We all got a preview of Boxee Beta back in December ‘09. Well, today it’s officially available to the public on all platforms (except Apple TV) — Windows, Mac, Linux. If your curious about what Boxee Beta is and how easy it is to setup and use, have a look Howcast’s latest video on the topic (attached below). And now for the really big news… Boxee’s Box graphics and processor specs have today been posted on the Boxee Blog. Drumroll… Boxee Box leverages NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 (T20) chipset which combines the graphics processor and dual-core ARM Cortex A9 1Ghz processor on a single chip (additional details @ AnandTech), thus making the Boxee Box an energy efficient HD video processing powerhouse capable of outputting 1080p video to your HDTV. What’s more, the Boxee Box will have full support for Adobe Flash. MORE »

The folks at Boxee are teasing fans with computer renderings of the remote they plan on shipping with the Boxee Box by D-Link. Being that the images posted are “first drawings [...] of Astro’s original idea,” it’s probably fair to say that the final remote will be slightly different — but we’re hoping not too much. Inspiration from the remote comes unabashedly from Apple’s 6-button remote, but with a QWERTY keyboard twist. UPDATE 1: Gizmodo has pics of the Boxee Box and Remote in the flesh direct from CES. UPDATE 2: Avner Ronen on the Boxee Blog says the QWERTY remote will be sold separately, but will also work with other devices (I’m guessing he means other computers) running Boxee.

Attached here are images of the upcoming Boxee Box set to be released in the second quarter of 2010. The 5-inch wide device will exclusively be manufactured by D-Link (model DSM-380) and offer HDMI (1080p capable), S/PDIF, composite audio out, Ethernet, built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi, RF remote, 2 x USB ports, 1 x SD card slot, and, of course, the latest Boxee Beta software release which was unveiled this evening. Price: around $200. See the attached video below for a demo of the software in action. MORE »

One of the big problems with web, and web video in particular, is locating content. Google has done a great job of indexing web pages, but a fairly new startup called Clicker has set its sights on web video. Clicker bills itself as “one part directory, one part search engine, one part wiki, one part entertainment guide, and one part DVR.” The Clicker database contains more than 450,000 episodes, from over 6,000 shows, from over 1,200 networks, tens of thousands of movies, and 50,000 music videos from 20,000 artists. There’s even support for Netflix and Amazon VOD content! And now the service will be a part of Boxee’s core applications located in the App Box. MORE »

Wow, I think we might have a winner here. The folks at Myka have created a hybrid HD media player / HTPC that’s based on Ubuntu. The Myka ION provides a custom media dashboard that one boots straight into on top of a fully configured and optimized PC that supports Hulu, Boxee, XBMC, and other popular services. The Myka ION as the name suggest leverages the NVIDIA ION (9400M) graphic chipset with a power sipping Intel Atom N330 processor. In other words, it can handle full 1080p HD video with ease. MORE »

The folks at Boxee have put together a Dev Challenge that invites any and all programmers to submit innovative Music, Video, or Photo apps that leverage Boxee’s new, open API (deadline: June 14). The great news is that you can participate in the voting process from June 15-22 and even attend the main event on June 23rd in San Francisco (RSVP here) where judges will choose a winner from the 10 most popular apps in each category and announce the People’s & Judge’s Choice Awards. Additional details posted at Boxee Blog.

Obviously, the beauty of having an open API for a platform like Boxee is that anyone can develop an app for it and create a dedicated channel page in just a few hours. Being the case, Next New Networks jumped on the Boxee app bandwagon and created a dedicated channel for their well produced video blog properties — which I must say are pretty entertaining. Next New Networks distributes: Fast Lane Daily, Indy Mogul, Thread Banger, TMI Weekly, Channel Frederator, and few others. You can find the new Boxee app in: Video > Internet. [via]

The title pretty much says it all. Highlights include custom channels for Pandora Internet radio, RadioTime and PBS content. The guys at Boxee note that the Pandora app was created using the “more robust” Boxee API that allows developers to easily create apps using XML and Python. Boxee says: “Developers can now do pretty much whatever they want UI-wise and control the data and metadata around the media.” Also the new XUL framework based browser — which shares some of the core architecture as Mozilla Firefox — allows users to view full HTML pages. In the case of Hulu, Boxee users can preview content using the site’s RSS feed and then select a video that will launch in the browser in fullscreen mode after opening in the standard mode for a few seconds (sounds like it has something to do with capturing web ad impressions). [via] VIDEO: Boxee Meetup NYC 3/24/09

We just got word that Apple has approved Boxee’s iPhone Remote App into its App Store. According to Boxee Blog, the app works in gesture / button mode and is capable of inserting input text via iPhone’s qwerty keyboard. The app also provides a thumbnail image of the media you’re playing along side minimal player controls. Bottom line: the Boxee iPhone Remote works closer to a touch pad remote than a standard TV remote you’re used to. Below is an excellent video demo created by TapCritic and some tips from Boxee Blog on how to use the new app. MORE »

I thought some of you might be interested in seeing this Boxee demonstration from one of the folks close to the project. In this video you’ll see Dave Mathews (Stage Two) on DL.TV showcasing some of the platform’s many social features and explains how one can easily “roll their own” Boxee system, on top of Ubuntu, using their old PC hardware (Boxee is also available for: Windows, Mac OS X, and Apple TV). In my opinion, it’s one of the better demos I’ve seen to date. MORE »