I don’t know whether it is a positive trend towards enhanced experiences or early signs of ADHD, but these days I have 3 screens with me in the living room. I am sitting on the sofa with the TV on, the laptop on my lap (or on the coffee table) and my mobile by my side.

James Celestino is a Boxee user who seems to share similar media consumption habits. He wanted an easy way to control Boxee from his laptop, so he built a very simple, intuitive and mighty useful widget.

James in his own words:

One of my favorite media applications to date is Boxee. While I was sitting on my couch one day watching some Rev3 shows, on Boxee, I wanted to turn up the volume a bit. Like many people with a lot of gadgets in their living room I couldn’t find the remote. It was the little apple remote for my mac mini which is what I run boxee on, which is connected to my HD TV. Easy to lose in the couch or under a table, etc. Like many Geeks, I think, I tend to watch TV with my laptop nearby. So I often end up launching screen sharing on my laptop to control the mac mini, a bit of overkill I thought. I went searching for a widget remote control for Boxee that I could run and do simple things like navigate and turn up the volume. I couldn’t find one. Which leads me to the creation of this page and its contents. Since I couldn’t find one, I decided to make one figuring I may not be the only one who might want this.

So here it is.

Life Hacker and Tech Startups already posted about it, and we will try to get the word out to our users, too. James is already receiving requests for additional features and for porting the widget to additional platforms (currently the widget only works on Mac, but you can use it to control Boxee running on any platform), so it should just get better.

We will be unveiling the Boxee Beta in Brooklyn on December 7th. If you’re in town click here to RSVP. For those who can’t make it in person there will be a live broadcast (by Livestream) on this blog and via Boxee.

The plan is to roll out the Beta gradually till we feel confident enough to release it to the general public. We will be sending Beta invites to people attending the event, people who sign up for early access and over time to all existing alpha users.

In case you want to get your name on the early-access list please fill this form.

Missy is co-founder of [NSFW] SuicideGirls.com, a site that mixes the smarts, enthusiasm and DIY attitude of the best music and alternative culture sites with an unapologetic, grassroots approach to sexuality.  More than photos/videos of beautiful tattooed/pierced women, SuicideGirls is a community of members that connect through culture, art, music, technology, events, fashion, and photography.

I’m a music guy.  I have it playing 24/7 through headphones, laptops, speakers, and TVs.  So when MyPlay came to Boxee I was stoked because while I listen to music all day long, I rarely take the time or have the chance to actually see it.  It’s easy to forget all the “other” creative stuff our favorite musicians create in addition to their music…

MyPlay makes it easy to get access to thousands of music videos from mainstream/underground artists on Boxee.  From the Ting Tings to Alkaline Trio, from Weird Al to Wu Tang Clan, MyPlay has music videos old and new.  The app lets you browse by artist, genre, or latest releases as well as search for specific artists or songs.  While searching for Glasvegas (I love Glasgow bands), I also noticed that MyPlay showcases “Making of” videos so you can learn more about what goes into the videos themselves.

Overall the app is a great complement to sources like YouTube & MTV and we’re excited to see more music (videos) on Boxee.

And here’s proof that if we just listened to music, we’d miss half the fun.  Shakira’s video of She-Wolf…

Once you’ve seen Shakira’s version, check out skwrrelhunter’s version of “He Wolf” for a laugh.

– Andrew

We launched our public alpha for Mac/Linux in January at CES. During the show we met with several device manufactures interested in embedding Boxee into their existing devices or building a dedicated Boxee device.

I am very happy to announce we have signed our first partnership with a CE company. At this point we can not say more about the partner or the specs of the device, but we can tell you we are working closely with them to make sure we deliver a great Boxee experience on it.

We will show mockups of the box and share more details at our upcoming Boxee Beta Unveiling event in Brooklyn, NY on Dec 7th. RSVP here.

Over the next few years there will be a great change in the way we consume entertainment on our TV. The Internet is (finally) coming to the TV and with it will come a whole new world of content, applications and innovations.

We are building Boxee as a platform that would:

• make it easy for users to consume and find content – no matter what the source
• give content owners, aggregators, and developers the tools to create unique experiences with a variety of business models
• enable CE companies to enhance their Connected devices

This will be the first connected device running Boxee, but the idea is to provide consumers with a way to get Boxee in their living rooms, no matter whether it’s on a Connected TV, game console, set-top box, BluRay player, computer, etc.

Our goal is to be on every Connected device in the living room.

We are very excited about the partnership and looking forward to sharing more at the event.

The date is set for the release of the Boxee Beta. On December 7th at 7pm we are going to have an unveiling event at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

At the event we will demo the new Beta, launch new applications from partners and start a 4-weeks early-access for users to test the Beta before we release it to the public at CES on Jan 7th.

The Boxee Beta will look, feel and behave differently from the Alpha. It takes into account many of the requests and feedback we received from users in the past year.

The Beta will feature:

• new user interface
• improved navigation
• search TV Shows and Movies
• a user controlled Queue
• shortcuts
• more…

We’ve have been heads down working on it for the past few months, and we’re really anxious to get it into your hands.

Set in modern-day Nome, Alaska, The Fourth Kind (in theaters this Friday) is a thriller that integrates never-before-seen archival footage into the film to tell the story of psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovovich). While conducting a sleep disorder study, Dr. Tyler began videotaping sessions with traumatized patients and unwittingly discovered some of the most disturbing evidence of alien abduction ever documented.  Just watching the trailer freaks me out (click on the movie poster to see it).

To get people excited for the movie, Boxee’s in-house App Guru Shawn built The Fourth Kind Application, which includes TV spots, and other videos related to the film, as well as a collection of real-world video and photographic documentation of the four kinds of alien encounters: sightings, evidence, contact, and abduction.

This app provides an example of how companies can use Boxee to bring the creativity of the web to the TV screen.  Rather than being limited to a 30 or 60 second spot, Boxee’s platform lets content owners build a rich experience where audiences can use a remote control to interact with a variety of media related to a film, TV show, celebrity, band, artist, or brand.

So do you believe in alien abduction? Experience The Fourth Kind in theaters this Friday, November 6.