Crave

Motorola's Follow Me TV feature for its DVR set-top boxes lets users choose which TV to watch a recorded TV show on.

Instead of keeping content stored on only that TV, Follow Me TV lets users bring TV with them from room to room. Any recorded show is aggregated and made available on any TV on the network. In addition to TV programs, music and photos can also follow to any TV, and the content can also be sent to portable devices.

Or, as Motorola CEO Ed Zander demonstrated for the audience here at CES 2007, you can pause a live show, push a button, and pick up that show in a different room.

Verizon first introduced the service on its multiroom DVR in late 2006, but Zander announced during his keynote Monday morning that Comcast will be offering it this year.

Writing about gadgets around the holidays can get pretty hectic--hello, PlayStation3!--but there are some pretty cool perks. Take Tuesday night, for example, when the DigitalLife folks (the ones who organized the big tech trade show last month) invited a host of NYC-area reporters to Manhattan's fashionable Nikki Midtown bar and lounge for a packed evening of consumer tech. The agenda included a press conference from TiVo featuring CEO Tom Rogers, as well as a showcase of some products that people may or may not be craving this holiday season. Oh, yeah, there was free food, too.

The general trend of the evening was media synchronization, something that (in this reporter's opinion) will undoubtedly be a big trend even after the holidays are over. TiVo's announcements, which Candace wrote about for CNET News.com, primarily dealt with the ability to integrate forms of media from disparate sources--cable and broadcast television, broadband video content, home videos, online radio and podcasts--into a central format centered on the TV. Thanks to the soaring trend of Internet video, there now exist "television options that people haven't thought of as TV before," according to Rogers. The new features allow TiVo subscribers to send home videos to friends' and family members' TVs (provided that those friends and family members are also TiVo subscribers), conduct "unified searches" of all media on their TiVos regardless of source, and load non-rights-protected broadband content onto their TVs. Plus, TiVo has expanded its TiVoCast program, which brings branded content (including CNET's video offerings) to subscribers through partnerships. The latest is with CBS Interactive, the revamped new-media division of the network TV mainstay.

Rogers' logic was understandable: People are plunking down thousands of dollars for HDTVs and peripherals to build the ultimate home theater. Now, however, there's all this video content--an increasing percentage of it professionally created--that's available through broadband channels. With TiVo's new announcements, Rogers is hoping that the company will carve out a niche as, rather than just a digital video recorder, a bridge between forms of media with traditionally different platforms.

But beyond TiVo's press conference, the DigitalLife event was still full of gizmos that were designed to bring iPod video to the TV, broadband video to the iPod, or mobile video to what-have-you. There was the $199.99 iRecord, which claims to record video right onto iPods, Sony PlayStation Portables, and USB storage devices. The $149.99 DLO HomeDock Deluxe, on the other hand, hooks an iPod's video content up to a TV screen. And then there was an exhibit from Neuros, which was showing off two products: its MPEG4 Recorder 2 Plus, which codes TV shows and movies so that they can be viewed on everything from laptops to PSPs to handheld media players and cell phones; and the OSD, a Linux-powered device that goes a step further. With the OSD, not only can content be exchanged between platforms, but the sexy black box is also openly hackable. How's that for geek heaven?

Chalk up one point to Slingbox. The gadget gurus at Gizmodo are reporting that the LF-BOX1 LocationFree TV Box, part of Sony's place-shifting line, has had its release date pushed back. The big ouch: It was supposed to be released next week. No word yet on whether the LocationFree "base stations," also slated for a late-October release, have hit setbacks--the Washington Post story quoted by Gizmodo seems to indicate that it may just be the TV box.

Chin up, Sony. These things happen, as you well know from all those PS3 delays. And you're not alone; I hear there's this little piece of software named "Vista" that might like to commiserate.

(Photo: Sony)

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, right?

Then Sling Media should be pink with pride today. The same day the Slingbox maker announced its video place-shifting technology would be available on mobile phones running Symbian OS, Sony announced that it too would make its LocationFree TV software available for download to a Symbian-based phone, the SonyEricsson P990 smart phone.

It's not immediately clear in what countries this will be available, or when the downloading can begin. A visit to the Sony support site says the software is "coming soon."

Click here for CNET Reviews' take on LocationFree TV.

(Photo: SonyEricsson)

Commence drooling, Apple fanboys and girls.

In a matter of weeks, the SlingPlayer icon could be bouncing in a toolbar near you. SlingCommunity.com has a video demo of the original place-shifting technology on a white MacBook and an interview with SlingMedia's head of PR, Brian Jaquet, at last week's Digital Life Show in New York.

Jaquet said the SlingPlayer Mac will be available in public beta for both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs at the end of October or early November. Sling Media told CNET News.com last month it would be ready in 30 to 45 days, which--if I do my math right--means the Mac version is still on track for the same time frame. In the meantime, Jaquet said, the folks down in San Mateo, Calif., are still doing last-minute tweaks of the software, like improving video quality.

And in case you haven't gotten the point yet, the demo includes two clips of SportsCenter being "slung" (slinged?) from a TiVo to the MacBook.

Slingbox is for sports, not "Battlestar Galactica," OK?

(Photo: Sling Media)

Slingbox owners will soon be able to stream TV to their Symbian smart phones. Sling Media officially confirmed that it will be releasing a Slingplayer client for the Symbian OS before the end of the year in Europe and Asia, with U.S. distribution to follow soon after.

The announcement of Symbian support isn't a surprise--the Symbian logo is prominently displayed on the boxes of the second-generation Slingbox products which have been on store shelves since the end of September. As with the Windows Mobile version, the Symbian player will require broadband access via Wi-Fi or a 3G wireless plan. Beyond that, the details remain somewhat vague: the Sling press release suggests some "S60 and UIQ" Symbian models will be supported, but a company spokesman declined to provide further specifics. But with the Symbian client being introduced at a London trade show today on the Nokia N73, we'd be willing to bet on compatibility with that handset maker's entire N series--at least for starters. There was also no mention of pricing in Sling's press release; the company sells its Windows Mobile clients for $30.

Slingplayer software is currently available for Windows XP/2000 PCs and Windows Mobile handhelds and smart phones. A long-promised Mac client is said to be nearing a beta release soon, and Sling is also working on a Palm version but has yet to make any official announcements.

(Photo: Sling Media)