According to lots of rumors in the last week, Apple is looking to unveil a home media server that can share a user’s home video, music and photos from anywhere in the home or over the Internet. Yes, that’s all your media served up in a cloud.

According to 9to5Mac, it would run through your MobileMe account, where a dynamic DNS will tie into Apple’s home media server. Essentially, this box will let you access all of your media (video, music or photos) anywhere in the world as long as you have a broadband connection.

According to the rumors, the media server would run on Apple’s Time Machine, not the Leopard operating system.  This makes me wonder what will happen to Apple TV, which has fizzled in the market. It’s sold so poorly that Jobs even called Apple TV a “hobby”.

So is this a real product Apple is working on? I sure hope so! Odds are it won’t be released during this year’s MacWorld show, but you never know. I would pay about $10 to $20 a month for a service like that.  It would be really convenient because I wouldn’t need to carry CD or DVDs with me when I travel, and I don’t have to worry if I have all my music with me wherever I go.

Not to mention, having instant access to all my media anywhere in the world would put my Xbox Windows Media Center to shame. (Uh, Microsoft, maybe you should work on something like this too?)

As if that isn’t enticing enough, there’s talk allowing the iPhone to access your media on the cloud.  So you won’t even need a computer, just your iPhone to access all your media. However, there is already one iPhone app that let you listen to your home music files. Simpfly Media says that their software allows users to access iTunes from iPhone via 3G or Wi-Fi networks.  I haven’t used the software yet, but am testing it in the next few days and will report back here.

This morning at CES, Tivo unveiled a newly redesigned search function called Tivo Search.

The existing “Swivel Search” will be phased out, which is great news, if you ask me. Swivel Search was mostly a joke, as soon as it was released. It wasn’t very useful and never served up satisfying or relevant results.

The more recent Tivo software update included a new search tool which was much more satisfying. The new search UI takes it to the next step by taking advantage of HDTV screens and  allowing for more on-screen details without lots of digging. Tivo said the redesign means “less less navigation and quick, accurate results.”

Over at Gizmodo, they have some screen shots that indeed shows off the wider screen format, as well as video windows along the top row. This may mean that users can now continue to watch their existing show, while searching. Or Tivo may include some advertisements.

The good news is that the search gives you the HD options first, so you can record those, rather than SD. The best news? You can get YouTube search results! This is a new addition from the old Tivo search functions. I’m so glad they included YouTube results, since there’s lots of room for discovery there.

The bad news is that Tivo Search doesn’t look up your NetFlix account or queue. How’s that for lame? Tivo is definitely pushing Amazon VOD content in search results, which makes me believe they might have some revenue deal, or something with primary search placement. Anyone else know how the Tivo/Amazon deal is structured?

Anyway, I haven’t fired up my Tivo this morning yet, but the company said that all Tivo Series 3, Tivo HD and Tivo HD XL boxes should be enabled with the new search today.

LG announced a new TV with the ability to stream movies from NetFlix without a set-top box. Essentially, the TV comes with an Ethernet connection and Linux operating system to run applications and stream content right to the TV.

Other TV manufacturers, like Sony, have said they will include Ethernet ports into their sets, but this is the first time that any application has been enabled directly into a TV set.

According to Gizmodo, the TV sets will cost about $200 to $300 more than similar TVs without NetFlix streaming. That’s rather interesting since you can buy the Roku NetFlix Player for $99. I imagine the disparity is because Roku is taking a loss on every Roku box they sell, and are making money from NetFlix somehow.

The other downside is that the LG TV sets will probably not have Wi-Fi. If that’s the case, you’ll need to run an Ethernet cable into your living room and connect it to your TV. (Actually, I’ve already done this because of the set-top box clutter, but that’s another story.)  The Roku box comes with an Ethernet port, but also comes with Wi-Fi.  If you’re into high quality video, you should probably connect with the Ethernet cable, because quality via Wi-Fi isn’t as good. There’s a longer start buffer, and seeking to different parts of the show is also very slow.

In effect, the only advantage to these broadband enabled TVs is avoiding another set-top box. That’s a noble goal, but it’s not very compelling or earth-shattering to most users. Another box vs. another $300 for your TV.

GigaOm has a post about Broadband TV, as he calls it, but he’s looking at it from NetFlix’s point of view.  And he makes a pretty good point about NetFlix. First of all, NetFlix already has the main ingredients to success as a primary VOD supplier. They have agreements with Hollywood, and they also have the technology to deliver movies over broadband connections.  Plus there’s the stand-alone Roku NetFLix Player box, and now broadband TVs.  So NetFlix needs to weather the storm now, and wait until the world (and technology) catches on to Internet-delivered entertainment into the home.

Eventually, I believe all HDTVs will be broadband enabled, so this is a good start.It’s a good bet that set-top boxes will disappear eventually, but not for a very long time.  Hopefully, future HDTVs will have broadband connections and an open source TV platform for running and creating applications. Imagine what creative applications we can experience on our TV screens. Imagine all the Internet companies that would rush to create applications. There would be Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Google–anything on the web delivered to the TV. Think about the iPhone App model, except on the TV screen.

