CompleteCoverage: CES 2013
AT&T has launched a new $5 a month subscription service
for U-verse subscribers that will allow them to access a library of movies on
demand on their TVs, Uverse.com and via the U-verse app for tablets and mobile
phones.
At launch, Screen Pack will offer movies from such studios
as Sony and MGM, with the telco expecting to add additional movie titles and
ultimately TV programming in the future, noted Maria Dillard, VP of U-verse and
video products, AT&T Home Solutions.
The telco is offering a free preview of the service between
Jan. 7 and 13. The service is currently only being marketed to U-verse
customers. "The goal is to offer them more options for the movies they want,"
she noted, adding that the service would complement the large library of on
demand content they already offer.a
At CES, the telco is holding a developers summit on Jan. 7
and also announced two new apps for the U-verse-enabled apps, Dillard noted.
One app, Twonky Beam, allows user to send a video clip from
a mobile device to the TV set with a swipe of the finger and then view it on
the larger screen.
A separate Pix & Flix app, created in the AT&T Labs,
allows U-verse TV customers with high-speed Internet connections to "throw"
photos stored on a mobile device to their TV, making it easy to view those
images on the big screen.
These two apps join several other U-verse-enabled TV apps
that are available customers with high-speed Internet access. Customers can
connect their apps to any U-verse receiver in the home through channel 9301,
without any special equipment.
Both apps are also an example of the type of innovation that
the telco is trying to encourage at the Jan. 7 Developers Summit in Las Vegas
and its U-verse-enabled apps.
Working with AT&T Labs and the AT&T Foundry,
developers like PacketVideo are able to plug AT&T's technology into their
apps and services through open AT&T's open APIs, significantly speeding up
the pace of development, Dillard noted.
