In short: iPhone appearance, HP bows out of HTPCs, Joost on Apple TV

Those fortunate to attend this week's CTIA opening keynote also had a rare glimpse of the iPhone before its June launch. Meanwhile, hobbyists have managed to light up Internet TV on Apple's new media hub just as HP made its quiet exit from the home theater PC realm.

iPhone returns to spotlight at CTIA

AT&T operations head Randall Stephenson instantly commanded attention at his keynote during the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association expo this week by holding up what is probably his company's most sought-after device: the iPhone.

Absent from the public eye since its first appearance at Macworld San Francisco in January, the Apple handset was kept close at hand and was used briefly to showcase the simplicity of its touchscreen control and to emphasize AT&T's victory in receiving one million requests for more information about iPhone availability.

Holding the device in plain sight, however, also gave the COO a chance to laugh about the phone's seemingly magnetic appeal. FCC chair Kevin Martin was more than eager to try the iPhone backstage and .

"He spent more time with it than I did," Stephenson said in the wake of the show. "It seemed like he wouldn't give it back."

HP quits media center PC business

Computer maker HP is stepping away from media center PCs by canceling its Digital Entertainment Center line, according to an official announcement today.

The company sent mixed signals when explaining the move, saying that it would switch focus to its MediaSmart TVs — which only serve as network extensions for Windows Media Center PCs — but insisting that Microsoft's living room OS was still valid.

"This not a statement about Media Center PCs. It doesn't mean Media Center isn't going to be successful," claimed HP channel manager Doug Robert. "It's just that we're discontinuing development."

Joost, other media apps run successfully on Apple TV

At the same time as HP scaled back its convergence of PCs and TVs, enterprising hackers have turned Apple's own media extender into a PC.

A variant of the same security workaround used to install XviD video support has let hobbyists install the private beta of Joost, a peer-to-peer service that brings free, real-time Internet TV in a channel-like format — essentially filling in a feature gap many have noted for the Apple TV, which can only view individual clips by default.

While missing font support and therefore flawed, the trick has already opened up the use of other music and video software on the media hub, including iTunes and VLC. Even the online role-playing game World of Warcraft works in a limited form, testers have discovered.

Microsoft helps iPods with Vista update

Microsoft has offered an olive branch to iPod owners who have chosen to use the latest version of Windows, this week issuing a new patch that fixes a glitch which would frequently corrupt the data on iPods when dismounted using Vista's solution instead of the eject button in iTunes.

Although Apple had tackled some of the numerous problems with its hardware and software with the advent of its iTunes 7.1.1 update, the new Windows fix indicates that Microsoft has had to cooperate with its long-time rival to improve compatibility between each other's programs.