Interesting eh?

Ars Technica is reporting that hundreds of Microsoft Zune devices have stopped working as of midnight December 30th. Users are flooding the Zune forums trying to figure out why their devices stopped working and there’s no easy answer. Apparently it affects 30GB Zunes and not others.

Why did they stop? At that specific time? One blog calls the event: Z2K or the Day Zune Music Died.

A Microsoft spokesperson wrote back to Ars saying:

“”We are aware that customers with the Zune 30GB are experiencing issues with their Zune device. We are actively working now to isolate the issue and develop a solution to address it. We will keep customers informed on next steps via the support page on zune.net (zune.net/support).”

Ever since it was released as an answer to Apple’s iPods, the Zune has been a second (or third) string music player. Perhaps this is a great time for Microsoft to admit that they screwed up with the Zune.

Perhaps it’s time for Microsfot to kill the Zune.

The most compelling thing Microsoft can do is kill the existing Zunes and release brand new music players. I mean, Apple has continued to evolve their players with different sizes, screens, and now even touch. Microsoft has been slow to innovate and release new features.

Just about the only thing I like about the Zune is the wireless synching in your home so that music and podcasts and videos are synched up without a cord of any kind. That’s a feature that Apple should steal for the iPods.

Other than that, can anyone seriously say that the Zune was a success for Microsoft? Does anyone believe that Zune is the best media player out right now? Does the Microsoft music store compare well to iTunes?

Seems like the Zune Apocalypse is here and it may be a good thing.

After fighting off the urge for a lone time, I finally got an iPhone about a month ago. And so far, it’s been a great adventure. I’ve been trying out new apps, playing with everything and annoying everyone because I can’t keep my hands off it. The first few days I had it, I even considered sleeping with it under my pillow.

Anyway, I decided to come up with my reasons why I switched from my old Sprint Mogul phone, to the iPhone. Here it goes:

1. The iPhone is Cool. Ok, that’s not really a reason. But when I called Sprint to ask them about early termination fees, they (naturally) tried to convince me to stay with them. However, the customer retention specialist told me: “Why do you want to get the iPhone? Because you want to be cool?” Uh, thanks Sprint. That’s one big reason why I made the switch. I don’t want a snarky customer service rep making fun of me–it’ll only lose you customers. When I told this story to the Apple store sales person selling me the iPhone, he seemed very shocked and amused.
2. A Great User Interface. Compared to the iPhone, my last phone was seriously clunky. For starters, the HTC Windows Mobile-based phone  I used had about 15 different buttons, in additional to a slide-out keyboard. The iPhone just has one main button, and uses just on-screen multi-touch navigation. After trying out both, I definitely prefer a simpler, easy to use interface that was designed well, over a complex interface with a Windows interface. Even the tiny on-screen iPhone keyboard doesn’t annoy me too much anymore.
3. I Wanted Another iPod. The time for a one-iPod family is over. Every family member needs their own. For a long time, me and my wife have shared an iPod classic (160GB), but it was clear early on that we needed separate ones. Our musical tastes are vastly different, and managing playlists was getting too cumbersome. So using my iPhone as my portable musical device seemed like a great way to avoid buying a second iPod and handing off the old iPod for my wife. I don’t mind the smaller hard drive on the iPhone, since I haven’t managed to fill it up yet after about a month of adding more music, podcasts, pictures and applications.
4. YouTube Support. I love having instant access to practically any video on my phone. I can quickly look up a music video, a news clip or just waste time YouTube surfing. Yes, the streaming is a bit slower than my PC, but it’s good enough if I’m on 3G. My biggest complaint is that the YouTube application that comes with the iPhone doesn’t allow me to sign in or see my favorites. I have to use the Safari browser to sign in with YouTbue, which is pretty annoying.
5. Applications. This is something that was a pleasant surprise. I had no idea how much fun iPhone applications could be. My current favorite is Ocarina, a flute like instrument that you have blow into the iPhone mic to play. It’s also a social application, because other iPhone users can favorite my songs or I can tune into other songs that people are playing around the world. It’s a great must-have application that could not exist without all the features included in the iPhone. Other favorites are some games I’ve downloaded (MotoChaser, Spore, BiiBallLite and Scramboni) and applications like Shazam, Facebook, and Google.
6. All-in-One Phone. I love having everything I need in one device. Yes, I wish I could record video. And I wish the iPhone camera took better quality pictures. But overall, the iPhone experience has been an eye opener because it does so much. My last phone, the HTC Mogul from Sprint, required me to download too many third party applications just to get the phone to work how I liked. The iPhone comes with everything and the applications only make the iPhone better.
7. Uh, It’s For Work!. I love new technology and trying out new devices or applications. So when the iPhone first came out last year, I resisted buying one because a) I was locked into my original cell provider, 2) it was expensive, 3) it was too new and untested and 4) it was pretty expensive. However, I’ve clearly overcome all of these obstacles and decided that’s it’s much more important to have an iPhone and learn everything about it.

Oh and did I mention that it’s cool? Oh OK, good.