By Kyle Reasons

Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Rumors and speculation over the Apple TV have recently made the switch to hacks and mods. As soon as you thought the speculation was over, here I come with yet more!

The Apple TV is an awesome product. You can stream all of your digital content whether it be music, TV shows, movies, pictures or podcasts from your computer to your television set. As cool as it may be, many see this as only the tip of the ice berg. The possibility of having the ability to rent movies over the Apple TV (on iTunes) doesn’t seem that far fetched. The Apple TV is great is at stands but has alot of potential and options for expandability.

One feature that I believe we will see built into the Apple TV in the future is the ability to view YouTube/Google Videos on the Apple TV. There are a few reasons why I think this may happen:

• Apple and Google are buddies

• Google’s CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt is a member of Apples Board of Directors

• “Like Apple, Google is very focused on innovation and we think Eric’s insights and experience will be very valuable in helping to guide Apple in the years ahead.”-Steve Jobs
• “ Apple is one of the companies in the world that I most admire. I’m really looking forward to working with Steve and Apple’s board to help with all of the amazing things Apple is doing.”-Eric Schmidt
• Apple is working with Google on a modified version of Google Maps for the iPhone
• Google.com/mac (they made the Google logo all pretty for Apple, how sweet)

• Apple TV is a great step towards making IPTV mainstream. Apple dominates the podcasting front thanks to iTunes. Apple dominates in the distribution of Television shows online. Saturation of all of this online media is only making Apple stronger and stronger in regards of IPTV. All of these things are baby steps of course, YouTube would be yet another step.

• Not that YouTube isn’t already mainstream, but I can’t see Google complaining about having the ability to bring YouTube off the computer and into the living room.

Whether this is made possible by a hack or made possible by Apple, I think this would be awesome. Who can resist watching somebody get kicked in the nuts from the comfort of their sofa?

By Martin Regtien
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

We just had an interview with John Yang, Sales Manager for GlobalTop who are launching the HUD GPS Speed Meter which attracted huge attention at CeBIT. You might remember our earlier post on this Bluetooth GPS which projects your vehicle speed and navigational direction onto your windscreen, just like in a jet fighter.
Here’s some more info on this Head-Up Display unit which should only cost around USD100 when it becomes available next month. We also will be one of the first to have a review unit and we might even be able to give a few away! So stay tuned!
Here are the details on DigitalReviews.net

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

As Jimmy wrote earlier, iTunes and Windows Vista didn’t play well together, at least if you used the “Safely Remove Hardware” feature. Doing so could have corrupted your iPod. Some changes were made to iTunes 7.1, but as Apple indicated, it was a Vista issue. Microsoft has patched the issue.

Among several patches released for the new operating system was one designed to address iPod issues that have appeared. Users had complained that their iPods were becoming corrupted after using the “Safely Remove Hardware” option to eject the player. Source: BetaNews

We Say: Why the “sorta” comment? Unfortunately, we’re still waiting for iTunes and 64-bit versions of XP and Vista to work together …

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

The optical disc is supposed to become obsolete any day now, but maybe there’s hope in store from the folks at Mempile. The TeraDisc is the first-ever 1TB optical disc capable of holding 250 Hours of HD Programming on a single disc. No word on pricing, and the technology won’t be out until 2010, but it’s great to see storage always moving forward.

“Existing optical media store the data through the use of light-reflective semi-transparent technologies. While increasing in capacity, even the newer blue-laser technologies are nonetheless limited to a very small number of layers. More

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

My co-workers are getting out of control when it comes to pranks. To me, nothing spells “gotcha” more than a “Gotcha Box” from the folks at the Onion. (Who knew they made and sold things?) The concept is simple: you place a desirable gift inside one of these hideous product boxes and watch your co-worker’s face crumble as they contemplate the Make Your Own Umbrella Kit, the ever-popular USB Toaster, and of course a membership to the Salt of the Month Club. Box dimensions: 12″x9″x4″

We Say: For $18.99 USD, this is a gift that keeps on giving.
Source: The Onion via Slashgear

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

I love spy gadgetry. Here’s a phone that sports a built-in motion sensor. When an intruder walks by, the TeleSpy calls the number you programmed into it for emergencies and the hidden mic let’s you listen in. Of course, at my home, the motion would be a cat or dog, and the listening in would reveal a lot of crunching and tail wagging.

Product Page
$64.99 at Think Geek

We Say: It would be great if you could scare the living daylights out of the intruder and say “I can hear you….” as they walked by.

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

TiVo is shaking things up again this week with a new free feature that lets you share photos and videos with other TiVo users. You need a Series 2 or Series 3 TiVo box connected to the Internet to view the shared media (creating the slideshows can be done from any PC), and it took me a few seconds to set up a free account and upload some pics of my new dog Fred. The service has some decent tools for creating slideshows and photo albums.

Final verdict: Nice, but nothing you can’t do online. If your family is TiVoed up and all over the place, this is a nice way to broadcast your own content on their TV sets. Why did this take so long? Source: OneTrueMedia.com

Set Up an Account Here

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

Yahoo started as a hand-crafted directory of Websites. When I worked at CNET we would study the directory and get yelled at for not having as detailed and organized an “ontology” as Yahoo. And then came Google. Now that Google is kicking a$$ and taking names, the gang at Yahoo seem to be playing copycat by dumping the directory links in search results. The gang at SearchEngineRoundtable took some screenshots to illustrate the point.

Shot one: the old search result with links to the directory:

Shot two: The new and more Google-ized version:

We Say: With a good search engine, guess you don’t need a directory. When was the last time you used it? Source: SeachEngineRountable