Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen plenty of Kinect hacks over the last few weeks — trouble is, beyond the initial wow factor they’re just not very useful on a daily basis. That situation just changed, however, with the release of KinEmote, a free public beta that lets Windows users navigate XBMC and Boxee menus using nothing but hand gestures. Better yet, the software is built around OpenNI and NITE middleware from PrimeSense, the company behind the Project Natal reference gear. It certainly looks impressive in the video after the break. Good enough that we suspect many of you will hit up the source link below instead of finishing up your last minute holiday shopping — hey, Santa can wait, this is progress!

Continue reading KinEmote: Kinect gesture control for Boxee and XBMC media centers now available (video)

KinEmote: Kinect gesture control for Boxee and XBMC media centers now available (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 01:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  KinEmote  | Email this | Comments

Just a couple of weeks after its debut, the Boxee Box is getting its first software update today. While it might not address all the concerns raised in our review, this edition does include fixes for notable issues like 1080i playback problems, WiFi connectivity and issues handling certain audio and video files. The Boxee Blog has the full (long) list of tweaks and additions, while CEO Avner Ronen promises the company plans to release screenshots and a list of usability/UI issues still to be addressed next week. Other upgrades before 2010 runs out of time should include the Netflix and VUDU apps, so when the question of “what are you thankful for?” comes up, just say “build #1.0.1.16319,” which your Box should find automatically within 24 hours, though the impatient can prompt for an update manually.

Boxee Box owners can be thankful for their first firmware update originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Boxee Blog  | Email this | Comments

It’s a little strange that the Boxee Box by D-Link feels like a late entrant in this year’s crowded smart TV market — the core Boxee software has been around forever, and the Box itself was announced way back in January at CES. But a platform switch from NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chip to Intel’s Atom-based CE4100 platform cost Boxee and D-Link valuable time, while the Boxee software went through a dramatic UI transformation from the beta to 1.0. What’s more, Boxee’s gone from being an upstart rock’n’roll rebel to a legit market player, with a Netflix deal on the books and — wonder of wonders — an agreement to bring Hulu Plus to the Boxee Box sometime next year. That’s a lot of changes, and, quite frankly, a lot of hype — Boxee’s dedicated fans are expecting the small company and its asymmetrical Box to show up no less than Apple and Google. So have Boxee CEO Avner Ronen and company pulled it off? Is the Boxee Box the ultimate connected TV device? Or has a punk rock media revolution turned into just another polite New Wave streamer? Read on for the full Engadget review to find out!

Continue reading Boxee Box review

Boxee Box review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Never invite the folks at iFixit to your home. Leave them alone for just a minute and they’ll have unpacked their torx-wrenches and spudgers and be all up in your TV, laptop, iPad or whatever you foolishly left in the room with them.

Keep them in their natural habitat, though, and they’re awesome, as we can see from this teardown of the Boxee Box, the set-top box that brings all your media, and all the internet’s media, onto your home TV.

Kidding aside, we were pretty excited to see the inside of the Boxee Box, if only to find out just how the computery bits fit inside the odd-shaped case. The answer, it turns out, is “neatly”.

The truncated cube shape of the box means some clever thinking has gone into packing everything in. Circuit-boards have been made to non-standard shapes, but the actual bits and pieces are easy to get to. Everything is held in by Phillips screws, and there are standard parts, too, like the Mini PCI-E wireless card.

The Box itself is actually pretty small (as is the very clever QWERTY-backed remote), and features a glass front-panel through which the Boxee logo glows. There’s an SD-card slot for quickly loading up movies, 1GB RAM and 1GB flash storage and an Intel CE4110 processor running at 1.2GHz. This, along with many of the internals, is identical to that in the more expensive Logitech Revue Google TV box.

The Boxee Box, made by D-Link but powered by Boxee’s popular XBMC-based multimedia software, launched today in 33 countries. In a post on Wednesday night, Boxee’s Andrew Kippen announced that the company was working to bring Hulu Plus and Netflix Watch Instantly to the device before the end of the year.

For a full rundown of the Boxee Box’s hardware specs and components, take a look a the iFixit gallery.

Boxee Box Teardown [iFixit]

See Also:

• Hands-On With the Boxee Set-Top Box and Remote
• Boxee CEO: Google TV Could Boost or Crush Us
• Boxee Beta, Now On Apple TV
• Boxee Beta Is a Web Video Streamer's Dream
• Mr. Fixit Goes Open Source With DIY Repair Site

When technology company executives want to show their dedication to an idea, some get a tattoo. Boxee’s Avner Ronen, apparently, puts a giant button on his media center’s otherwise minimalist remote control. The image above may well be ‘shopped, but the man’s dead serious about the final result — not only is Netflix coming to the Boxee Box, we’ve confirmed it will be front and center on future remote controls. Hit up our full Boxee liveblog to find out what else we learned!

Boxee Box remote gets dedicated Netflix button originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Nov 2010 21:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments