The BlackBerry app is more text-centric, while the iPhone places more emphasis on the video and photo features.

According to Chris Ahearn, Thomson Reuters’ president of media, the free iPhone app is targeted to all business professionals, not just financial or specific topics consumers. It’s the reason behind video and photo features’ emphasis for iPhone.

[via paidContent]

You can browse by country and region, then view, zoom, and follow and email newspaper links as well as open newspapers up in the full Safari Mobile browser.

Available in these editions:

• World Newspapers includes all editions
• Newspapers United States
• Newspapers Europe
• News of the Americas
• Middle East News
• Newspapers Africa
• Newspapers Asia

Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch (requires iPhone 2.0 software update), you can grab The World Newspapers for $2.99 or specific region version for $0.99.

[via IntoMobile]

MediaCorp’s vice-president for E-News and Interactive Media News, Yeo Hock Lin, said: “It’s so easy to whip out a mobile device the size of your palm as opposed to flipping up a laptop, open it and get it connected. It’s really an extension of the website into the mobile space.

Users can view video on Singapore news,  Asia, World, Business and Sport news updates and browse Photos for a quick, visual news summary. It’s reported that the Channel NewsAsia App [iTunes link] is among the top three most downloaded applications since it was launched on Sunday.

[via CNA]

Now thanks to the iFlyz you can rest easy with your media player in a fixed position wherever you are. The device actually looks like a portable hands off car mount with a very small patented suction cup rather than a huge rack to hold the device.  The bottom of the rig has a clamp that can attach to a desk, counter, coffee table, you name it. Bend and shape it to just the right position so you wont have to be hunched over to view your media.

Though this mount doesn’t appear to be compatible with devices that have a rough texture, it does claim to be iPod friendly so smooth surfaces should be no problem. Best part is this will only cost you $30 when car mounts cast a great deal extra.

[Via iFlyz]

Using dTunes is very simple, just search for the song or artist you wish to listen to and select the option you wish to download or stream to your iPhone. All your downloaded items are saved directly to your iPhone and displayed in the home screen. One drawback that we have noticed is the inability to load music directly to the dTunes library. Files are stored in the /var/mobile/Library/Downloads folder.

After downloading or streaming media to your iPhone you can play it via the media player within dTunes. One feature that we love about dTunes is the ability to play music in the background while doing other things such as reading email. The default music download site is Seeqpod.com, and for video it is tinytube.net.  Torrents are downloaded through a sign up service called iTorrentReplay. dTunes also gives you the option to dim the screen while playing music with the press of a button, no more waiting for the screen to time out to save power. dTunes is currently ad funded, the ads however do not seem to get in the way.

Overall this application works really well for users who would like to listen to music that is not currently loaded on their iPhone. There have been times that we have opened up YouTube and searched for songs to listen to because our music library had gotten old. The only catch is, you must have a jailbroken iPhone in order to download dTunes. Apple has not approved this application because it duplicates a current iPhone feature.

“We’re looking at the whole landscape, of what people use, and what’s out there in the home” AT&T Chief Technology Officer John Donovan

As well as more straightforward features such as programming shows to record and using the iPhone as a wireless remote, updates to allow iPhone voicemails to be managed and controlled through the U-verse interface are also being considered.  Bizarrely, viewers may also be able to “virtually” hurl tomatoes at their screen, via the iPhone.

AT&T have not released a definite roadmap for the functionality, but has confirmed that some of the features will be available by the end of the year.

“If you look at studies about MP3 players, especially leading MP3 players and what portion of that content is pirated, and think about how that content gets onto that device, it has to go through a gatekeeping piece of software, which would be a convenient place to put some antipiracy measures.  One of the big issues for NBC is piracy. We are financially harmed every day by piracy. It results in us not being able to invest as much money in the next generation of film and TV products” George Kliavkoff, chief digital officer, NBC

While NBC Universal’s film arm distributes through iTunes, currently the only legal way for users to view TV content online is via the Hulu service.  Described as a YouTube for professionally produced video – together with the anti-piracy measures such producers demand – Hulu currently lacks any download or mobile device use.  Since iTunes is the largest music retailer in the US, Kliavkoff’s comments seem obviously aimed at Apple.

NBC and Apple have disagreed over the way wholesale and retail pricing is arrived at.  NBC are looking to set their own wholesale price, from which point they say retailers are free to mark it up, to make profit, or mark it down and use it as a loss-leader.  However Apple are apparently trying to set both the price they sell content at and the price they buy it, passing the loss-leader mark-down on to NBC.  The network pulled its TV shows from iTunes in December last year.

