Boxee has announced that the D-Link Boxee Box will hit North America in November, finally putting a set timetable down on the much-anticipated set-top box.
Initially, the company had hoped to release the box by June, but production delays set shipments back.
The goal of the Boxee Box is to give users a way to play 1080p HD videos from the Web or their local network while using hardware acceleration.
Additionally, the box will “provide a TV browser experience that can handle almost everything you throw at it, including Flash 10.1.”
Boxee also wants the box to be affordable and “not feel obsolete 12 months after you buy it.”
Result for: 12 months
In late April, HP announced it was purchasing the struggling smartphone maker Palm for $1.2 billion. The deal gave HP all of Palm’s patents and the WebOS mobile operating system, which some argue is the best mobile OS available today.
Palm had put itself up for sale in the last two months after it became clear that the company’s phones were not selling and it only had enough cash to last the next 12 months.
The ink has not even dried on the deal yet, but HP has seen its first setback, with key WebOS developer Matias Duarte jumping ship to Google, to work on the rival Android operating system.
Duarte’s move seems to imply the developer has little confidence in the future of WebOS with HP at the helm.
The developer was well known within the industry for his work on user interfaces, working on projects for the T-Mobile Sidekick and the Helio, among others. Duarte will work for Google as a User Experience Director, says InfoWorld.
HP has confirmed the move but not responded otherwise.
Result for: 12 months
Video game industry analyst Michael Pachter has called Netflix’s recent move to bring their streaming service to the Sony PlayStation 3 as an “intermediate step” mainly designed to allow the service without breaking an exclusivity deal the company has with rival Microsoft’s Xbox 360.
For the time being, users will have to insert a disc into their PS3s to have the streaming features as it will not be part of the actual firmware until 2010.
Pachter believes the disc is a necessity to avoid breaking the deal with Microsoft.
“We believe that the exclusive arrangement limits Netflix’s ability to appear on the ‘dashboard’ for the PS3 or the Wii, but because both devices have open architecture Internet browsers built-in, the solution proposed for the PS3 would likely not violate the terms of Microsoft’s exclusivity,” says Pachter. “We anticipate that a similar arrangement will be announced for the Wii in the next 12 months.”
