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Fringe

Five great Android Wi-Fi calling apps

There are many reasons to enjoy Wi-Fi calling, from starting video chats with family far and wide, to giving your old phone a new lease on life as a Wi-Fi-only device in little Johnny's hands. However you want to use it, you still need to know which apps are best.

There are quite a few companies battling it out in the data-calling space, each of which has its own benefits and drawbacks. Some offer voice-only calling, while others allow for video calls, photo transfer, and group chat.

Select apps share the love with other services, but others prefer to … Read more

Fring your friends

Fring joins the long line of iOS apps using VoIP technology to connect you and your friends through video calls, voice calls, and chat. This free app is a no-brainer to set up, and even beginners will understand how the app works without reading any Help files or watching tutorials. Despite its ease of use, we weren't impressed by the video or voice quality.

Fring's user interface is very intuitive because it's based on our everyday use of the phone. We liked the idea of having video calls with multiple friends simultaneously using Fring's Group Video … Read more

Fringe benefits to Amazon Prime

Streaming you the top Friday headlines with the latest in 2D technology:

Amazon scored a licensing deal with Warner Bros. to offer more shows for Prime streaming, including West Wing and Fringe. Amazon Prime continues to step up the competition with Netflix. Prime costs $79 a year, which works out to be less than a year's subscription of Netflix.

The fight between Viacom and DirecTV is finally over. The 20 million subscribers of DirecTV can now access 17 Viacom channels, including MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. On July 10, DirecTV turned off 26 Viacom channels over a payment dispute … Read more

Amazon's streaming exclusive on 'Fringe' won't last long

Amazon managers announced today that they have cut an "exclusive" deal for TV shows, such as "Fringe" and "West Wing."

But there are exclusive deals and then there are exclusive deals.

Amazon's licensing agreement with Warner Bros. Television for a menu of shows that also includes "Dark Blue," "Alcatraz," and "The Whole Truth," is exclusive only through the remainder of the summer, according to one of Amazon's representatives. These types of licensing deals have typically covered longer terms, though my film-industry sources say it's not … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1457: PlayStation Network hack: This is bad, man. (Podcast)

Sony comes clean about six days after its network "intrusion" and admits that its hack attack actually led to the reveal of tens of millions of usernames, addresses, dates of birth, and maybe even passwords, security questions, and credit card numbers. So, that's a pretty bad day over at Sony. Also, Apple "comes clean" on its location data tracking, claiming that it's not happening, and even if it is happening, it's not that accurate, and even if it is that accurate, it's just so they can serve you better iAds. Wait, what?

Subscribe:  iTunes (MP3) |  iTunes (320x180) |  iTunes (640x360) |  RSS (MP3) |  RSS (320x180) |  RSS (640x360)… Read more

Android Atlas Weekly 43: Google cracks down to be more open (Podcast)

Google cracks down on fragmentation, but does doing so put the Android Open Source Project's openness in jeopardy? First an app store, then a cloud streaming service, and now is Amazon planning an Android-based phone? What podcatching app do you use on your Android phone? We have the answers to all of these questions, plus Antuan tries to name as many popular Android devices as quickly as he can in this week's episode of Android Atlas Weekly with Justin Eckhouse and Antuan Goodwin.

Subscribe:  iTunes (MP3) |  iTunes (320x180) |  iTunes (640x360) |  RSS (MP3) |  RSS (320x180) |&… Read more

Fring for Android, iPhone getting group video chats

With more and more smartphones and tablets getting front-facing cameras these days, video chatting is on the forefront. VoIP company Fring, like rival OoVoo, is making group calling its next step.

The latest beta update to Fring, available today, will let you chat with up to four participants who also use Fring on an Android phone or iPhone.

On the preview we got ahead of the launch, the app was rough around the edges at this beta stage. For instance, the version we played with works in portrait mode, not landscape. We'd also like to see a more polished … Read more

Fring revs up VoIP calling competition with SkypeOut-like FringOut

VoIP company Fring has found yet another way to compete with Skype. Fring, which specializes in mobile VoIP-plus-chat apps, today announced FringOut, a calling service that lets you use your Fring app to place outbound calls to non-Fring users on their landline or mobile phones.

While Fring boasts calls starting at 1 cent per minute (Euros), we noticed a couple of caveats after wading through Fring's calling rates. Most FringOut calls cost significantly more than one cent per minute in any currency, and costs can spike for a number of reasons. Calls to mobile phone typically cost much more … Read more