The New York Times’ David Pogue has this piece today about how SlingMedia’s place-shifting SlingBox technology is now available on mobile devices, a development that “boggles” the mind.
Pogue is clearly taken with the technology, which used to be limited to laptops but now enables consumers to watch their subscription and PVR video choices anywhere they go via handhelds or cell phones.
Today is another milestone in society’s great march toward anytime, anywhere TV. Starting today, Slingbox owners can install new player software on Windows Mobile palmtops and cellphones, thereby eliminating even the laptop requirement.
Customers must first buy the SlingBox at a price of around $250. To get the SlingBox technology on a mobile device, users have to download an installer, which is free for a period of time and then will be priced at $30.
The video is accessible through “tiny tappable on-screen controls” that enable users to tune into their home TV set-ups. It’s clear, as I’ve said before, that SlingMedia’s place-shifting technology (along with other systems that accomplish similar effects) will, sooner or later, inject another radical shift into the TV business, blurring even further the lines between “local” and non-local programming and, in all probability, angering the tradtional media distributors who don’t know quite how to sue SlingMedia on copyright grounds.
This shift only accelerates now that the SlingBox is available on mobile devices. As Pogue says
The Slingbox and its simple, satisfying new cellphone/palmtop player join those portable personal-video options. It seems clear that along with traditional TV schedules and traditional TV channels, the next victim of high-tech progress may be the traditional TV couch.
Update: The Washington Post’s Rob Pegararo has this upbeat review of the mobile SlingBox technology today. The headline says it all: “Slingbox Video Streaming Not Perfect, but Remarkable.”
Cynthia Brumfield at 11:10 AM|Comments(0)
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