Touting the ability to play downloaded videos and streamable shows on your living room set, Apple TV is now boosting its rep to  techie households everywhere with Apple TV commercials. This one particular commercial shows iTunes movies on Macs and iPods that end up eventually on your own entertainment showcase in the living room - the primal ability to Apple TV.

Despite the current flak Apple TV is getting from TiVo and Windows Media Center fans, a plethora of modders, hackers and Internet TV enthusiasts have boasted everything that can be possible on the device, including game emulation and games, plus HD playback on TVMini HD.

The slim, silver device from the Cupertino-based company was already released back in March, and should still be available at your nearest Mac or home theater retailer. Oh, and you could probably grab a different flavor of Apple TV for room preferences.

Gizmodo writer Eric Lam gave a reaction and correction post to CNET's Erica Ogg for her article discussing how iTunes may be streamed to a mobile phone in the future. The CNET write-up got a lot of fans excited until Lam burst the bubble.

Lam explained that the article does hold some water in terms of feasibility, but there's a lot more to it than just having your phone synced with a computer or iPod.

"What they're talking about is using the excellent, yet non-specific ability of a Slingbox to stream iTunes to an Apple TV," says Lam, "using a HD equipped Slingbox Pro to stream Apple TV to your Sling Client-equipped Palm, or Windows Mobile phone."

Lam also said that there's a fat chance that iPhone wouldn't support Sling videos. Audio should be a non-issue, but unless there's a drastic change in the last stages of the iPhone, that would be a smart prediction.

"The article speaks of future support, but isn't this possible with the mere addition of a few IR codes?" asks the Gizmodo scribe.

We mentioned in an earlier post on our Apple blog that videogame console emulation is apparently possible on Apple's new Apple TV. If you're still a bit skeptical about that, here's proof. Gizmodo has posted a video of an enterprising Apple TV owner - Rusty - playing Super Mario Bros. on an Apple TV.

Rusty says that this was made possible through the use of a standard Apple TV OS plus a few hacks. "Pretty simple hack to accomplish," he said. "Just enabled shh. Then VNC, AFP and USB. Then installed Nestopia and Emulator Enhancer." Nestopia is one of the emulators confirmed to be compatible with the Apple TV OS.

Anyway, check out the video below. Now who's to say that Apple gaming's nonexistent?

Engadget reports a couple of new abilities that you Apple TV owners can choose to bestow upon your two-week old Apple gadget.

The first one is an RSS plugin from Twenty08. This plugin features a basic RSS Feed reader and can read RSS1.x/2.x feeds. The plugin can't read ATOM feeds as of this posting, but we're looking forward to an update that will hopefully include this feature. Video RSS feeds are also on the way according to Twenty08.

The second is for videogame console emulation. It's not actually a hack per se, but according to Engadget, a Wiki over at AwkwardTV says that several popular emulators by Richard Bannister "work on the Apple TV OS with the addition of SSH." Right now, the following emulators have been confirmed working:

• Nestopia 1.3.6 (NES)
• Generator 0.4.2 (Sega Genesis)
• BSNES 0.17 (SNES)
• Sixtyforce 0.9.0 (N64)

Finally, there's a challenge put forth by AppleTVHacks.net and FatWallet.com where they'll be giving US$ 1,000 to the first person or team who can get an Apple TV to use an external USB drive for storage. The patch must also be applied without opening the Apple TV's case, much like in the USB boot video we posted about a few days ago.

For more on all of these new hacks and the challenge, click on the "via" link below.

 

Apple TV, a product which enables Widescreen (16:9) enhanced definition or high definition viewing of media from computers with iTunes was announced last year. When it was released March 21 this year, the people who purchased it bemoaned the limited hard drive space (40 GB) and other functions that the Apple TV lacked. Barring any modification to the product, customers were stuck with the one model they released.

Now, rumors on Digg have been surfacing that new versions of the Apple TV are going to be released. This started when one Apple TV Hacks reader eirikso pointed out that the Apple TV is being presented in the same manner as products with multiple versions. If you look carefully at The Apple Store's page for the Apple TV, you will see that it says "select your Apple TV" in the upper left quadrant of the screen. What's there to select when only one model was released? Hmm...

So far there has been no word from Apple whether the rumors are unfounded or if the new version of the product is going to be released. More on this as more news surface.

Retail company Best Buy dropped Macs from their lineup of electronic products for sale in 1998, saying that Macs don't really sell that well, but last year we saw a comeback of Apple products on Best Buy stores. The retailer started selling Macs again on 50 of their stores, adding 45 more stores to the list of their Mac-bearing stores late last year.

The positive performance of Mac sales probably boosted Best Buy's confidence in Apple again. In their first quarter earnings conference, Best Buy announced that they will start selling Macs on more of their stores this year. Best Buy president Brian Dunn added that they will be expanding their relationship with Apple this year.

