Boxee: Unboxing the Media Experience (invites)

With television viewership on the decline and so many of us watching our favorite shows at our own convenience online it was only a matter of time before one or more clever companies helped us bridge the gap between our favorite online media services and our televisions. Boxee.tv is leading the way! 

Although still in closed alpha, Boxee has been gaining steam as the open source media application of choice. Previously it could only pull in content from your networked drives similar to iTunes, but the latest version of Boxee now also enables you to watch content from tons of sources. Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, CNN and more are all at your fingertips. Boxee doesn’t stop at just video. You can also stream music from you Last.fm account, your local iTunes library, and even photos from Flickr. Better yet, you can easily add any video rss feed to your Boxee account and watch it as its own channel.

Did I forget to mention that Boxee is also a social application? You can connect with other Boxee users as friends, see what they have been watching, and recommend content with a few clicks. 

With Boxee’s initial release you could only experience content directly on your computer or on a HD TV with an adapter and HDMI cable, but Boxee’s latest version is now compatible with your Apple TV. Using a USB patchstick you can install the application directly on your Apple TV and take in all the good stuff while sitting back on your couch (this is how I have it set up). When asked what the future brings for Boxee I was told that they would like to be available to use on any device you would connect to your television or home media center. As an open source application their are plenty of opportunities for incredible things to happen with Boxee.

Boxee has announced that they will be releasing their latest significant update to the application on December 4th. Want to get in on the action? I have secured priority invites for The Tech Lunch readers. Follow the link below and fill out your info. Priority invites will get approved in a matter of days instead of weeks, so be patient and enjoy!

Boxee Priority Invite:http://www.boxee.tv/thetechlunch

quick intro to boxee from boxee on Vimeo.

How to create the patchstick for Apple TV

iPhone 2.2 Software Update

By Jonathan

Apple has released another software update for the iPhone, iPhone 2.2. Among other things, the updated OS features Google Street View and streaming podcasts via WIFI or your data plan. I have already tried it out, and both new features work fantastically. I have been waiting for real streaming podcasts for months, so this update is something I have realy been looking forward to. Thus far iPhone users have had to use other podcast solutions which were incomplete and far inferior. Now if we could only see a copy & paste option!

17 ways to survive a Mac Disaster.

By Jonathan

Mac Life has came up with 17 great ways for you to survive almost every Mac disaster.

Strategic Assault for the iPhone

By Jonathan at 6:51 PM

A new game by the name of Strategic Assault recently saw its iPhone debut. It may be the first real time strategy game published on the iPhone platform, but is it really all that great?

Strategic Assault has very similar feel to that of the Command & Conquer series. You can create a variety of little fighters like tanks, jeeps, and helicopters with which you capture resources.  As in most RTS games your ultimate goal is to hunt down the opposition with a squad of your finest men…or whatever troops you can afford anyways.

Those of you new to Strategic Assault may marvel over it, what with the four out of five star rating it holds, but it really is an antique. I first played Strategic Assault over five years ago on my Palm M100 which had a 16 MHz processor and 8MB of ram/storage.

PC to Mac the Easy Way

By Kris at 5:08 PM

There may be many ways to transfer your files from a PC to a Mac, but most can be pretty hard to do for the average person. Well not anymore, because Belkin has made a Switch-to-Mac Cable that allows you to move music, movies, photos, and Internet preferences to your new Mac with ease. All you have to do is plug one end of the USB into your Mac and the other end into your PC. After that it automatically takes your files and transfers them to your Mac. The Switch-to-Mac Cable will be out soon for around $50. A 2008 Needham report shows that Macintosh sales have tripled in the past 3 years and by 2017 Apple will sell 40 million Macs at the rate their going, so it would seem that Belkin has chosen a great time to unveil their cable.

MacBook Air going on a Diet

By Kris at 5:57 PM

AppleInsider has discovered that Apple is going to make their MacBook Air even lighter by replacing the bottom of the MacBook Air chassis with carbon fiber which is used in aircraft parts, bike frames, and high performance car bodies. But now recently computer vendors such as Sony and HP have used this material to construct lighter and thinner laptops. As of now the MacBook Air weights three pounds if Apple just replaces the bottom part of the case then the MacBook Air would lose 100 grams making it only 2.78 pounds. But knowing Apple they’ll most likely make it even lighter then 2.78 pounds. Comment.

“Although AppleInsider publishes the aforementioned information strictly as a rumor, it’s believed the shift to a carbon fiber bottom is far enough along in its development cycle that it could appear in a revision to the MacBook Air sometime next year.”

Chuck, the iPhone and Agent 18

By Jonathan Brownfield at 2:07 AM

For those of you not familiar with NBC’s TV series Chuck, the show is about an average Joe tech geek who ends up secretly working undercover for the CIA.

Many of you may have noticed that Chuck uses an iPhone, but most of you probably haven’t been able to figure which case he is using, The Tech Lunch has the scoop.

Why are Netbooks so important to Microsoft

By Kris at 3:15 PM

If you buy a netbook today, you’ll most likely be running Windows XP or a Linux variant by default, due in no small part to Vista’s high power and system resource consumption. That is potentially one of the reasons why Vista sales aren’t as high as expected, because the netbook concept didn’t see it’s first real releases until approximately a year after Windows Vista was released. Microsoft apparently gambled on the concept that desktops and laptops were going to continue to a strict increase in power over time, but instead netbooks with lower resources and cost came into the picture and have started to rise in popularity.

iPhone Battery Pack Showdown

By Jonathan at 12:23 PM

Anyone who owns an iPhone can testify that the battery life on both the 1st and 2nd generation is horrible. When you are going from using smart phones that lasted a week to a phone that must be charged every night, it takes some getting use to. My previous Nokia Communicator would easily last an entire weekend of heavy use on a single charge. We here at The Tech Lunch have found three options to help ease your power issues.

Breaking News: Flying Spaghetti Monster

By Jonathan at 1:17 PM

Breaking News: The rumors of a flying spaghetti monster are true. The monster was last seen terrorizing Apple Head Quarters in Palo Alto California.