--Also Adds New Capabilities to the FiOS TV Media Manager
In a posting on a corporate blog, Wednesday, Verizon's director of external communications, Bobbi Henson, announced that the company's FiOS TV service has replaced its existing Headline News interactive TV widget with a new widget featuring content from the Associated Press (AP).
"When you activate the AP Widget, you can scan a variety of types of news stories on one part of your screen, while keeping your TV show in view," Henson wrote. "Using the left/right arrows on the FiOS TV remote, you can choose from eight news categories: World, US, Business, Travel, Science & Technology, Health, Entertainment and Sports. Once you click on a category, just scroll through the stories and start reading. Want photojournalism? Press the 'C' button on the remote, and photos associated with news articles will appear. View one photo or scroll through an entire slide show."
In other Verizon news: The company announced a free software upgrade to its Media Manager service, Wednesday, which it bills as giving FiOS TV DVR users "more ways to easily enjoy personal photos, music and videos whenever they want" on multiple devices, including TV's, PC's and Verizon Wireless V CAST phones.
The Media Manager service, which is available to all FiOS TV DVR customers, allows users to wirelessly stream personal photos, music and videos from their computer to their TV set, as well as access broadband video from blip.tv, Dailymotion and Veoh on their TV. It also provides an interface that lets users store, organize, access and manipulate their digital media on their home computers or laptops. According to Verizon, new features made possible by the Media Manager software update (which rolled out Wednesday) include:
- The ability for customers to connect any portable media player in Media Transport Protocol (MTP) mode to their PC, and use the Media Manager interface to send digital music from the PC to their home entertainment system.
- The ability for customers to transfer music from their PC to a V CAST-enabled Verizon Wireless handset by right-clicking on the song and selecting "Save to Device."
- The ability for customers to download and upload digital media back and forth between their PC and any removable mass-storage device, such as a flash drive. According to Verizon, this feature makes exporting and importing music, photos and videos easy. In addition, the company says, customers can stream media from the mass-storage device to their TV set via Media Manager.
- The ability for customers to edit photos via the Media Manager interface. According to Verizon, they can sharpen a photo, turn it into a black-and-while version, and tag it with "just a few clicks of the mouse," and can also choose to undo the most recent edit, save changes or reset to the original photo.
