Media

Pyle builds seagoing media center

Waterproof media systems are fine for bathroom dwellers and other homebodies, but they're occasionally useful for those brave enough to venture outside as well. Particularly on the high seas.

And with all the competition in car stereos, Pyle Audio has taken its business to the water with its technology-packed "Seadoo" ocean cruiser. Despite its unfortunate name, the four-passenger Seadoo is a definitely a force: Powered by two head units, this floating media center has a 17-inch LCD (rear), 13-inch LCD (front), DVD player, 10 speakers, 3 amplifiers, and 3 subwoofers, according to BornRich.

Pyle, by the way, … Read more

CBS Web guru Quincy Smith talks Digg partnership

When CBS Interactive announced on Tuesday that its CBSNews.com property had entered a content partnership with Digg, there wasn't a whole lot of information released other than the fact that election-related headlines from Digg would appear on CBSNews.com and that the news site's political news and video clips would be accompanied by Digg buttons.

The amorphous press release was intentional, CBS Interactive President Quincy Smith said later Tuesday in an interview with CNET News.com. It's not always easy to deal with Digg's notoriously opinionated community, which has shown a tendency to cause a mild to major uprising … Read more

DataPortability has big names on board, but a long road ahead

There's been plenty of talk about data portability over the past few weeks, what with Facebook taking issue with a Plaxo script that imported user data from one social network to the other. But the news has mostly dealt with tiffing and squabbling--until now.

A group called the DataPortability Workgroup announced Tuesday that representatives from Facebook, Google, and Plaxo have signed on as members. The group, spearheaded by Chris Saad of start-up Faraday Media, is a sort of alliance of Web thinkers devoted to "(putting) all existing technologies and initiatives in context to create a reference design for … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 637: New U.S. currency: Wii

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Digg, CBS Interactive team up for political coverage

CBS Interactive announced Tuesday that its CBSNews.com property has teamed up with social news site Digg for online coverage of the 2008 election.

Through this partnership, the recognizable "Digg buttons" will be featured on CBSNews.com articles and videos that pertain to the election. In return, Digg's election-related headlines will be displayed throughout CBSNews.com.

"This is part of our strategic plan to open CBSNews.com to diverse news, analysis and voices from across the Web," Michael Sims, CBSNews.com's vice president of editorial content, said in a statement from the company. "… Read more

MTV Networks video, coming soon to a site near you

MTV Networks announced Tuesday that it will distribute its video content across the Web through deals with a number of social-media sites and video portals: GoFish, Veoh, MeeVee, and Imeem. Through this initiative, users of the video sites will be able to view both short- and long-form content provided by MTV Network as well as embed them on blogs and social-networking sites.

The partnerships will start to go live over the next few weeks; representatives from Imeem, for example, said that MTV Networks video content will appear on the social network, which focuses on ad-supported streaming media, in February.

MTV … Read more

SlingCatcher gets a release date, sort of

LAS VEGAS--A lot has happened since we first saw Sling Media's SlingCatcher set-top box at CES 2007. Two new Slingboxes have debuted, as well as a handful of product updates from the company. Oh, and of course, the company was purchased by EchoStar for $380 million.

Watch the SlingCatcher video on CNET TV.

But this is the year, the company insists, that the long-awaited product will indeed be on sale. No specific date has been set, but the word is sometime in the second quarter. Though it originally planned to have it out in time for holiday sales, "… Read more

LinkedIn: Hands off our user data

This post was updated at 12:14 PM PT to include comment from Plaxo.

A representative from business networking site LinkedIn has denied a claim from contact management service Plaxo pertaining to last week's controversy over transporting data from one social network to another. According to LinkedIn, it doesn't approve of Plaxo scripts that import LinkedIn contact information.

Last week, Facebook blocked "power user" Robert Scoble's account when he attempted to test out a new feature from Plaxo that synchronized Facebook "friends list" e-mail addresses with Plaxo's contact management system. Scoble's … Read more

Vudu intros terabyte VOD box, adds more HD movies

With its ability to deliver on-demand movies to your TV via a broadband Internet connection, the Vudu was one of the more promising home theater gadgets of 2007. The company is building on that momentum by adding a second, step-up model to its lineup: the Vudu XL. Physically, it's a near doppelganger of the original model--which remains available--but it ups the internal hard disk to 1 terabyte of storage. That's 4 times the size of the current version, and--according to Vudu--enough to store up to 500 standard-definition movies. The XL is also designed to be more friendly for … Read more