Currently most online video services have a sort of hunt-and-peck approach to finding things you might want to watch. You pick a video, watch it and then when it’s done you have to hunt down something else that might be of interest. But the latest version of Remixation’s Showyou app attempts to simplify the discovery process by making discovering new videos easier and more enjoyable.

The latest version of Showyou includes new ways to navigate content by category or by the social network that they’re pulled in from. There’s also a way for users to search and see all content curated by hashtag on Showyou and via Twitter. Finally, the update provides more information about others that you follow and gives you the ability to see what they’ve been sharing b clicking on a user’s avatar.

The trick to what makes Showyou work is that videos play in-line, without users having to exit the app. That reduces the amount of time it takes between finding videos, and there’s always something interesting being shared in the grid. Showyou displays videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Break Media, some Viacom shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, as well as videos from The Verge, TED and other Internet publishers. Altogether, the Showyou app pulls in about 5 million videos a day, according to Remixation CEO Mark Hall, or about 150 to 200 each second during peak times.

That’s led to huge amounts of user engagement for its users. While session times on most video sites typically run less than 10 minutes, Showyou users watch about 35 to 40 minutes of video whenever they open the app, or about eight videos per session on average. Online video needs better discovery mechanisms for users, and apps like Showyou are helping to increase viewership and keep users tuned in.

(Disclosure: Remixation is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.)

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It looks like FRIDA and friends are about ready to get comfy over at Foxconn. Following the company’s August announcement that it would infiltrate its ranks with one million robots in the next three years, Focus Taiwan is reporting that the manufacturer’s parent company, Hon Hai, is moving forward on its plans to build an “intelligent robotics kingdom” in the Central Taiwan Science Park. Chairman Terry Gou reportedly signed a letter of intent with Taichung mayor Jason Hu last Saturday, confirming its plans to erect a plant dedicated to the production of robots and automation equipment. That robo-mecca is expected to draw some serious scratch, with an estimated production-value boost of NT0 billion (about billion) and the creation of 2,000 jobs. How many of those positions will be filled by headless automatons remains to be seen.

Foxconn chairman signs letter of intent for ‘intelligent robot kingdom,’ we cower in fear originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A German court has temporarily lifted a restriction today that was preventing Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 from being sold throughout most of Europe. The initial sales injunction was enacted last week because of a suit filed by Apple, which claimed that Samsung’s tablet was essentially a copycat to Apple’s successful iPad tablet.

According to Dutch site Webwereld, the Dusseldorf District Court has issued an interim statement allowing Samsung to again sell the Galaxy Tab throughout the EU nations, with the exception of Germany. The German court will have formal hearing on August 25, at which time, the sales injunction could return.

The timing of this news coincides with some interesting news making the rounds yesterday regarding Apple’s court filings. Again it was the Webwereld site with news; this time suggesting that Apple misled the courts by offering altered images of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. In the filed documents, the pictures of both the iPad and Galaxy Tab appear to be the same size. In reality, the Galaxy Tab uses a different sized screen and aspect ratio than Apple’s tablet.

However, the temporary lifting of the sales injunction appears more likely to do with the court’s jurisdiction and the two actual entities that Apple named in the suit. According to Florian Mueller’s FOSS blog, the two are Samsung’s German subsidiary and the actual parent company, Samsung, which is based in South Korea. Mueller suggests that the German court can only enforce injunctions against the local subsidiary, which may not carry over to all other EU countries, and not against Samsung itself.

The German court filings follow Apple’s efforts to hold up Galaxy Tab sales in Australia, claiming that Samsung’s tablet violates 10 of Apple’s patents. The Galaxy Tab is still unavailable in Australia, although that’s due to an agreement between Apple and Samsung, but at least most in Europe can purchase it for at least the next 10 days.

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Online video rental store Vudu has seen massive growth lately, driven mostly by getting embedded on an ever-growing number of connected TVs and other devices. But the streaming video on demand service is about to get a big boost, as it’s being integrated with the website of parent company Walmart, potentially introducing millions of shoppers to the joy of online video.

It’s been about 18 months since Walmart bought Vudu, but as demand for physical media declines, the big box retailer is finally marrying the online video service with its website. By doing so, it’s hoping to introduce its customers to a new way of watching movies and getting them to spend money on digital copies instead of buying the DVD.

Steve Nave, SVP and general manager of Walmart.com, said the decision to buy Vudu was made as the retailer realized that there was a rapid shift in consumer behavior from purchasing physical media to streaming content online. The acquisition was made to help better position Walmart and its web property as this shift occurred.

The result of that purchase can now be seen at Walmart.com. Users shopping online for DVDs and Blu-ray discs on the site will now also have the option of buying or renting digital copies of titles that are available as part of the Vudu streaming library. Once purchased, those movies can then be accessed either through the Walmart website, Vudu.com or on any of the 300-plus connected devices that the Vudu streaming service is available on.

The move to add the service to Walmart.com comes just a few months after Vudu introduced its own browser-based streaming option. But it’s not just the Vudu service on a Walmart URL: The integration keeps the same look and feel of the retailer’s website, while introducing a wide new range of streaming content. Existing Walmart.com customers will be able to link their accounts with the Vudu service and seamlessly purchase movie titles without having to switch logins or change sites.

Now for the bad news: For those that want to stream videos in HD, they’ll have to watch the movie on one of Vudu’s supported devices. The Walmart.com site, along with Vudu.com, only stream videos in standard definition. While many purists will only want the highest quality video, for many Walmart shoppers new to streaming movies online, that might not be a big deal.

Adding the Vudu service to its website also comes as the retailer is experimenting with new ways to get its users to try out the service. That includes the introduction of new digital movie cards that users can purchase from Walmart stores and use to redeem streaming movies later. The company has also been working with Hollywood studios to enable customers to buy a physical copy of a DVD and be able to stream it from Vudu on supported devices.

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Is there a tech bubble or, is it really a boom? Ask a thousand people and you are going to get a thousand answers. In,fact — as noted investor & commentator Paul Kedrosky points out — there is a bubble in bubble-oriented commentary. For our part, we thought it was best to talk to survivors of the last bubble and learn from them — what they did they right and how they made it through the storm. If you missed it, try catching up via our mega-post: How to survive the next bubble.

The debate still hasn’t stopped. And to give you some sort of a historical perspective on the last Internet bubble/boom and the current bubble/boom, Fee Fighters and Kissmetrics created this infographic:

Infographic courtesy of FeeFighters & Kissmetrics

(Disclosure: Kissmetrics is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.)

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Did last week’s rumors of a T-Mobile merger with Sprint leave you wondering what color you’d get if you mixed magenta with yellow? T-Mo CEO Philipp Humm has stopped short of digging out his mixing tool to show you, but neither is he denying that such a mix-up could happen. His memo, sent to company employees and summarily leaked to the world, says that parent company Deutsche Telekom “will always explore options for maximizing the value of its portfolio and profits.” However, he doesn’t indicate exactly which avenues DT is exploring to find those profits.

T-Mobile CEO Philipp Humm issues non-denying non-confirmation of Sprint buyout discussions originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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