Best Buy's Apple-expansion plan includes selling Macs on 200 of their stores during the latter half of this year. We see this as "practice" for Best Buy, to test the waters before they begin selling Macs in all of their stores again. Analysts say that (of course) Best Buy selling Macs again would mean more sales both for the electronics retailer and the computer manufacturer.

With plans of selling Apple TV on their stores, we share Best Buy's growing confidence in the sales performance of Apple.

In the spirit of bringing you more Apple TV-related modifications, we're now gonna show you how to run the full Mac OS X on the Apple TV. semthex from Hackint0sh.org hacked out a replacement to the Mac OS X kernel, side-stepping over certain hardware restrictions that previously made running the Mac OS X on an Apple TV improbable.

Here are the steps to install the full Mac OS X on the Apple TV. Install at your own risk.

1) Remove the drive from the Apple TV
2) Back up your drive! Make an image of it (see the harddrive upgrade tutorial for this)
3) Connect the drive to a regular Mac (use a Firewire or USB drive dock)
4) Install OS X (Intel version) to the drive (we suggest a slim install - no printer drivers etc.)
5) Boot from this drive, and set it up as you would like it. Make sure you do updates so it is at least 10.4.8.
6) Reboot to your normal OS X install.
7) Remove mach_kernel from root of the drive containg the ATV install.
8) Replace it with the customised mach_kernel that youÂ?ll find on Hackint0sh.org.
9) Replace /System/Libary/Coreservices/boot.efiwith the same file from your backup of the Apple TV OS drive (OSBoot partition).
10) Run bless:

bless --folder=/Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices --file=/Volumes/OSBoot/System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi --setBoot

11) Delete all the Nvidia kexts (all beginning with NVD, there should be 5) from the target drive (in /System/Library/Extensions).
12) Transfer the drive back to the Apple TV
13) Turn the Apple TV on and cross your fingers...

And you should boot up into Mac OS X. The Apple TV running Mac OS X can use the mouse and the keyboard normally. Use either Front Row or Back Row to watch content.

For a more detailed how-to, check the installation video by clicking on the full article link below.

The resourceful people from AwkwardTV have released ATVFiles, a simple browser plugin for the Apple TV Finder. Like XBMC, this plugin can play video files without transcoding and syncing/streaming them. As for the codecs, you'll have to get them yourself as ATVFiles does not provide them. AwkwardTV recommends Perian and the A52Codec. You can check out some links to these codecs by clicking on the "via" link below.

Since the download doesn't include a readme file, here are the installation and usage instructions as well as the known issues for the plugin:

Installation

1. Copy ATVFiles.frappliance to this folder: /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns on the Apple TV. You may want to create a symlink from there to some more convenient place.
2. Restart Finder. The command killall Finder will kill it, and it will be automatically restarted.
   

Usage

1. Enter the new "Files" menu on the main menu.
2. It lists files in /Users/frontrow/Movies, so mount or put your video files in that folder.

Known Issues

• AFP mounts don't seem to show up if they're in a location symlinked to. Mount them directly under Movies instead.
• Non-video files are played back using the QT player.
• No previews, etc.
• The icon is ugly and scaled way up.
• A NSGenericException: backtracing is raised during Finder startup. This is normal.
• The plugin isn't localized, and shows up as CFBundleName in the main menu for languages other than English.

   

Download: ATVFiles v0.1.0

 

Apple TV owners who had their boxes modded may want to heed the warning of Tutorial Ninjas. According to their site, Apple may be on the warpath against Apple TV modders and is implementing a countermeasure against guilty parties.

The site noted four separate incidents of Apple TVs breaking after they got modded. Tutorial Ninjas doesn't claim to have documented proof, but their theory is that Apple is bypassing networks to update and shut down modded units.

The site suggests that the nest way to ensure the safety of the modded Apple TV is to change your password and disconnect the unit from the internet. That would cut off Apple's reach to your piece, but at the same time compromise full functionality of the device.

The Apple TV is a set-top box selling for US$ 299. Dubbed as "the next-gen of home entertainment", the Apple TV lets you play any media content like music, podcasts, movies, TV shows stored in your computer onto your TV. You can get digital content from the internet and play it on your TV, instead of getting DVDs from a store. With the help of the Apple TV, you can even watch a part of your movie in the living room and finish it in your iPod.

A set-top box like the Apple TV plays your computer content on your widescreen TV. What if the tables were turned and the computer - specifically a MacBook - plays the Apple TV instead of the other way around? This sort of scenario happens in this vid we have here. Too bad we didn't get a tutorial about how to perform this; it'll be nice to do it just to see it could be done.

Check out this YouTube vid of an Apple TV running on a MacBook.