| A new blog entry "Apple takes back the copycat title" looks at Apple's newly introduced CoverFlow technology in iTunes and its iTV media hub/center project due early next year, which it says have been around in Microsoft products for sometime. Referring to the forthcoming iTV media center, blogger Ed Bott writes: "So, let me get this straight. I can pay $300 for a device that allows me to play content from a computer located elsewhere in the house. Cool! It's about time someone invented a "media extender" like this. Oh. Wait. Microsoft already did. I have three Media Center extenders in this house, two first-generation models and an Xbox 360. On any of these extenders, I can play my entire music collection (browsing it by album cover) through my home theater system using a wired or wireless connection to my Media Center computer. But unlike Apple's device (which won't be available until January 2007) the Xbox 360 also streams live or recorded TV and downloaded high-definition content. It plays games and DVDs in full 5.1 surround sound." Meanwhile, at least one other company claims--in its "Steven Jobs? More Like Stealing Jobs" blog entry--that Apple's iTV media hub is a repackaged version of their product announced earlier this year: "Nero has many writings about how Mircosoft has taken our Putz concepting and made it their Zune. But I was saddening to see that now Steven Jobs of Apple is also taken our VideoTron concepting and made it their iTV!! For those not remembering, Durosport announced our VideoTron back in June. Video on the TV! We are coming up with that idea, not Steven Jobs!"
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