Having been a fan in the past of Apple devices I have enjoyed AirPlay® for streaming music from my Iphone®  music player.

However as the Melody Pods’ Android music player has been in my hands a lot recently I have begun to realise connecting an Android music player to a sound system over wifi isn’t so straight forward.

Some Android devices are enabled for Wi Fi Direct® but the DLNA® standard for locating and pairing with other DLNA devices is left for the app itself to develop whereas in Apple devices this is available to all apps from the OS itself.

So for now, Melody Pods will be recommending Bluetooth for wireless communication with sound systems whilst we are underway in developing our DLNA connectivity.

So what is Wi Fi Direct?

Well, as it states here, “Wi-Fi Direct is a certification by the Wi-Fi Alliance® for products that are capable of device-to-device connections without the presence of a traditional home, office or hotspot network.”

So that means you dont rely on your Wi Fi hub and any other connected hubs / bridges to connect your devices to, to communicate. You simply need two DLNA® compatible devices within wifi signal range to then see and connect to each other to then start to stream between the two. Of course this makes things a lot simpler for the small business.

What is DLNA?

WikiPedia states, “The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) is a non-profit collaborative trade organization established by Sony in June 2003, that is responsible for defining interoperability guidelines to enable sharing of digital media between multimedia devices.”

The DLNA have encorporated Wi Fi Direct into its standards so you know that if a device is certified for DLNA interoperating you can now use Wi Fi Direct and so avoid your possibly congested broadband hub and office or free customer wi fi network.

What about my security?

With Wi Fi Protected Setup you will have things covered with industry standard protection, but also, because these technologies are point to point, just like Bluetooth, you aren’t necessarily connecting yourself to an Internet connected network.

Summary

We think there is more development in the core Android OS still to come to support media playing across wifi networks including peer to peer (i.e. no hub) networking that will bring new adtvatages in terms of reliability and simplicity to playing background music in your business using Melody Pods with Android and DLNA technologies. Whilst this progresses we still think Bluetooth is the best wireless technology for simple wireless transmission and receiving of music as it doesnt get affected by more dynamic traffic orientated business wifi networks.
Melody Pods; simple, affordable great background music in your business.

Alibaba steps up battle with Android

Alibaba seeks to weaken Google’s dominance of the Chinese smartphone market with subsidies and other support for its rival Amos operating system.

Read more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22165960

Today is the 40th anniversary of the mobile phone. For many of us, the past 15 or so years have been a close developing relationship between our life and word styles and the mobile phone so there doesn’t seem to be much point in repeating a history that sounds similar to perhaps your own over this time.

For my part I recall the mid 90’s when only a few mobiles were in use. On a delayed train I had the pleasure of handing my phone to my fellow commuters so they could contact their loved ones to let them know they would be late. It was clear to me at that time the mobile phone was meant to be a little reliable machine that everyone could have in some shape or form, not just those who’s job or industry enabled.

Today the phones we see go far further than many of us could have imagined in those days. As a telecoms entrepreneur I struggled to see the value of those little LCD screens and how, with some development, they would be enabled with fun games. I struggled to see the business value.

But once the Iphone came along, even I could see what a massive change to our lives this would mean. The tip of the iceberg provided so many opportunities to provide innovation that in my opinion had been partly stifled with the more inflexible operating systems up to that point. The ability to select and download apps made by engineers in their bedrooms for a few cents but selling in their many thousands,  apps with an ever increasing wide range of business and consumer uses with the hardware, in essence a smart connected pocket computer,  is no short of a revolution in technology.

So of course, Melody Pods is here today to add its own slant on the benefit of smartphones and their ability to create better ways for businesses to work.

I wonder what the next forty years has in store for us.