slingbox

Count it among the few genuinely useful iPhone/iPod touch applications that were spawned in the jailbreak scene then moved to to the Apple-sanctioned iPhone App Store. Also count it among the few applications that might soon be rejected by Apple, possibly at the behest of AT&T.

Orb is a newly released application that streams video from a Windows PC to the iPhone. It can deliver any video or audio that's stored on the the PC, YouTube content and, most important, live television if you have a TV tuner installed on your PC. This places Orb squarely … Read more

What? What's wrong with you people? We're talking about Netbooks. Dell has a new "Mini" Note, but it's a 12-inch laptop. So, the question is: what is going on in the Netbook world these days? Also, the Internet makes you both smarter AND dumber, Google Earth shows up for iPhone, and Oprah gives out a Kindle discount. And Natali and Molly love Oprah. Deal with it.

Sling.com launch http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/26/slingcom-to-launch-on-november-10/

Google Earth for iPhone/Touch http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10075543-37.html … Read more

You can finally remove the SlingCatcher from the vaporware list. Following reports that it was popping up on store shelves around the country, the $300 product officially begins shipping today, ending a wait that began more than 18 months ago when it was first unveiled at CES 2007.

The SlingCatcher is a playback device that's designed to pull digital content from three sources and display them on your TV. It can play a variety of digital video files from an attached USB storage device (anything from a thumbdrive to a hard drive); display anything on your PC screen (including … Read more

When Sling Media released a trio of second-generation models in the fall of 2006, the Slingbox Pro was at the top of the line. Unlike the entry-level Slingbox AV, the Pro had pass-through outputs, an analog tuner, multisource capability, and the ability to accept high-def video sources. Unfortunately, it also came with a handful of caveats: While it could accept HD video, it downcoverted that to 640x480 for streaming--and you needed to invest in a $50 dongle if you wanted to use a component video (HD) source. It was also an ugly maroon color, ensuring that it contrasted with everything else in your home-theater equipment rack. The third-generation Slingbox Solo appeared the following year, co-opted nearly all of the Pro's key features, making the need for an upgrade to the Pro even more apparent. … Read more

Last week, the folks from Sling Media stopped by to give us a hands-on look at the SlingCatcher. Originally due in 2007, the long-delayed product looks to be finally ready to ship this fall. (The video below is Molly Wood's preview of the SlingCatcher when it was reintroduced in January 2008.)

As the name suggests, the SlingCatcher is a hardware version of the SlingPlayer software that's available for various devices. Connect the SlingCatcher to your bedroom TV, for instance, and you can access the live TV and recorded programs from your living room DVR (which, in turn, is connected to a Slingbox).

So, instead of being limited to the small-ish screens of a laptop (or even a mobile phone), you're back to watching TV on...a TV.

The SlingCatcher can access any Slingbox that you've added to your Sling.com account, but the same caveats apply to it as with the software SlingPlayers. Most notably, only one client can access a given Slingbox at a time.

Bandwidth constraints apply (streaming within a home network generally looks great, but remote Slingbox resolution will be limited by upstream bandwidth at the source location). And the Slingbox monopolizes the AV source to which its connected (if you log in to your DVR and start playing Desperate Housewives while somebody's in the living room watching football, they'll suddenly see Eva Longoria instead of Eli Manning. … Read more

If you've been waiting been patiently waiting for the SlingCatcher, we feel your pain. We first saw the device back at CES 2007 and were impressed, but then it never came out. Then we saw it again at CES 2008 and we were told it would be out in the second quarter of 2008--and Sling missed that deadline. Now it's September and still no SlingCatcher.

With all these delays, we're about as skeptical as you can be, but Dave Zatz (of Zatz Not Funny and former SlingMedia employee) recently noticed that both the SlingCatcher and Slingbox PRO-HD … Read more

The beta version of the SlingPlayer 2.0 software is now available for Windows users as a free download from Sling Media's Web site. The software, which allows owners of the company's Slingbox products to access their TV programming via any broadband-connected PC, includes several notable upgrades from the previous version: … Read more

Sling Media has plans to connect your Slingbox to Apple's 3G iPhone. But don't get too excited; there's no release date set yet.

Sling showed us a brief demonstration of what the company's mobile application, SlingPlayer, looks like on a jailbroken first-generation iPhone. It's merely a proof of concept, the company says, to demonstrate how superduperexcited it is to get started on an actual product.

This is, of course, all assuming that Steve Jobs announces the 3G iPhone Monday at the opening of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, which is all but assured at this … Read more

EchoStar will be officially unveiling the SlingModem at next week's Cable Show trade event in New Orleans. As the name suggests, the product combines a standard DOCSIS cable modem and a Slingbox media placeshifter--which transmits live TV broadcasts to Windows PCs, Macs, and a variety of smartphones--in one compact housing. If it sounds familiar, it's because the product was soft-launched at January's Consumer Electronics Show (following several online appearances at various enthusiast sites). The SlingModem will be sold directly to cable providers, who will then sell or lease the product to their customers. Exact price and availability weren't disclosed.

Having the SlingModem in the AV rack would be potentially helpful for the increasing number of consumers using network-capable devices for home entertainment (TiVo, Apple TV, and all three game consoles, for instance).… Read more