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A brief history of Ceton and its 6-tuner CableCARD HTPC tuner
The Seattle Times sat down with Ceton, and the entire Hammer family that founded the company, and uncovered some pretty interesting details about the Kirkland, WA startup. Lucky for Windows Media Center fans -- when Gary and Pamela Hammer's son Jeremy graduated from college with a engineering degree, the entire family decided to start a new company, which designed the first multi-stream CableCARD tuner for HTPCs. Without going into all the details here, we did enjoy learning about the origins of the company as well as the fact that a yet to be announced dual tuner version of the quad tuner card should sell for less than $300. We've been excited about this product since CES 2009, but as we get closer and stories like this surface we can hardly contain our anticipation.
Looking for a computer for school?
Summer's end is almost upon us, and you know what that means: back to school! Right now I am sure there are millions of students clamoring to get their various school supplies in order. Pens, paper, Trapper Keepers, and computers.Now, it won't come as a shock to you that we are a little biased towards Macs here on TUAW. Luckily, someone who writes for a real newspaper (they still make those?) thinks that no matter what institute of higher learning you're going to a MacBook will be your best companion.I can't agree more, thanks to being able to run Windows (in a number of ways) the MacBook is a great portable for any student.[via Digg]
Microsoft DAP said to be part of Xbox-branded product lineup
Some more details have leaked out about Microsoft's unannounced-but-well-known WiFi-enabled digital music player that shed some light on its role in Microsoft's overall home entertainment strategy -- though you'll still have to deal with that blurry pic for now. According to sources cited by The Seattle Times, the upcoming DAP is only one of several offerings that will be part of a larger lineup of Xbox-branded products, which will also include Microsoft's upcoming online media service -- the one that will dupe all your iTunes tracks for free -- and a dedicated software media player. Codenamed Project Argo, this initiative is said to be spearheaded by Xbox co-founder J Allard, and is rumored to support the so-called XNA toolkit for allowing developers to easily port games to multiple platforms -- possibly setting the stage for that heavily-rumored Xbox2Go. There's not too much here that we didn't already know, but it's becoming increasingly clear that Redmond has a definite battle plan for waging war against Apple and others in your living room (and pocket), and that the company is starting to make good on its promise of turning the 360 into a true digital hub.[Via Joystiq]
