Details around the deal are limited, but here is what we know.

1. Verizon will own 65 percent of the joint venture while Coinstar, Redbox’s parent company, will own 35 percent.
2. The service will offer something Netflix currently doesn’t — a download option, which makes it more competitive with Amazon’s video offerings.
3. The offering will be available nationwide, not merely to Verizon customers.
4. Using Redbox helps the joint venture get access to new releases as content companies are trying to add more “windows” to the movie release process. Windowing is what content companies use to spread out the time between a movie released in theaters, when it hits rentals stores and when it makes its way to other services such as premium TV channels. The general thinking is this increases profits for each movie, but opinion is divided on that, and consumers hate it.
5. Verizon is counting on its existing relationship as a pay TV provider to get more content to the joint venture.
6. Whatever the end product looks like, it will launch in the second half of this year.

Given these facts, as scant as they are, it’s easy to see the threat to Netflix, as people could view the two offerings as fairly interchangeable as long as the pricing is competitive and the content is relatively equal. But without knowing about pricing or the content, the deal still has the potential to be a win for Verizon, given video is huge bandwidth suck on wireline and wireless networks. Netflix traffic was estimated to take up 20 percent of U.S. broadband traffic during peak hours according to Sandvine in the fall of 2010.

For Verizon, a streaming joint venture has three benefits. One, if it makes money from the service, that’s an additional revenue stream as well as a way to capture some value from its customers who cut the cord. Two, if the service can really deliver a video product that consumers love and will use, it will help drive traffic across Verizon’s networks. Customers in the FiOS areas will have a reason to sign up for the service if they haven’t already, while the joint venture will help drive traffic to mobile devices and other areas of the country. Verizon has a business selling bandwidth on 100 gigabit per second backbone pipes as well as leasing its fiber to cell phone providers to use as mobile backhaul.

Finally the joint venture gives Verizon a seat at the table with content companies as the industry tries to find new economic models based on the reality of an IP infrastructure that can deliver any content to anyone, anywhere. Sure, content companies are fighting the future with windowing and complicated rights agreements, while ISPs are trying to protect their business with broadband caps, but the future is coming, and Verizon is trying to get in on the ground floor rather than watch it pass it by.

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LG’s triple SIM A290: the phone every Russian Casanova needs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week was packed with news on the mobile front, so it was easy to miss a few stories here and there. Here’s some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of wireless for the week of December 5, 2011:

• C Spire announced this week that it’s launching the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. The device is currently available for purchase for with a two-year commitment and after a mail-in rebate. [AndroidCentral]
• Images and specs of Philips’ first Android device, the W920, surfaced this week, and its spec sheet doesn’t look very good: Froyo, a 1GHz Qualcomm QSD8250 CPU, 512MB of RAM, a 4.3-inch WVGA display, a 5MP camera, 10.5mm thin frame and it has a 1,280mAh battery. The fun part is the rumored price tag: £400 (7). [LandofDroid]
• Ting is a new Sprint MVNO that’ll launch mid-2012. It’ll be prepaid and use a bump-up and bump-down model for pricing — in other words, going over your minutes will just bump you into the next higher plan, while using fewer minutes can bump you to a lower plan. [Cnet]
• Another prepaid provider in the news this week is PrepaYd Wireless, which launched this week. It offers a “Y Pay More” plan that will give you unlimited talk, text and 3G data for per month. If you don’t need data, you can get all-you-can-eat talk and text for . Much like Ting, PrepaYd Wireless utilizes the Sprint network. [MobileTechNews]
• If you use a BlackBerry OS 7 device on AT&T, the carrier is offering you two free months of BBM Music. Normally you need to pay a month to store 50 songs. [Crackberry]
• While we’re on the subject of BlackBerry phones, Twitter for BlackBerry just got updated to version 2.1 and now offers multi-account support. In addition to being able to view up to five accounts in the same feed, it also includes the ability to tweet one thing to more than one account simultaneously. [BlackBerry]
• Pandora and Windows Phone may never mix well, but at least the radio service can be enjoyed now through an unofficial Pandora app called MetroRadio. It’s free, and is finally available in the Windows Phone Marketplace. [WPCentral]

Mobile Miscellany: week of December 5, 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Dec 2011 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Sprint rides the Express to Budget Town, available now for

Sprint rides the Express to Budget Town, available now for originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Nov 2011 05:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Nokia made it known that the Meego-running N9 wouldn’t be making any official tour to the US, the sound of crushed dreams could be faintly heard in households across the nation. Would the newly-announced Lumia series suffer the same fate somehow? Might Uncle Sam’s invitation to the family BBQ get lost in the mail a second straight time? Thanks to Nokia’s US website, we know that at least one of the two Windows Phones will leave Espoo and land somewhere between sea and shining sea, as the budget-conscious Lumia 710 appears front and center on the OEM’s home page while the 800 is nowhere to be found. We’re not giving up just yet — if absence makes the heart grow fonder, we don’t want to get enamored with the AWOL phone this fast.

Lumia 710 makes an appearance on Nokia’s US site without its Windows Phone counterpart originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 00:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now, Palo Alto, CA-based Pageonce is adding the feature, helping the app fulfill its aspirations to become more of a digital wallet for users. But that comes at a price: .99 a month for the bill pay service on Pageonce’s iPhone and Android apps.

