Big news for current and prospective Pogoplug users. The company today is announcing that the device will support music, photo, and video streaming to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (I’m waiting to hear back if it’s designed to work with any DLNA/UPnP enabled device – see response below). In addition, the Pogoplug can now be configured to backup folders, on a Mac or Windows PC, in real-time using a new feature called Active Copy. And not only that… Active Copy can automatically backup important files to another off-site Pogoplug for redundancy purposes. MSRP of the latest Pogoplug is $129 and it comes with 4 USB ports and Ethernet connectivity — just bring your own external USB hard drive for storage. MORE »

Attached here is a how-to video showing how one can easily add their favorite web apps to Windows Media Center (Vista / 7) using Prism by Mozilla Labs and Media Center Studio (hat tip to halcion1). Note that for a better user experience you may want to track down web app interfaces that have been designed for TV – i.e. YouTube XL, Google Reader Player, etc. However, if all of this seems like too much of a hassle, MillieSoft has just released a free add-in to bring Google Reader Player to Windows Media Center (additional launcher add-ins). MORE »

Remote Potato is a nifty little PC server app that allows you to browse your Windows 7 Media Center electronic program guide (EPG), manage recordings, and stream video from your home PC for playback via a web browser. Below is a demo of Remote Potato showing off its latest Silverlight powered interface that’s capable of handling all tasks through a single web page. If you’re interested in taking Remote Potato for a spin, you can download it for FREE and, if you like, make a donation to the developer for his efforts. Note: you will need to setup a dynamic DNS service to access your home PC remotely – see: Support/FAQ. [via] MORE »

Love it. The underdog, Fusion Garage, is showing off a slick, new UI days before the JooJoo tablet launch exclusively to Engadget (ETA: March 25th). You can say the UI has been overhauled and refined from what everyone got a glimpse of a few months back on the development tablet. Gone are the ugly multi-colored homescreen and wireframe icons. The new UI, with its swappable wallpaper and translucent menus, has more of a netbook look now — somewhat reminiscent of Joicloud. Anyhow, it’s got my attention. In addition, JooJoo has reworked the gesture controls for scrolling (one-finger “pan”, two-finger “page scroll”), improved the keyboard interfaces, and replaced the pinch-to-go-back gesture with a vertical screen swipe that brings down the top control panel. Lastly, Fusion garage is confirming that the JooJoo tablet will only be sold in the black and champagne color scheme for the time being (a black-on-black version was also shown to the press at one time and is currently displayed on the site’s accessories page). And in case you were wondering… yes, JooJoo supports Flash and H.264 video for a “full web experience.” NEW: JooJoo’s internals revealed via the FCC. MORE »

No definitive word if Google is developing an Android-based satellite set-top box with DISH Network, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google has been testing software with a small group of employees since last year that allows them to search DISH Network’s TV programming, get related web content to their queries, and create a personalized lineup of shows. Of course, as you would expect, the software integrates Google’s on-screen ad placement technologies. WSJ further reports that Google has been “prodding” a range of TV service providers and hardware makers to make use of its Android-based technologies for some time now. However, as the WSJ points out, convincing cable and satellite companies who closely guard their set-top box software and their overall programming experience isn’t going to be easy. So are Android-based cable/satellite set-top boxes and networked HDTVs something we’ll be seeing in the future? It looks like there may be a good chance of that. Attached image above is ISB Corp’s Android STB prototype shown in May of 2009. MORE »

Own a TiVo? You may want to add a Windows Home Server from HP to the mix. HP has just introduced a new new add-in called HP MediaSmart Expander for TiVo that allows TiVo owners to transfer shows to/from the HP MediaSmart Server, manage recordings, and watch stored recordings from any networked Mac or Windows PC in the home. The FREE HP MediaSmart Expander for TiVo add-in can be accessed through the Windows Home Server Console of a HP MediaSmart Server EX90/EX495 or HP Data Vault. Supported TiVo DVRs include: Series2, Series3, Premiere, Premiere XL. MORE »

For those who don’t own a PlayStation 3, PSP, or PSP go yet, Sony has just announced some news that may make you want to jump onboard. According to Sony’s press release today, PlayStation Network (PSN) has become the first entertainment system to offer HD movies for rent or purchase from all the major Hollywood studios. Titles from 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros. Digital Distribution will available in U.S. starting today and soon in the U.K., France, Germany, and Spain. FYI, you can also rent, purchase, and organize PSN entertainment content through your Windows PC for playback on your PSP device using Sony’s Media Go application [demo], or access PSN directly on the PSP via Wi-Fi. All movie rentals will available for progressive download to watch instantly or held for 14-days for later viewing (note: once you hit play you have 24 hours to finish viewing the video). MORE »

Attached here is a video from Mobile World Congress 2010 with Freescale’s product manager of software development explaining that Freescale’s sub-$200 ARM (i.MX51 Cortex-A8) tablets will be compatible with just about any Linux distribution that supports ARM processors like Ubuntu, Chromium OS, and Android. And not only that… Freescale’s tablets are able to play Flash 10.1 content and HTML5 video. It’s unclear exactly who will be selling the tablets, but my guess is that they will be branded and sold by partners running Freescale’s in-house developed OS. Or perhaps the partners will load whichever OS they choose? In any case, this is great news for Linux enthusiasts ’cause it means they now have a tablet that they know they can easily tweak and customize to their heart’s desire. Hey, Freescale…! If you’re reading this post, consider including Linux multi-touch support – details. MORE »

Joel Johnson over at Gizmodo has posted a glowing review of Air Video, a $3 iPhone and iPod touch compatible app that can stream videos from a server PC over a local area network via Wi-Fi or remotely over 3G. Besides the incredible price, Joel was impressed by how easy Air Video’s Mac OS X / Windows server application is to configure in order to share folders/files from the computer itself or from a NAS. He also liked the fact that H.264 files are streamed automatically while non-H.264 files (even massive 1080p Blu-ray movie rips, if you’re PC is up to the processing task) are transcoded on-the-fly for instant playback. There’s even an option to convert a video file to H.264 for future use. All in all, Air Video sounds like a must-have app for any digital home enthusiast who has a large collection of videos they want to tap into through their mobile device. MORE »

Last night you may have caught Apple’s first iPad commerical during the Oscars — it wasn’t bad. But did you know HP posted their Slate commercial a couple days earlier on YouTube? Yeah, I didn’t either. I’m not even sure if it’s been broadcasted on TV yet. In any case, attached below is HP’s Slate TV commercial and a video demo created by Adobe showing off HP Slate’s uncompromised internet browsing experience using Flash and its ability to run Adobe AIR applications like the Times Reader 2.0 and Pandora One from the Adobe AIR Marketplace. On top of that, you’ll also get to see glimpses of Slate’s UI and multiple views of the hardware itself, which looks pretty much finalized. No word on launch, but you can sign up for updates at hp.com/slate. MORE »