Developed by drunknbass, uShow allows you to record and playback video footage, save or email it, or upload it to a number of video sharing sites.  So far they’re claiming compatibility with YouTube, Flickr Video, facebook, MySpace Video, friendster, metacafe and photobucket.  Everything follows the chubby-finger-friendly GUI iPhone users are used to.

There are even higher-end features like on-screen timestamps and framing guides.  A menu of audio and video compression options should make tweaking file sizes straightforward to.  There’s no suggestion of when uShow will be generally released, but they’ll be re-opening beta registration on April 20th.

[via Just Another iPhone Blog]

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=9FfllgnS4WA[/youtube]

The second video is even more cool: it shows how BD Touch could enabled Blu-Ray disc makers to put a digital copy of their media onto your iPhone or iPod Touch via WiFi, all with a straightforward interface and no need to get your hands dirty ripping the film with software:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=Efker1SGwdY[/youtube]

NetBlender are offering their BD Touch SDKs as free downloads for developers to put compatible content onto discs and to create iPhone applications that are compatible with Blu-Ray media, opening up the possibility of films having free iPhone games and other apps, available through Apple’s AppStore, available to coincide with the in-store film release.

So why is this important, if you can’t see the difference?  As Ars Technica explain, it’s all about optimising your video library for playback on multiple devices:

“[It] can be [useful] if you want the same files to be playable the mobile device and on the computer screen or TV. If you are interested in experimenting yourself, don’t forget to stick to baseline H.264 encoding and remember that these files will not play on older generation iPods”Iljitsch van Beijnum, Ars Technica

The upside is that movies bought from the iTunes store are actually being delivered in higher resolution than you might expect, given Apple’s quoted compatibility for the iPhone; Iljitsch found his copy of Punch-Drunk Love came in at 853 x 366, which would look far better through, say, an Apple TV than a 640 x 480 version might.

[via Gizmodo]

Mr Zucker appears to have patched up relations with Apple after a pricing dispute last year led NBC to pull its shows from the iTunes digital media store. “We’ve said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple,” he said. “We’re great fans of Steve Jobs.” Financial Times

The suspicion is now that NBC used the disagreement in part as a negotiating tactic, attempting to pressure Apple into relinquishing control of media prices into their own hands.  Steve Jobs’ recent announcement of partnerships with the major movie studios, however, may have suggested to NBC that the company was not as dependent on their TV downloads as assumed; while NBC’s content did make up 1,500hrs of media and it was Apple’s largest digital video partner, movie downloads and rentals have been received with far greater excitement.

[via TechCrunch]

Check out the video of the Orb iPhone interface in action, after the cut

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fi23xSxFcE[/youtube]

The use of MP4 means that Orb can work around Apple’s limitation of the RTSP mobile streaming protocol; users install a broadcast client on their home computer, select media to share, and then log in remotely on the iPhone’s browser.  There’s no Jailbreak required, and although live TV is unlikely to be compatible (as it is on, say, a laptop using the service) Orb automatically adjusts the media quality to fit it through whichever data pipe you’re using, EDGE or WiFi.

[via Apple-Touch.com]

Right now there is not a way to play back your downloaded files on the iPhone, but Erica Sadun has come up with a mod to play back MP3′s, video, or share the files via email. Not sure if this works yet, but it’s an excellent idea on the part of the iPhone dev team. Now it should be pretty easy to make a small media player replicating the iPod app to play back downloaded MP3′s.

[Via TUAW]

Sequencing could allow you to create a number of loops and switch over to create a song, but for now I only see it having one pattern. BPM is also nice, but it’s really not accurate and you have to tap it.

After testing this out a bit, I like where they’re going, but some bugs still need to be worked out. They say it has added multi-touch support, but when I touch two pads at once it plays one after another. I like the project and I hope all of it’s bugs can be worked out, but it’s definitely worth a download. Make sure you’re on Wi-Fi because it’s a 38Mb download.

Of course, streaming is one thing but what about taking downloaded shows with you and watching them on, say, your shiny iPod Touch or iPhone?  Well, it turns out that Highfield is quite the fan of the Touch himself and, while he wouldn’t be pushed on any solid plans for DRM-free media, he did discuss downloads:

“We do want to find a download solution, if at all possible, for Mac users. We do believe the next suite of Adobe Air products will enable us to offer a download solution for Macs and we believe that would be possible at some point during 2008. The point is, I’m not going to be able to commit to it until we’ve got our sticky mitts on it, tried it, tested it, worked out the cost implications” Ashley Highfield, BBC

He goes on to reiterate his expectation that mid-2008 will see a suitable client, as well as discuss the sentiment that the BBC “is not wedded to DRM or any form of DRM. I’m not in bed with Beelzebub.”