Pre-order now!

D-Link has signed up Amazon (US only) as exclusive pre-order partners for the Boxee Box. People who pre-order through Amazon in the US will receive their Boxee Box before it goes on sale anywhere else.

We think the Boxee Box is ideal for people who want to:

• Play what you normally watch on your computer  (whether it is on the Internet or your home network) on their TV
• Tailor the Internet experience to a huge flat screen
• Do it in full HD, 1080p with 5.1 surround whenever possible
• Share the stuff you watch with your friends and see what they are watching
• Use a simple remote rather than a keyboard and mouse

If that is what you are looking to do on your TV then you will love the Boxee Box. It’s $199 and it’s available for pre-order now

UPDATE: you can now pre-order the Boxee Box in Canada through BestBuy.

International launch:

We have some good news for people who live in _______ (see list below)! D-Link has decided to go for an International launch rather than just release in the US.

Come this November the Boxee Box will be available in the following countries: the US, Canada, Australia and in Europe – Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Macedonia, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

As soon as we have news regarding other countries we will let you know.

Intel Inside:

The Boxee Box has moved to a completely new platform, and is now based on the Intel Atom Processor (the Intel CE4100 system-on-a-chip codenamed “Sodaville”).  This switch means that Boxee will be part of the Smart TV program that Intel is pushing and that will be heavily promoted this fall.

At CES we demoed a Boxee Box running on Nvidia’s Tegra 2 platform. We decided to make the switch to Intel earlier this year (which was a part of what delayed us from our earlier ‘Q2 launch date) to provide better support for high-profile h264, HD playback. There is plenty for us to do with Nvidia on the mobile front and future generations of Tegra are being designed to support a wide variety of video formats, so we are excited to be continuing our relationship in other ways.

The Boxee Box with Intel Inside supports full HD. 1080p, High Profile 4.1. And while the spec calls for 62.5Mbit/s, we have actually tested it in excess of 90Mbit/s (sorry, that’s the highest bitrate sample we could get our hands on). No sweat.

We’re at the Intel Developer Forum today showing off the new Boxee Box by D-Link so if you’re in the area, stop by and see us.

Almost parallel to this story comes word of yet another suicide by a worker at Hon Hai Group, who the Chinese company that works on iPhones. I’m not implying any connection here but my goodness, things are out of control.

From the blog:

Until today, the Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 was only available for OEMs to put on new Windows 7 PCs capable of Windows Touch. Due to feedback and requests from both partners and customers, we are releasing the Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows 7 for anyone with Windows Touch capable devices to download.

Apparently all those complaints (and presumably pressure from the competition) paid off. Now anyone with a touchscreen on a Windows 7 PC can enjoy:

• Microsoft Blackboard, an intricate game of physics in which you solve a puzzle by creating a fanciful machine on a blackboard.
• Microsoft Garden Pond, a tranquil game that takes place in serene Japanese water gardens.
• Microsoft Rebound, a game in which you use your fingertips to control Tesla spheres with an electrical field between them to catapult a metal game ball into your opponent’s goal.
• Microsoft Surface Globe, a program that you can use to explore the earth as a flat 2-D map or as an immersive 3-D experience.
• Microsoft Surface Collage, a program that you can use to explore and interact with your photos and arrange them as a desktop background.
• Microsoft Surface Lagoon, a screen saver and interactive water simulation, complete with a meditative rock arrangement and playful, shy fish.

You will need multi-touch input to get the full effect from these apps, but even with single touch or pen, you can enjoy some of their interactivity. Be sure to check out our InkShow on the Touch Pack, and our other random encounters with it over the past year.

Update: Okay, so apparently you need certified multi-touch input to enjoy any of the interactivity, and this is really only for people who bought multi-touch PCs from OEMs who skipped the Touch Pack. Pity. Was hoping to see how multi-touch displays and tablet peripherals could take advantage of this.

- ESRI announcement on ESRI Mobile Blog

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The iPad will be released to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK on a Friday in a little over two weeks. If you live in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand or Singapore you’ll have to wait a bit longer…

However, if my experience is anything to go by, many international customers have not been prepared to wait for Apple to deal them into the iPad game.

I took my iPad (picked up from the US the week after launch) to the ABITE Business and IT Expo in Sydney 2 weeks ago. I was naively expecting to be the only person there with a shiny new iPad. As it turned out, the guy at the stand next to me had one too and there were at least 2 other iPad owners present at the small expo in Sydney.

The salesman at the store in Austin, Texas related that he had made a number of sales to visiting Australians in the opening week. It shouldn’t surprise me really because living down under means that we are expected to wait for a lot, but that doesn’t mean that we are patient.

One thing that I am looking forward to is being able to use my Australian credit card in the App store. Finally I’ll be able to purchase the all important “apps” like Flight Control HD! Hoping to finally pick up a good case for it too.

Supposedly due out in the next few years, WiGig has less range than WiFi and is targeted for the home and all that streaming of video and media that you do. The WiGig standard runs on the 60GHz spectrum and promises speeds of 7 gigabits per second.

Via The LA Times

Rugged Tablet PCs with digital ink input and outdoor screens can take all of the functionality you need right out to the point of sale, point of care, point of service or any other point that you have.

If you have a Microsoft Access or SQL server database that you use to collect data, you’re in luck because buried in Microsoft Office is a super simple way to collect data in the field with digital ink using Microsoft InfoPath. If you don’t use an access database you can still use this solution by linking to your data via ODBC.

To get started, you simply open a Table in your database and click on the “External Data” tab on the Ribbon (for Access 2010). Look for the “Collect Data” section and click on “Create E-mail”.

Run through the wizard and select InfoPath… I’ll leave you to figure out the rest, but it is very straight forward for a reasonably tech savvy user. Feel free to post questions below.

Data is sent from the field via email through outlook. Replies are collected back in the office via a PC that is directly connected to your database.

The best part of it all is that you can collect your data with digital ink straight onto the form. No mucking around with the Tablet Input PaneI, just write on the form.

Voila! Your Access database is now field ready. Whilst I’ve demonstrated this in Office 2010, the same functionality exists in Office 2007 as long as you have InfoPath and Access.

From the Beta version of Office 2010, it looks as though InfoPath will come in a “viewer” and “designer” flavour which will hopefully reduce the licensing costs for InfoPath and drive adoption of the product.

From his commencement speech at Hampton University via the Huffington Post:

“You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter,” he told the students. “And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it’s putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.”

Can you believe that? Blah, blah, blah, truth meter, blah, blah, blah, iPads, blah, blah, blah, diversion. That’s crazy, right? Outrageous that the president would waste time ranting about iPads and stuff rather than make a responsible statement against the current state of our 24/7 media cycle and the misinformation and distractions it spreads through our always-connected, mobile tech-enabled society. Thank goodness seasoned media is there to direct us to the real story hiding beneath talk of emancipation and empowerment and stuff with headlines like, “Obama Criticizes iPad During Commencement Speech”, ’cause that part’s really important. And now here is a video of a cat using an iPad.

P.S. Yes, that was irony, and so is the fact that media outlets have gone echo chamber, stuffing my feeds with this distracting diversion, exactly as the president warned. Or if this was on a message board: media outlets, YHBT. In case anyone cares, here are two links to responsible reporting on the speech.