An easier way to see your friends’ Facebook Photos/Albums

Why should your friends’ Facebook photos be stuck on Facebook? Free the photos! Get FBPhoto. All your friends’ Facebook photos, all in one place. 

FBPhoto lets you link with your Facebook account and interact with your friends’ photos. View, LIKE, comment, and download the photos onto your iOS device in an instant.

Open FBPhoto, select which friends’ photos you would like to see and interact with, then start viewing, LIKING, and commenting. Scroll through their photos. Download and share the ones you like.

Use other Piddas21 apps, Peershare and RemotePlay, to easily stream the photos to any friend who’s on the same wi-fi network. It’s all seamless and all fun.

Key features include:
. Facebook link allows the viewing and interacting of all Facebook photos
. Download the photos to your own device or stream them to other devices
. Easily sort through different Facebook photo types
. Works on iOS and Android devices

YouTube Introduction Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z93KNZOudw

iOS APP:   https://itunes.apple.com/tw/app/fbphoto/id665787563?mt=8

Android APP: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.piddas21.fbphoto&hl=en

Opening Files Directly into RemotePlay

Today’s technology allows us to store files in many different locations, like Dropbox, SkyDrive, and Google Drive.  That can be convenient, but it also means photos or other files you want to share are not necessarily located on your phone or tablet.  Fortunately, it is easy to open files stored in the cloud directly into RemotePlay.

How?  Many apps like Dropbox and SkyDrive have a feature that allows you to select which application to open your files in.  On iPhone and iPad apps the “open in” button looks like this:

This allows you to choose, for example, whether to edit a Word document in Pages, view it in GoodReader, or share it using RemotePlay.

When you choose to open a document in RemotePlay, the file is automatically loaded in the app and is ready to share.  Ever been a study group and want to quickly stream a file to your groupmates quickly?  Using this “open in” shortcut makes it simple. The file will quickly show up in your RemotePlay app and you’re ready to go!

The screenshots below show you how to do this in a bit more detail.

Opening Files on an iPhone or iPad

In this example we use Dropbox to illustrate how to open and share a file.  First open the Dropbox app and navigate to the file you want to share.  Tap the “open in” button located on the bottom right-hand side of the screen, as shown below.

Then just select “Open In…” and tap the “Open in RemotePlay” button.  This will open the file in RemotePlay, where you can then easily share it with friends or colleagues.

You can use the same steps to open files in any other app that includes the “open in” feature, such as Microsoft SkyDrive, Google Drive, Pages, GoodReader, and many others.

Opening Files on an Android Device

It’s a very similar process  on an Android device. Once you open the Dropbox app (or any of the other apps) and have the desired file on your screen, tap the arrow on the right of the screen and select “more,” as shown below:

You will then have the option to “Export” the file. RemotePlay will be among the applications you can export to.

     

Note: you can skip one of these steps by pressing down directly on the file name of the photo that you’d like, and the third screenshot below will just pop up.

To export an attachment from an email, it’s even easier. Just highlight the attachment in your email and export directly to RemotePlay. From there you can stream it to everyone on your WiFi network or sharing your mobile hotspot.

Give it a try!

Personal Hotspots: A Great Alternative to WiFi

Although many people don’t know it, most new smartphones have a built-in feature called a “mobile hotspot” (on Android) or “personal hotspot” (on the iPhone) that makes it easy to  connect devices.  It allows any other WiFi-enabled device to connect to your phone using a WiFi connection.  This feature is generally used to share a smartphone’s internet connection with a tablet or PC, but it is also a great way to use RemotePlay.  In fact, mobile hot spots can be used even in places where there is no cell service.

After setting up a mobile hotspot on your phone, your friends can connect to your phone just like any other WiFi network.  Once you do this you can use RemotePlay to share files between the devices.  That means you can link up with friends on the go and share photos and videos just like if you were at home or in a coffee shop.  It’s easy to set up, and the performance is great!

For those who are worried about impacting limited data plans, fear not. Using a mobile hotspot on Android or iOS devices doesn’t count against your data plan. So go ahead and share all you want.

How to Setup a Mobile Hotspot on Android Smartphones:

On Android devices, there are two paths to setting up a mobile hotspot. One way is to find the “Mobile Hotspot” applications under your general applications tab. The other is to go to your “Settings” app and find the “Tethering & Mobile Hotspot” tab. Screenshots are posted below.

How to Setup a Personal Hotspot on iPhones (or iPads with cellular capability):

On the iPhone, open “Settings” and select “Personal Hotspot.”  Here you can turn your personal hotspot on or off, and change your hotspot password.  Note that the name of your hotspot is the same as your iPhone name (“Even’s iPhone” in the example below).  Once you have turned on your Personal Hotspot, other devices will be able to see and connect to your iPhone the same way they do with any other Wi-Fi hotspot.  Screenshots are posted below.

A Better Way to Connect Devices

This post takes a closer look at some of the technology that makes RemotePlay such an efficient way to share data.  At the heart of RemotePlay is a piece of software we call our “discovery and presencing protocol.”  This allows devices to quickly find and identify each other when connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

Today, most media sharing software is based on DLNA and Universal Plug-and-Play (UPnP) standards.  These standards are quite complex, designed to handle a wide range of tasks including device discovery, device management, and media management.  The original purpose of DLNA was to connect a few static devices (like a computer and TV) within your own home.  DLNA apps are generally not optimized for mobile-to-mobile device interaction or spontaneous social sharing scenarios like we have in mind for RemotePlay.

