tv

iTunes streamed to your phone? Possibly

The release of Apple TV a few weeks ago has opened up an intriguing new possibility: streaming music from iTunes on your home computer to your cell phone.

No, Apple TV does not stream over the Internet or across a cellular phone network, but the SlingBox does. And Sling Media, the makers of the SlingBox, confirmed to CNET News.com on Monday that the company is working on making the Slingbox compatible with Apple TV. The most likely--and compelling--scenario would be to allow the streaming of Apple TV content (which is synched with a PC) to a mobile device.

"… Read more

What's next for CNET TV?

Hi I'm Justin Eckhouse, Product Manager for CNET TV. I've managed all sorts of products over the years, but CNET TV is the most exciting project I've worked on in quiet some time (hopefully for you too). I'll be using my posts here to give you a look at what's next for CNET TV as well as insight into why we've made the design & development decisions we have. So let's get started.... CNET TV was built to be an immersive multimedia experience featuring one stop shopping for all the audio & video … Read more

The CNET TV blog goes live!

We did some user testing on CNET TV a while back and we brought in this 19 year old kid who was kicking around the country taking a year off before he went to school. He came in, got comfortable and we asked him to look at a new potential interface. "Cool." He says. He played with it for a while and we asked him if he would come back. He says, "Yeah, I would...I don't really like to read." I loved this guy. CNET TV is definitely for him, this blog -- maybe … Read more

Atten.TV: Letting others spy on your clickstream

Atten.TV is pure vanity.

It's also slightly creepy. Atten.TV is a Mac-only client that lets individuals sign up to have their clickstreams--or records of Web sites visited--recorded and sent to a server. Anyone can then opt to watch what these other random folks are browsing, in the same manner as one might watch television.

The Atten.TV player is a viewing window with a menu on the left that displays the clickstreams that can be tuned in. Eventually there will be an Atten.TVGuide that lists who's on. Clickstreams can be recorded and viewed later, or … Read more

CNET Live Tech Rehearsal is smashing -- literally

This morning as the studio was getting set in order for the CNET Live rehearsal we heard the always-jarring sound of shattering glass. Several folks ran to the scene to render assistance only to be shooed away by a chagrined cameraman. It's bad enough when you break something, it sucks when people all rush to see. But we just wanted to make sure he was OK. The rehearsal itself went well. We had some glitches with looking at the right cameras and some wrangling over the order of stuff. technically everything worked well except a couple dead batteries. Our … Read more

MLB.tv having trouble handling season opening demand

If you're a real baseball fan, watching games online instead of on TV is one of the more frustrating uses of the Internet. But for some fans who subscribed to Major League Baseball's online package, watching the first games of the 2007 season was a study in aggravation.

In the wake of MLB's exclusive deal with DirecTV--in which the season-long Extra Innings package is available only on that one satellite network, rather than on any number of cable networks--many hard-core fans have had little choice but to turn to the Internet to get access to the … Read more

Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Stars

Video games are almost never known for good acting. Voice-overs and cutscenes tend to be stilted, and use lesser-known and, often, lesser-skilled actors to do the dirty work. Occasionally you can find a good actor or two hired to do scenes, like Patrick Stewart in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Vin Diesel in The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, or Mark Hamill in Wing Commander 3 and 4, but usually you can expect mediocre voicework and cutscenes at best, bumpers to click through in between gameplay.

Then I started playing Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. The Command and … Read more

Netgear's Apple TV competitor plays DRM-encoded songs purchased from the iTunes Store

Kudos to Laptop magazine for getting the scoop, with the one of the first hands-on reviews we've seen of the Netgear EVA8000 Digital Entertainer HD. There's just one problem: they got one big detail of the product dead wrong. The Netgear product does play songs purchased from the iTunes Store, as confirmed by hands-on tests in the CNET Labs.

We purchased and played two songs from the store, and were surprised to see that the Netgear was able to stream them to the TV/stereo system in the next room just as easily as it could with DRM-free … Read more

DRM-free iTunes songs boost the appeal of non-Apple music streamers

It's the digital equivalent of the first few cracks in the Berlin Wall: soon EMI will be offering the bulk of its music catalog free of DRM restrictions. Steve Jobs was on hand at the press conference to enthusiastically endorse the idea--he did, famously, suggest as much in an open letter just a few short weeks ago. But is Apple simply fashioning its own hangman's noose? If the other major record companies follow suit, the one big advantage of the entire Apple "digital ecosystem"--iTunes, the iPod, and Apple TV--essentially becomes null and void. Jobs says Apple's superior design will keep the company's software and hardware at the top of the must-have list for digital media. For the iPod, maybe--but for the just-launched Apple TV, the answer isn't as straightforward. … Read more