Boxee Updated: Now In Public Alpha, Adds Joost and BBC iPlayer

We're big fans of Boxee, the slick cross-platform media center, so it's great to see that they're still adding features. Not only that, but it's now easier than ever to snag a download. More »

Joost Flash Player Launches Tonight, Has Serious Hulu Envy

The poor kids at Joost—and their partners at Viacom—thought the future of TV on the computer would be a discrete app that blended a slick TV emulator with internets! power. They were wrong, Hulu and Google were right: It's all about the browser. So that's where Joost is going. Its Flash-based player officially launches full-throttle tonight. The early word from paidContent is that it's still no Hulu—the best place for CBS content, maybe, but it's got a lot of catching up to do. Though really, it's not clear that it ever can. There's a reason our internet TV remote is heavy on the Hulu. [Joost via paidContent]

Sling.com Beta Enhancements, Like Your TV Shacked Up with Hulu

Sling Media (makers of those nifty Sling boxes) has just notified their beta community that new and improved Sling.com services are soon to go live for testing. The first major feature is web-based content viewing for subscribers, eliminating the need for separate players. The second major feature, teased way back in early 2007, is Clip+Sling content sharing. More »

Hunting for Viewers, Joost Moves to Your Browser

Joost, the P2P-powered TV killer we reviewed back in the heady days of the writers' strike that we found a bit wanting (and is on the skids), will work in your browser later this summer with a plug-in, rather than needing to install a whole separate app. As Valleywag points out, this might be a bit futile, since the next version of Adobe's Flash will have built-in file-sharing. Anyone out there still using Joost? [Valleywag]

ZeeVee: One Box to Broadcast PC's HD Video All Over the House

Today, a startup called ZeeVee is launching the ZvBox, a three-part plan for getting all the good HD video content from your PC out to all the TVs in the house: More »

Adobe Media Player 1.0 Arrives, Sorta

About a year after its beta launch, Adobe Media Player is in full effect, or almost. Adobe's little Flash-only scheme for making money on the internet has lined up CBS and Viacom properties MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, plus PBS, Universal Music Group and a few others, though not all of them show up yet in the list of stuff to watch. (That tantalizing Daily Show you see in the promo pic—not available yet.) Remember, unlike other similar programs, this one lets you watch online or off. But like all the rest, it's only as good as the content it brings to the table. And its interface. And the picture quality. Any beta testers out there want to comment? We'd love to hear your impressions. [Adobe (download) via CNet]

Coolness Roundup: Black Friday Looms Ahead, Deals Galore

This week Stephen and Charlie talk about Black Friday deals, HD monitors, Avid not attending NAB, and the Joost-killing open-source Miro 1.0 media player. Then they point out the height of the week's coolness in their unique Rapid Fire Roundup of Cool Products segment. [Free Podcast at Coolness Roundup or at the iTunes Store]

Coolness Roundup: Joost a Minute, and Star Wars, the Guest that Stayed Too Long

This week on episode 107 of the Coolness Roundup, the Gurus of Cool answer home theater questions and talk about watching videos via peer-to-peer internet streaming video service Joost. In Cool/Not Cool, Charlie and Stephen wonder why the weird, Elvis-like Star Wars phenomenon just won't go away. [Free Podcast at PodShow or at Coolness Roundup]

Joost To Stream Live TV

Joost will test live streaming TV in the US in early 2008, alongside its pre-packaged on-demand video. The key here is sporting events, which are always better the first time around. But sports mean express written consent, and rather than try to compete with the big boys, Joost may be planning to start at the lumberjack/rodeo/dodgeball level. More »

Joost, DivX Working Together For DivX Connected Content

The DivX connected platform, which we had a hands-on with back in August, may just get an injection of Joost internet video. DivX founder stated that their two companies were working together to enhance DivX connected—which already lets you stream music, photos and video from your computer—to add a Joost plug-in by the time the platform launches in November. No specific details are known, but unless Joost gets much more content, it still doesn't compare to broadcast or cable. [Pocket Lint]

