Elgato CEO tapped to head Apple Germany

CNET News.com reported that the CEO of ElGato has left to head up Apple Germany. While this is a return for him (and Apple) I personally hope it’s the beginning of more in the direction of what ElGato has been up to…

What’s that you ask? Why TV on the Mac of course! ElGato is the hands down leader on the Mac platform for integrating TV from analog and digital sources. I find it particularly intersting that this move comes right on the heels of FrontRow being released… Some special sauce from beyond Cupertino to spice up the delivery of an HTPC on Mac? Time will tell… I hope it’s all there soon.

As I’ve noted quite a few times MCE is close, but not the ideal deal and even with the fixes allegedly coming in Vista late 2006, it will still likely need an incredibly powerful system and patience. An Apple ElGato partnership or collaboration could lead to a nice simple and powerful solution for storing, serving and managing digital content at home.

MCE – My DVDs

Via Addicted to Digital Media comes an easy way for MCE users to manage and play archived DVDs. This is a very nice feature to have since you’ll get the same familiar UI but access to all your DVD content without the need for a DVD changer.

Certainly my Mac HTPC Brethren already know all about this type of function through Matinee . If Apple added support for .vob and Video_TS folder playing you could do the same thing through the nice UI in FrontRow. Guess we’ll have to wait to see if this gets released for additional machines to really play…

DS owners get WiFi with that

Nintendo is announcing a WiFi deal with McDonalds today… You know, like Starbucks for Kids.

Nintendo of America on Tuesday will announce a groundbreaking partnership with Wi-Fi provider Wayport to make available free Internet access to DS owners at McDonald’s restaurants across the nation. Nintendo and Wayport will offer complimentary Wi-Fi hotspots at McDonald’s establishments, enabling DS owners to use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, which launches November 14 in the states, to play online games with or against each other. [IGN]

Personally I think this deal makes an amazing amount of sense based on the shared audience of the two companies. While there are not many games for the DS supporting WiFi today this could lead to some great hacking or force developers hands a bit as the 6000 enabled locations will be quite tempting…