Nokia announces a wireless media sharing app

FINNISH PHONE MAKER Nokia has announced an application that allows users to share their mobile phones' media content with other devices in the home.

The smartphone app is called Play To and is available via Nokia's Beta Lab in its first usable version. The app allows you to use a wireless network to stream content to things like your TV or audio system.

To share content such as video, photos and music around your home you'll first need a WiFi router. The devices you want to push content to need to be connected to the same network as the phone and have Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) capabilities.

The app will automatically search for DLNA device connected to the network and then you can choose what content to share from your phone and select which device you want to send it to. The technology uses DLNA so the app can play content but it is not able to access other DLNA devices.

The application is still in beta so there are a few known issues. These include that content with digital rights management cannot be shared with the app and that the "PS3 is a Player device so it is not possible to push media content to it. PS3 can be used to pull content from your mobile".

It's already quite easy to share this kind of content with your phone, which almost certainly has an audio jack and possibly an HDMI port. The idea of the Play To app is to make sharing easier by going wireless. Compatible phones for the application include the Nokia N8, E7, C7, C6-01 and X7. µ