According to ABI Research, in coming years home network connections will no longer be an optional feature for many consumer electronics products, as digital content, social networking and IP services delivered through embedded network connections will be demanded by consumers in the devices they buy. The leading device categories for embedded networking in consumer electronics will shift from the early market leaders – game consoles – to TVs and DVD players. ABI Research forecasts the number for networked TV shipments alone to grow to 65 million total units shipped by 2012, from just 3.6 million in 2008. MORE »

Mike Bombich, the developer behind Carbon Copy Cloner for Mac OS X, has rolled out a new update to his indispensable rsync based file backup and drive cloning utility. The update features a number of improvements which include: how it authenticates itself and interacts with other networked computers, permission workarounds to make sure everything gets backed up, and automatic drive boot checks that verify that a specified backup drive is actually mounted and available. The full list of improvements are listed below. MORE »

Many Tricks has released yFlicks 3.3, an update to its movie manager/viewer for Mac OS X. With yFlicks, users can download, tag, organize and of course view their movies. This update adds coverflow for browsing your movies both in window and fullscreen mode, lets you access your iTunes movies from yFlicks, improves downloading from video communities such as YouTube, and features a lot of other small improvements. In addition to that, yFlicks’s movie downloading and conversion functionality is now also available in a dedicated stand-alone application named TubiTunes. TubiTunes lets you add an online web video to your iTunes library with just one click, and it converts local movie files to something your iPhone/iPod actually understands in a similarly easy fashion. MORE »

Digital media is all around us. Music, images, video and television. It was not so long ago when this entire media was stored on physical items (expect live TV). But over the last decade or so, the digital media format has not gently worked its way into our lives, it has overwhelmed us. MP3 players, iPods, digital TV, still cameras, camcorders, CDs, DVDs, online content – it’s not just for the privileged few either – it’s affordable, it’s here and it’s in your life. MORE »

The title pretty much says it all. MediaCentral 2.7 still is offering the great features that it has become known for like Skype integration, games, Internet radio/TV, DVD playback, etc., but now the TV rendering engine has been replaced by the same one that powers TubeStick’s “The Tube” software. The developer claims: “Thanks to the new TV engine MediaCentral 2.7 offers better picture quality, even with poor reception, faster channel switching and direct playback of recordings stored in The Tube’s library.”

MediaCentral 2.7 has also improved access to iPhoto 08’s library, integrated The Tube’s DVB-T channel listing, implemented PVR time-shifting capabilities, and added a new DVD eject via remote feature. U.S. users who are interested in trying out the software should probably wait until the TubeStick Hybrid USB TV tuner with ATSC & QAM support is released (ETA: April 2008), which I’m sure will get implemented into MediaCentral in a later update.

Since I’m not an electrical engineer by any stretch of the imagination, I’ll let Thorrn explain how its electro-aerodynamic pumping based solid-state fan works in a sec. Bottom line: the technology provides a low profile (15×15x2mm), silent, ultra-efficient heat transfer system that outperforms much larger (and noisier) 40×40x10mm mechanical fans. Unfortunately, the website does not have a timeline on availability or pricing. Lets hope it’s soon so we can hush up some of our PCs without having to resort to exotic cooling methods. MORE »

If you’ve been a long-time user of Last.fm on your PC (like I have), you’ll be happy to learn that you can bring the experience to your living room with MceFM for Windows Media Center on Vista. Once the add-in is installed, all one needs to do is type in the name of the “artist” or “tag” they’d like to hear similar music to and MceFM cues up the related tracks, including cover art and summary metadata. What’s more, users don’t have to stay in the MceFM interface to enjoy the music it streams in, so, for example, you can have Last.fm playing in the background while you present a photo sideshow on screen. [via]

UPDATE: I was browsing the MceFM Forums and it looks like the add-in works on Media Center Extenders like the Xbox 360 as well. According to one of the beta testers, it’s working but it’s got some performance issues at the moment. More details here.

Film studios that have switched to Blu-ray may have crowed a little too early because the much-praised BD+ copy protection is an absurd affair now, too. With today’s release of version 6.4.0.0 of AnyDVD HD it is now also possible to make backup security copies of Blu-ray discs protected with BD+. MORE »

Remember that Magic Box you had always wished for? You know, the one that would finally free your PC of all your favorite movies and shows and put them where you can enjoy them better in all their high-def glory — your TV?

Well, we’d like to introduce Myka – the Magic Box you’ve been waiting for. And Myka has brought a powerful friend to the party: BitTorrent, the global standard for delivering high-quality files over the Internet. MORE »

While a multitude of non-PC devices will play a role in the connected living room of the future, that doesn’t means the PC will fade away. In fact, according to a new study from ABI Research, PCs are destined to play an ever-increasing role in the management, distribution and playback of multimedia content in the home, with both network-connected PC media servers and in-living room PCs growing in adoption over time. Both AV form factor home theater PCs and more traditional home theater PCs will grow to an installed base worldwide of 25 million by 2013. MORE »