CinemaNow Allows Movie Rentals Via Cell Phone
For those who really, really like to plan ahead, the Web-based movie service CinemaNow has introduced a mobile feature that allows you to use your Web-enabled cell phone to download movies.
Not to your cell phone, though. No, the service called CinemaNow Mobile allows you to use your phone to download movies to your computer at home, provided that computer has the CinemaNow Media Manager up and running on it. According to the service's FAQ section, "On CinemaNow Mobile you can browse the same CinemaNow video selection, watch trailers, make purchases and have the video download at any of your PC's."
Cool, But is it Practical?
CinemaNow's logic for using the service goes like this:
"Let's say you're at the bus station or at a friend's house, thinking about what to watch tonight when you get back home. Once you bought and sent your video to your home PC via your phone, it will be there for you waiting to be watched when you get back."
Maybe it's just me, but that's one of the last things I'm thinking about at the bus station. And if I was bored enough at a friend's house to be using my phone to order movies to my computer, it's probably time for that friend and I to re-evaluate where we're at as far as friendships go.
At any rate, the ability to watch trailers on your phone is pretty cool but I'd be interested to see how many CinemaNow customers actually use this service to remotely download movies to their PCs. I use CinemaNow every so often to rent movies and they start streaming pretty quickly. You don't have to wait until they're fully downloaded to start watching. This seems like a marginal time-saver at best.
The next frontier will be to download the movies directly to your phone, which CinemaNow's chief operating officer David Cook says we'll likely see sometime next year. In the meantime, the company will be working with wireless carriers to try to get the CinemaNow mobile service integrated into handset menus.
CREDIT - PC World contributor Doug Aamoth
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Regarding Imacs losing their luster blog:
Has M$ lost its luster? Did it ever have one? Was the long overdue wait for Vista a beautiful luster for its product?
With 7 years to research the XP and improve its luster, Vista was a major corrosion in luster for M$!
Why not talk about this degradation rather than Apple shocking the WoW every month with its new refreshments?
Is there a real question regarding ingenuity, productivity, or practicality comparing M$ with Apple?
M$ is trying and hoping to bury Vista with a quick switch to Win 7.0 for amnesia, as the XP bailed out the ME disgrace!
I think the article should focus on the new luster for M$, if there ever was one, not Apple, that continues to really invent electrical wonders; maybe not every refreshment is a WOW, but they have more WoWs than their rival M$!!