In a recent post titled ‘When will Steve Jobs open up the AppleTV?‘, I looked at what the future may hold for Apple’s set-top-box, noting the progress being made by hackers who continue to add new functionality. Today, AwkwardTV reports on the release of an unofficial AppleTV development kit which should significantly speed up the time it takes for third-parties to create new plug-in applications for the device.

Written by Mac developer, Alan Quatermain, the kit includes a template for Apple’s Xcode development software, as well as an AppleTV ‘simulator’ for testing purposes.

YouTube’s embeddable flash video player is being given a makeover that adds improvements to its user interface, along with some additional functionality. The unofficial Google blog, Google Operating System, discovered some instances of the new player, and has published screen shots and further details.

New functionality includes the ability to skip forward to any point in the video, even before it’s finished loading (something inherited from Google Video). The new version of the player also improves the way it handles recommendations; hover your mouse over the video and a Mac OSX-like dock pops up, offering thumbnails of related videos.

Accessing the embed code has also become easier. Click on the menu button and you’re given two options: grab the embed code for the video or the URL of the YouTube page that displays the video.

With an ever greater amount of video being consumed online, many Internet users are in for a shock. There’s a dirty little secret in the broadband industry: Internet Service Providers (ISPs) don’t have the capacity to deliver the bandwidth that they claim to offer. One way ISPs attempt to conceal this problem is to place a cap of say 1GB per-month per user, something which is common in the UK for many of the lower-cost broadband packages on the market. Considering that a mere three hours viewing of Joost (the new online video service from the founders of Skype — see our review) would all but use up this monthly allowance, it’s clear that lots of Internet users aren’t invited to the party.

But what about those who (like me) pay more for ‘unlimited’ broadband access? There shouldn’t be a problem, right? Wrong.

AppleInsider caused a few ripples in the Mac blogosphere when they recently claimed that Cupertino will soon discontinue the Mac mini (Apple’s sub-$800 entry level Macintosh.). The reasoning is that Apple was never 100% behind the device, which, AppleInsider suggests, was only released to appease shareholder wishes.

Since then, the Mac mini has been treated to a rather mundane life-cycle. It has seen just four updates since inception, one of which was so insignificant in Apple’s own eyes that the company didn’t even bother to draft a press release.

However, one of those updates was a switch to an Intel processor, and perhaps more importantly, the addition of Apple’s Front Row software. For many Mac fans (including myself), this confirmed the device’s potential as a media center. When I bought my Intel-based Mac mini, I plugged it straight into my television, where it’s remained ever since.

Then along came the AppleTV…

Sony’s PS3 has joined the ranks of the AppleTV, XBox 360, and numerous media extenders from companies such as Linksys and Netgear, in trying to solve the “last 100 feet” problem. A new firmware update to Sony’s next generation game console adds media extender capabilities, so that content stored on a Vista compatible PC (or any DLNA-supported device, including Macs) can be streamed to the PS3.

According to the release, the update also enables:

• Upscaling of PlayStation / PlayStation 2 games and DVD movies up to a full 1080p when viewed on a compatible HDTV set.
• Access to PS3 stored media from a PSP via the Internet (not just a local WiFi network).
• Printing of digital photos stored on a PS3s hard drive or inserted storage media. Currently, select Epson printers connected via USB are compatible. In addition, users will find a new type of slideshow for displaying photos, zoom functionality and the option to crop images.

Pretty impressive stuff, especially accessing PS3 content from a PSP connected to the net. Welcome to the last100 Sony!