said Bijan Sabet, a partner at Spark Capital, one of two East Coast venture capital firms that invested a total of $4 million in Boxee last year. “It would be like getting a Verizon phone you can only use to call other Verizon subscribers. It’s not a natural thing.”

Boxee appears to be generating a tremendous amount of buzz. For good reason too.

The people behind Boxee appear to "get it", as is evident by the above quote.

In a world where anyone has access to anything via the internet the game has changed for television and media as well.

It's no longer enough to have some or "most" of media on your TV.

It's no longer enough to have access to some prepackaged set of channels from a cable provider.

It's no longer enough to have access to the popular stuff... or the stuff in english.. or the stuff on youtube.

The television of the future will be able to play any video from anywhere in the world through the internet.

Everyone will have equal access to not only watch but also to publish and share media with everyone else in the world.

No longer will what's on TV be constrained by a cable company like Comcast, a hardware company like Apple, or even the latest greatest kid on the block, Youtube.

The TV of the future must be completely content, language and geography agnostic.

If you want to watch the first landing on the moon... videos from China in a local dialect... a video your sister posted yesterday of her kids making a snowman... you should and you will be able to watch it on your TV.

Wether this content be personal home movies, niche content of any type in any part of the world or any language, or mainstream popular media, whatever your hearts content you should and one day you will be able to watch it on your TV with simply the flip of a button on the remote.

That is the big picture, and until now there has not been any one piece of software or one company that could get you there.

With youtube and a thousand other existing web services are serving every type of content imaginable around the world,

with high-speed bandwidth becoming more ubiquitous everyday,

and finally with the revolutionary bittorrent protocol allowing anyone with even a shred of bandwidth to serve a video to millions...

...the media world is at the cusp of making two more great leaps.

One leap for media will be mobile.

The other leap will be to the living room.

For the next step in revolutionizing media we need piece of software that is Mosaic or Firefox of the internet for media for the TV.

Boxee is the first thing I've seen that *may* very well fit that bill.