For example, when many DLNA devices are connected to the same domain, performance can take a serious hit. Each device must broadcast long messages with lots of data, which can jam the network and lead to data loss.  When you have many smartphones, tablets, and PCs all connecting to the same network it is critical to keep the broadcast messages concise and short.

That is exactly what we have done at Piddas21.  Our approach has been to separate device discovery from media handling.  Our discovery protocol focuses on just one piece of the puzzle: finding and connecting devices.  That allows us to keep our broadcast messages short and concise.  Once the connection has been established, we then use standard HTTP commands to handle media streaming and control.

We also use our protocol to provide enhanced “presence” or status information, such as device type and name.  That is why you can see that Bob has joined the network on his iPhone, or that Jerry is has been using RemotePlay for 3 minutes on her Nexus.  We think that having deeper insight into what people are doing enhances communication and makes it more fun.  This is an area we are just starting to explore here at Piddas21, and believe it is fertile ground for building some great apps.

Piddas21 Launches RemotePlay at SXSW

We are super excited to announce the launch of our first product, RemotePlay, which we launched at SXSW 2013 in Austin in March.  RemotePlay is the first mobile app to allow peer-to-peer broadcasting of photos, video, documents, and other content across multiple platforms like Android and iOS.  

What does that mean?  Once you are connected to the same Wi-Fi network or personal hotspot, you can broadcast a video from your iPhone to your friend’s Samsung Galaxy.  And you do it just by dragging and dropping – no setup or configuration files.  It is fun and it is free.  Just download it on iTunes or Google Play.

The press release follows, but the easiest thing to do is just download it and check it out.  Enjoy! 

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REMOTEPLAY BECOMES FIRST MOBILE APP TO ALLOW PEER-TO-PEER BROADCASTING OF CONTENT ACROSS MULTIPLE PLATFORMS

Users can instantly stream videos or share photos, music and documents to one or many of their friends at once 

 Mobile app startup, Piddas21, launches with aim to disrupt the way people interact, closing the loop between real-world sharing and online social networking

Austin, TX (SXSW) – March 7, 2013 – Piddas21, a mobile app startup and partner of Fortune Global 500 Quanta Computer (TPE:2382), today launched its inaugural mobile application, Piddas21 RemotePlay ahead of SXSW. The initial launch will be on Google Play for Android devices with iOS (iPhone, iPad and iTouch) and Windows8 versions being released in the coming weeks. RemotePlay becomes the first app to enable spontaneous peer-to-peer streaming and sharing of videos, photos, music and documents across multiple mobile platforms – giving people a new way to share their favorite content and enhancing face-to-face interaction.

“People have an inherent desire to share their interests and ideas with others, and have as much fun as possible in the process. However, current applications lack the ability to truly foster meaningful social interactions,” said Piddas21 CEO and Founder, Dr. Joe Lin. “RemotePlay removes the anti-social nature of today’s technology use by eliminating the divide between virtual social networking and real-world, real-time sharing.”

RemotePlay not only allows friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues to share content across devices, it also allows them to see what applications and devices other users are using, giving them more context to consider before sending content or choosing how to interact – enabling the same interactivity as approaching someone in-person based on what book they are reading. Additionally, once users are done sharing their content across RemotePlay it disappears from the recipient’s device, reducing storage use and allowing the sender to maintain control of the video, picture, music or document they are sharing.

RemotePlay allows users to:

• Instantly stream content directly from one mobile device to another without having to download on each device or upload to a video or photo sharing service (like Youtube)
• Share multiple forms of content with one person or with many people simultaneously and instantly
• See what device and application friends are using, giving much more context to consider before sending them content or choosing to interact
• Control the content independent of the person sharing it – users can pause and replay content in real-time or watch in sync with others
• Stream and share content across Android, iOS and Windows 8 platforms (iOS and Windows 8 applications will be available in coming weeks)
• Control permissions and content through use of simple privacy controls

Piddas21 RemotePlay is now available for Android devices on Google Play, and iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod) on iTunes.  A Windows Phone version will be available in the coming weeks. For more information and to download RemotePlay, visit http://www.piddas21.com/RemotePlay.

About Piddas21

Piddas21is a Taiwan-based mobile app company that works to disrupt the way friends, families, colleagues and new acquaintances interact with each other.  Its applications and technology are designed to foster fun, meaningful interactions in a way that is not currently possible across major mobile platforms.  Piddas21’s inaugural application, RemotePlay, is the first mobile app that allows peer-to-peer streaming and sharing of video, pictures, music, and documents across multiple platforms (iOS, Android, and WIN8). For more details, please visit our website: www.piddas21.com

RemotePlay is on Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/Piddas21] and Twitter [https://twitter.com/Piddas21]

iOS is a trademark or registered trademark of Cisco in the U.S. and other countries and is used under license. Google Play is a registered trademark of Google Inc. All other designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners.