Update: Boxee has just announced it has released an updated version of the Boxee Beta, after making over 500 adjustments to it. On the Boxee Blog, Avner Ronen writes:

Since releasing the Beta we have seen significant uptake in usage. Some stats:

• 150,000 new users joined Boxee
• 3 million Boxee apps launched
• 1.5 million TV episodes and Movies were watched

The new version of the Beta includes almost no new features, but rather is focused on bug fixes. We focused on stability issues. Many hangs and crashes were identified and resolved. We spent a bunch of time trying to improve the never-ending saga of handling SMB shares.

Original Article: During the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Boxee made the beta version of its free software publicly available for download. Boxee's software brings together video content (and photos, music, etc.) from various web sources as well as your hard drive and circle of friends from social networks all into one interface that you can use to navigate through it on your television, assuming you have a computer hooked up to the TV.

There will soon be another way to access Boxee though, and that is through the Boxee Box from D-Link, which was also unveiled at CES. Boxee's Chief Product Officer took over the WebProNews mic to tell us just how this box works and demonstrate the things it can do. Watch the following clip:

It was made pretty clear through a number of products shown off at CES that the way people watch television is going to change significantly. As Boxee's Zach Klein mentions in the above video, "the future of television content is about watching anything you want, any time you want, on demand."

You may watch your television like this already to some extent, whether you use DVR, have a computer hooked up to your TV, or already have an Internet-ready TV. Maybe you access content from your XBox or Playstation. The on-demand way of watching content on your TV is growing and will only get more sophisticated.

Boxee and the box are about the interface and ease-of use for watching the content you want to watch. As more people create apps for it, the amount of available content should only grow as well. Things are going to get really interesting for television viewers.

The Boxee Box should come out in May, and will be available for around $200.
 

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