A number of file-sharing services have existed for video and music lovers, some expensive and some slow. This Wednesday, a new service made its entry into this market. Called ZumoCast, it uses a mix of personal and cloud storage services to take file-sharing to a new cloud.
Enabling music lovers to play their entire iTunes libraries from their iPads and iPhones, ZumoCast now allows you to download your videos, music, and other files directly to your devices so you can enjoy them later, even if you are offline.
According to the developers, the application works by turning your computer into a personal cloud server that streams your media libraries to your mobile devices upon demand. As a result, content on your computer becomes instantly accessible, without having to wait for it to upload or requiring you to pay the monthly fees otherwise associated with online storage and sync services.
"The iPad is perfectly suited for enjoying your media library, but it is often difficult to get your music and videos on your device in the first place," said David Zhao, CEO of ZumoCast, in a statement. He added, "ZumoCast not only makes it easy to wirelessly sync all your media with your devices, but it does so without requiring you to upload it to the cloud, which is both time-consuming and costly."
In essence, ZumoCast uses hybrid cloud technology, a mix of personal and cloud storage, to offer iTunes integration, video streaming and transcoding, documents, wireless syncing, and web access.
While iTunes integration allows you to play your entire iTunes library on your iPad and iPhone, video streaming and transcoding streams videos to your iPad/iPhone as you access them. And documents lets you access the documents you need on the road and download them for editing online or offline. Plus, wireless syncing streams your files to your devices as you access them, with an option to sync any files to your iPad/iPhone locally in advance, so that they are available for offline use. Lastly, web access permits user to access video, music and documents via any web browser.
ZumoCast is available in the Apple App Store as an application for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch at www.appsto.re/zumocast.
The company behind ZumoCast is the Silicon Valley start-up Zecter, founded in 2007. It has received funding from Tandem Entrepreneurs, Sherpalo Ventures, and Y-Combinator.
Ashok Bindra is a veteran writer and editor with more than 25 years of editorial experience covering RF/wireless technologies, semiconductors and power electronics. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by
Stefania Viscusi