A 20-page downloadable whitepaper compares 10 free media center applications, with an eye toward discovering their potential synergies. The study, from the Telematics Freedom Foundation’s “Freedom Box Project,” aims to standardize and promote open, free, and user-friendly web-based TV media center platforms.
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Despite today’s gloomy financial climate, Boxee has just closed a $6 million Series B round of funding. The investment will go toward improving the product, increasing the number of content sources, attracting independent application developers, and embedding boxee in consumer devices, says the company.
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Mediafly’s A/V podcast aggregation service will be added to Roku’s $100 digital video player set-top box (STB) this Fall, the companies report. According to Mediafly, its service will provide free access to “tens of thousands of audio and video podcasts” from NBC, CNN, ESPN, Comedy Central, and other sources.
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After losing patience with waiting for Netflix video streaming to come to the Linux version of Boxee, and needing to relocate my Roku Netflix Player to the garage’s fitness equipment zone, I decided to add a Windows partition to the Boxee Box (my DIY media center STB) so we could continue to enjoy instant Netflix downloads on our family-room TV.
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In another sign of these tumultuous times, Intel announced that it plans to acquire embedded software market leader Wind River for around $884 million. Wind River’s renowned VxWorks real-time operating system (RTOS) is found in myriad consumer gadgets such as LinkSys wireless routers.
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