Posted 11/12/09 at 07:09:13 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Social media center Boxee has announced plans to move forward with hardware makers. This means that a dedicated Boxee Box will be arriving before too long. More details and mockups of the device will be available at an event on December 11th.

Boxee showed off their new software for Mac and Linux back at CES. While at CES, they began having discussions with hardware makers about the possibility of embedding Boxee in a standalone unit. Now that that’s happening, Boxee is talking more about the product as a platform.

Boxee’s goal is to make it easy for users to find the content they want. To do this they plan to give content owners and aggregators tools to develop a variety of business models (i.e. make cash money). Ultimately, Boxee would like to be on all your connected devices. Maybe someday Boxee, maybe someday…

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Posted 09/17/08 at 01:34:16 AM by Pulkit Chandna

The incongruity between disparate media formats has denied us a truly universal media experience till now. This is simply not acceptable in this epoch of technology convergence. A consortium called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystems (DECE) is working on improving interoperability between different media and consumer electronic devices. The group includes HP, Intel, Microsoft, Paramount, Sony and Toshiba, besides other prominent CE heavyweights and film studios.

The group will shed more light on its plan, to have greater interoperability between devices, during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). DECE will develop an industry standard, which will allow users to enjoy digital content across various devices without having to worry about compatibility issues.

If most people find merit in the notion that digital downloads are going to replace the need for optical storage formats, they will also agree that digital content will have to offer a universal media experience like the hugely successful DVD. “We see this vision of 'buy once, play anywhere,” Mark Coblitz, senior VP of strategic planning at Comcast – a member of DECE, gave the gist of the plan.

DECE President Mitch Singer even welcomed Apple, which runs a popular digital distribution service iTunes, tied to its products, to join the consortium. Do you think that services like iTunes are doomed?

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