With Pageonce, users will now be able to view credit card, utility, cell phone, rent and other bills and easily pay them from the app using various funding sources. Users can pay from bank accounts or credit cards, decide how much they want to pay and then get a confirmation for the transaction.

Pageonce is betting that people will be willing to pay for the convenience of settling all their bills from one app. Currently, almost half of consumers pay their bills in person or by mail and a quarter of payments are made at the individual sites of billers, said Steve Schultz, chief operating officer at Pageonce. He said providing a one-stop resource should prove appealing to consumers, especially the ability to pay not just from one bank account, which many banking apps allow, but also from multiple banking accounts and credit cards. Schultz said Pageonce is also unique in that it provides a much fuller look at bills through a mobile app so users can get more information on their charges before deciding to pay.

“We think it’s time to take the app to the next level and really enable people to do their finances, not just view them from a phone,” Schultz said. “Most people think of bill pay as a chore. Here you can pay it on the fly on public transit or on your down time. The goal is to make bill pay less stressful so people can move on with rest of their lives.”

Pageonce has done a lot of work on the back end to enable mobile bill payments and has also worked on security to ensure payments are safe and meets bank requirements. Users can lock their app with a PIN, designate access from only one mobile device and block mobile access from the web if a device is stolen or lost.

I’m not sure how popular the .99 fee will be with users, who are already getting hit up for more fees from banks. But Schultz said Pageonce will tinker with the pricing to see what’s popular. He said 1,000 users participated in a beta and 96 percent of users surveyed said they wanted mobile bill pay. And, 34 percent said they were willing to pay to monthly for the service.

If Pageonce can get mobile bill pay right, it will be another sign of momentum for the service, which competes against Mint and newer competitor Manilla. The company has raised million including million in May led by Morgenthaler Ventures. And it will show that more mobile centric services can thrive by providing valuable tools to mobile users.

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Apple confirms iCloud web apps, impending death of iWeb and iDisk originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gmail is the no-cost email service from Google. Gmail provides over 7.5GB of storage. In addition, Gmail gives you Google-style searching of messages, and the ability to group your messages by conversation, or view them chronologically. Gmail has a reputation as a quality service and one of the most popular in the world.

As I mentioned already, Gmail is free. The service is ad-supported, but by using the Gmail Outlook connection we’re talking about here you’ll never be exposed to those ads. Who could ask for more?

Another great thing about using Gmail is that it works with Outlook without requiring any additional fees. Unlike some other services, you don’t need to pay a monthly or yearly fee to be able to see your Gmail in Outlook.

And you can rely on your Gmail account. I’ve been using Gmail accounts, including ones connected to Outlook, for years now, with no significant issues at all. The mail comes in, the mail goes out. Everything works just as you would expect it to, with no unexplained outages or lost messages like some other services are know for.

To summarize, Gmail is a great service and works great with Outlook. Now all you need is the linked instructions that show you exactly how to configure the Outlook To Gmail connection.

Yahoo is the latest in a line of would-be champions to try to topple king Gmail from its perch atop the email mountain. The company’s newest Mail Beta (no relation to Gmail Beta) was introduced last October, but now its overhauled UI and fresh features are available to all. With the change comes quicker load times, stronger spam filtration, and it lets you send and receive Facebook updates and tweets. It also automatically turns picture and video links into thumbnail previews and handles up to 100MB attachments. These fancy new features are certainly a step in the right direction (even if the purple paintjob isn’t), but time will tell if it’ll rule the webmail world.

Yahoo upgrades its email for everyone, puts Facebook updates and tweets in your inbox originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 May 2011 06:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Flight Simulator Download

Among the list of undeniably fantastic things about a flight simulator download is the fact that you can access it straight away. No need to wait on a DVD that you need to order arrive in the mail, or take a trip to a retail outlet. Quite often, whenever you download games directly to your computer or laptop they’re less costly as well.

No need to worry about installation either. A few simple clicks of your mouse button and the software downloads itself. A young boy or girl could very easily get it done. Top quality software package providers will even offer comprehensive support if you happen to experience any kinds of glitches or problems.

Think of being in the seat of an F-18a fighter jet. Or maybe you wish to fly the Boeing Jumbo jet from LaGuardia Airport to Heathrow international Airport. A few of the high end flight simulators also allow you to navigate other varieties of aircraft like choppers, zeppelins as well as the space shuttle.

You’ll be encountering true to life climate conditions including thunderstorms, thick cloud cover, haze and vivid sunshine. Additionally, you will be traveling by air at all times of the day and the nighttime including sundown and dawn. Of course, the more genuine the experience, the more satisfaction you are able to get from it.

It is crucial that you make sure that your laptop or computer is up to date and can very easily cope with the simulator’s graphics and the sound requirements of the flight simulator download. If you have a relatively new computer, it really should not be an issue whatsoever.

Some software packages are so state-of-the-art that they will have multiplayer capabilities. Which means you are able to engage in dogfights with state-of-the-art military aircraft. Think about flying around in a World War I Sopwith Camel, or a World War II Messerschmitt.

It’s also possible to take off and land in and out of a large number of airfields around the globe. You have the green light for takeoff around the globe. This means you are able to fly straight into international airfields like Hartsfield, and small airstrips tucked away on rural landscapes and in communities.

In the end, of course, it is essential that you determine precisely what you’re looking for in a flight simulation program. This way you’ll know which flight simulator download is right for you.