Joost Beta 1.0 Debuts, Everybody Can Try It Now

Until late last week, if you wanted to use the potentially cable-TV-replacing video streaming service Joost, you had to have friends. But now anybody can watch Joost online from dusk until the dawn and beyond, because Beta 1.0 of the P2P (peer-to-peer) video service just hit the streets. The good news? The company's just about gotten it right after umpteen betas, and it's looking good. However, it remains to be seen whether Joost techies have figured out how to scale the network without crashing it. Hey, let's all pounce on it and see if it holds up! Take a look at a screen shot and our impressions, after the jump. More »

Joost to be Embedded in TVs, Cellphones, Set-top Boxes, Bagel Toasters

Internet TV software Joost doesn't want to lose any position in the infinite video wars. They want to move out of the PC box as soon as possible and that's why they are getting ready to embed their software in TV sets with Internet connections, cellphones, set-top boxes and any other "future device" they could get their hands on. More »

Microsoft Announces Mediaroom IPTV

Microsoft rolled out a new brand for its IPTV tools for service providers, and it's calling it Mediaroom. Formerly called Microsoft IPTV Edition, it's more of a branding exercise for IPTV companies to brag about than actual new technology. Using the Mediaroom name, Microsoft aims to make the whole concept of IPTV easier for home users to understand. Let's see if we can make some sense of it. What's in Microsoft's latest witches brew of TV goodness? More »

GigaOM and Joost Are Handing Out 20,000 Invites: Get One Quick

Have you missed the Joost train because you don't have any friends and are still scrambling for an invite? Fear not, the guys over at GigaOM and NewTeeVee are partnering with Joost to dole out 20,000 invites. All you have to do is signup with a name and email address. More »

Paid Video Downloads to Start Dying in 2008

A new report by Forrester Research declares that the paid video download market is going to come to a grinding halt in 2008, despite growing rapidly into 2007. Why? Forrester analyst James McQuivey thinks we're going to withhold our credit card numbers and migrate to free content—besides, according to McQuivey, despite Apple's best efforts to make it easy for all, it's only us "media addicts" who've jumped in. More »

Want a Joost Invite?

Well, do it yourself, you lazy bum! GigaOM and NewTeeVee are offering up self-invitations to the new Joost service that is taking the Intertubes by storm! I personally haven't played around with Joost that much, but from what I have done it is an alright service. Let's just hope they have added some servers to handle the load of beta users. –Travis Hudson More »

Joost Struggling Under the Load of New Beta Users

Joost recently opened itself up to an unlimited beta, and its since been inundated with new users as websites hand out stacks upon stacks of invites. The video streaming service is based on a peer-to-peer bandwidth sharing structure, so in theory it should be able to scale to however many users hop on board. In reality? Eh… not so much. More »

If You Want Joost, You Gotta Have Friends

Today marks the first day of YouTube competitor Joost's commercial availability. That's right, it's out of "expanded beta" and open to an "unlimited number"—cue record scratch noise—"of friends, family and colleagues of existing beta testers." Maybe it's not beta, or expanded beta, but I am going to call this interim period "expanded expanded beta." More »

iTunes Sucks Compared to Pirated Videos

iTunes is having trouble competing against the quality of pirated content. It's like déjà vu all over again when you're talking about movie downloads competing against pirated copies of the same films. Just like the old days of Napster and free music downloads running rampant because of the dearth of legal music downloads, piracy still gives you better results today. More »

Viacom Jilted YouTube for Joost, Google Crying Itself to Sleep

Why did Viacom abruptly demand 100,000 of its videos be removed from YouTube? Turns out Viacom had other plans for its videos and films: tons of its content was on its way to another Internet video service: the hi-buzz peer-to-peer service called Joost. Suspicions arose when beta testers noticed a plethora of Viacom clips on the nascent Joost, the beta project with more clips than users thus far. More »

Venice Project is Now Joost. Huh?

The Venice Project has been underway for a while, and its proprietors are busy figuring out an easy way to bring TV to you over the Internet. Now they've gone and changed their name to Joost, and invite you to download a beta copy of its software that attempts to provide the best of both the Internet and TV worlds. While we test this Beta we're trying to get invited to, let's have a poll! More »