Qualcomm Atheros' Skifta Kicking Off the Connected Home Trend
1/24/2012 by: Anshel Sag
Qualcomm Atheros' Android app known as Skifta is billed as a media shifting platform for entertainment driven consumer electronics. So, basically a platform for moving your content for almost all consumer electronics today. The app's actual motto is 'May your stuff be with you' which we find kind of amusing and yet very concise.
The application itself has been available for quite some time on the Android Market, but up until now there hasn't been much in terms of development for Skifta. Now, though, QA is introducing a wireless adapter development kit as a first component of this platform. This adapter is designed to help manufacturers offer consumers a way to retrofit their non-DNLA and non-UPnP devices to their home networks in order to enable Skifta usage.
How Skifta works is pretty simple. You download the application onto your Android phone or tablet and simply connect to your WiFi network or 3G and select a source of the media content. This media content can be music, videos or pictures and can essentially be played almost instantly on any device inside the selected home network. This is enabled through DLNA and UPnP which enable you to easily stream media to and from certain devices which have DLNA and UPnP functionality built into them. These devices are generally internet connected or at least connected to your home network.
Skifta also has the functionality of enabling remote media playing through 3G/4G connectivity. This is the part that really makes Skifta useful for many users and may likely make it a much more powerful app in the future with more 4G devices and networks coming online this year.
This feature in conjunction with the channels feature of Skifta really could make Skifta the de-facto media accessing app on the Android marketplace. They also plan on adding apps like Pandora and Spotify into their already existing channels like Facebook, Flickr and ShoutCast among many others.
Right now, though, there are a lot of applications, like Polkast, out there trying to do the same thing as Skifta and there will likely continue to be until someone grabs hold of the market or if Google simply undercuts everyone by integrating one of these apps into Android itself. Some apps do require to have a server client running on your computer at home, but Skifta also requires those devices to be powered on in order for their content to be played back remotely. Skifta does offer a server option for your computer as well in the event that your computer doesn't quite work right with the app or you don't know how to configure it correctly.
Dan Rabinovitsj, SVP & GM of the Networking Business Unit, indicated to us that Skifta will likely find its way into the iOS market as well, enabling both Android and iOS users to easily access and play back their media to anywhere from anywhere.
He also told us that Qualcomm Atheros plans on offering a Pro version of Skifta with even more expanded functionality while keeping the free version still free in its current state.
Tags:
Qualcomm, QCOM, Atheros, Qualcomm Atheros, Skifta, Android, Google, GOOG, Android app, Skifta App, Google Market, Media Streaming, Cloud Streaming, Cloud Video, DLNA, QA, UPnP, 3G Stream, 4G Stream, LTE, LTE Streaming, Polkast,
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