Devices

The book industry is feverishly trying to reinvent itself with new digital versions of books, and now a handful of authors are turning to the iPhone for help, Daisy Whitney reports in her New Media Minute.

Lots of buzz this week about the introduction of the iPod Nano with a video camera.  While the new Apple device seems like a cool idea, providing simple video gathering, the images are not nearly as good as the Flip SD, Chris Albrecht shows with a side-by-side video test/demo.

Boxee, the maker of a software program that turns a computer into multimedia "box" for online video and other digital content, has raised a new round of funding, the company announced today.

Roku, maker of the the $99 box that brings high quality broadband video to the television set, is now providing all Major League Baseball games as one part of the MLB.com premium subscription of  $34.95.

Web-to-TV hardware maker Roku struck a deal with Blip.tv last week to bring independent Web content to Roku boxes connected to TVs.

HP's line of fashion-oriented notebooks, designed by Chinese-born, American-based fashion designer Vivienne Tam, are being marketed globally around the world, including China.

RealNetworks has just released RealPlayer SP, a downloadable application which allows users to save Web video, including YouTube clips, to several mobile devices. 

HP, the world's leading personal computer maker, is developing applications for its TouchSmart line of computers, including one for publishers which allows content to be browsed by touch.

Earlier this month, Verizon introduced the Mi-Fi service, which allows for up to five Wi-Fi connections from pretty much anywhere the carrier has 3G coverage.

NEW YORK, NY — Brightcove, the Boston-based video services company, has been enjoying annual 300 percent growth, global expansion, strong balance sheet and is hooking up with devices including Vudu.

NEW YORK — Boxee, a free software download which allows users to connect computers  to television sets, bypassing a cable box, has 500,000 users in the U.S.

SAN JOSE — To mine the growing opportunity in consumer technology, Cisco is expanding its presence in the consumer market and moving more aggressively beyond its business-to-business roots, the company told Beet.TV during an interview at Cisco headquarters.

LAS VEGAS — 3D viewing, currently a growth area for Hollywood's theatrical business, will come to a significant number of homes in two to three years with the adoption of a new cable box from Motorola and new encoding processes, we have been told.

SAN FRANCISCO — Intel is committing nearly 20 percent of its annual R&D budget, to "growth segments" including bringing Internet content to televisions and other consumer devices. Other growth segments include mobile Internet devices and WiMax

Intel is seeking the same universal platform for rich media consumption on consumer electronic devices as exists on the Web.  Recently the company announced an electronic "widget" which connects  television sets to Yahoo! content.  Some of these widget-powered TV's went on sale last weekend, PC Week reports.

The new HD camcorders are inexpensive, easy to use and provide lots of storage, but they can be a big hassle to edit and convert files for the Web.

Big story today in the The New York Times by Brad Stone about Boxee and its growing success.  Brad reports the company was much sought after at CES and has 200,000 active users.  Avner Ronen visited Beet.TV for an explanation and demonstration.  I've replublished the interview today. — Andy Plesser, Executive Producer

Video search engine Truveo has released an updated version of its  iPhone application, Beet.TV has learned. The application, first launched in July, allows users to access videos in Apple-friendly formats from major sites including CNN, NBC, HBO, The Discovery Channel, and YouTube. In November, I interviewed CEO Peter Kocks about the then-forthcoming updates, and he […]

Surely one of the big stories at CES has been the introduction of the Palm Pre, a new smartphone.  Earlier today, CNET announced that the device has won the "best of show" for CES 2009. We've embedded a CNET video rave review and a demonstration of the new hand-held by Kent German, mobile phone editor. […]

Armed with her Flip phone as usual, Kara Swisher caught up with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker on camera at CES today. Jerry's not very happy to see her at first, but he cheers up later in the video when she lets him plug Yahoo's internet-linked Connected TV. When we had Kara […]