In a Perfect World: The Death of AppleTV

Published on June 15, 2008 in General by Rami Taibah

Ok let’s face it, torrenting isn’t really the most user friendly technology out there. There are so many ins and outs in torrenting that would lead your average Joe to scurry away. You know the kind of a guy who gets Rickrolled, gets confused, and moves on not knowing what exactly happened, kind of guy. In order to get the minds and hearts of these average Joe’s one need to do one thing! Make their torrenting experience as seamless as possible. Sadly, that’s exactly what AppleTV did, except they detoured Joe to the iTunes store and put their hands in his deep pockets for something that is/was freely available…what a shame! If only Joe knew…sigh

Myka come on down! Myka is not very different from AppleTV, but it brings to the table the natural evolution of TV tops; BitTorrent! This means Myka can deliver any kind of
content to your TV, developed in an open platform. Your life your rules! .

Incorporating BitTorrent technology onto TV set-top boxes, will add to the seamlessness that the technology needs to gain ubiquity. One small step for Myka, a huge leap for a DRM-free world

The box comes with HDTV resolutions up to 1080i, h.264 support meaning that it could play Blu-Ray, WiFi, and HDMI. Here is how the box looks from the back:

The set-top box is available in 3 different hard drive configurations: 80gb ($299), 160gb ($349) and 500gb ($459). The company is taking pre-orders now. According to the company, the boxes will be available Summer 2008, which means any moment now!

So why should a Linux advocacy blog care? Well like all things beatiful in the tech-world, this little beast runs on Linux! W00T! In addition to the fact that most of the top tech blogs also cared (TorrentFreak, Engadget, Gizmodo, Electonista, Techfresh, Gadgettastic, AppleTV Source)

About Rami Taibah

Rami Taibah the founder of The Linuxologist and a self proclaimed geek and Linux aficionado. This fall, he will be pursuing an MIMS degree at UC Berkeley, California. You can follow him on Twitter @rtaibah.