XMBC Windows Media Center Alternative Launches On Android

XMBC, a leading open-source platform for Internet-enabled media playback, has just announced that it is now available for Android. As the consortium makes clear in its blog post describing the launch, this is not a remote player; it's isn't a dumbed-down mobile version of the client. It is in fact the exact same XMBC experience that you would get on a computer, TV set-top box, etc.

XMBC said it was primarily because of the latter category, set-top boxes, that it pushed to create an Android version of its cross-platform media software. There are numerous Android-based set-tops coming down the pipeline and being able to have a presence on those devices could vastly expand the reach of XMBC, which stands for "Xbox Media Center" since it was originally designed for exclusive use with the original Xbox. It has long surpassed those days.

"There are still many details left to iron out, mainly related to the wide variety of Android devices in the wild. We have not yet decided what minimum requirements will be set, due simply to the lack of extensive testing on exotic devices. As for taking advantage of Android itself, we haven't even scratched the surface. There are so many interesting features that we could take advantage of: launching apps, location awareness, speech recognition, on and on. Once the core port is finished up, you can bet we'll be exploring many new avenues," XBMC wrote on its blog.

[via XBMC]