Pimp Every Room in Your House with RSS

I love RSS feeds. How much? So much that I want to stick them everywhere - in every room I frequent and on every device I use. So, off I went on a quest to find all of the interesting ways to consume feeds beyond the computer. Get ready to pimp your house the orange and white way.

First up, let's start with the living room. Let's say you're Dave Winer and you just got yourself a nice big HDTV. (Dave welcome to the club. You won't go back.) Heck, Dave co-invented RSS. He ought to have a way to read his feeds on his HDTV when he's chillin' with JayZ in his new place in Berkeley, right?. The good news is he can thanks to this add-on for his TiVo device.

OK, but what if you don't have TiVo. No worries. You can still pull it off with a Windows Media Center PC. For Media Center, Newsgator has a special version that will display feeds on your TV. You can use it to watch video podcasts too.

Got a Mac? No problem. You can easily hook it up to your TV to consume your feeds. Then, all you need to do is configure OS X's built-in RSS screen saver and activate it. Even better, make your own custom feed screensaver. Podcasts can be viewed on a TV using Apple's Front Row.

While you're in the living room, you might be playing a video game or two on your Playstation Portable. In between you can take a break and read feeds right on the device.

Our next stop is the kitchen. I always wished that I could stick a RSS-enabled magnet on my refrigerator. Well, it's a bit of a pain, but you can.

First you need an MSN Smart Watch. Next up, follow Phil Torrone's instructions on how to RSS enable these watches. Then pick up some adhesive magnets at your local hardware store. Cut the wristband off the watch, stick it on your fridge and bingo. (Microsoft is an Edelman client.)

Now it's time to get some work done. Let's head over to the home office. There sits this handy little desk ticker that I blogged about once before. Called Mister Tipster, it hooks into your USB port and puts them on your physical, not your virtual desktop.

Break time. Nature calls. Off to the bathroom. I bet you think you can't get feeds in there without putting one of your mobile devices at risk. Guess again. Out of Taiwan comes word of the "rsstroom reader." This gadget prints news feeds onto your T-P!!!

Whew! All of this orange and white madness has me pooped. Time to hit the hay. First, I need to set my Chumby to wake me up with my morning feeds. Chumby is rugby ball-sized computer stuffed in a fuzzy case. It's the future of the bedroom digital clock.  Underneath the hood it plays RSS-powered widgets that Engadget says Chumby can read to you.

That wraps up how to pimp pretty much every room in your house with feeds. If you know of others, leave them in comments.

Comments

[Tony]

"Microsoft is a client of Edelman" -- at the risk of sounding hypocritical, I'm not sure if that was *really* necessary, but I think we appreciate the effort nonetheless. ;)

[Trille]

Steve, this post was one of those "I wish I had made it myself". In other words - great!!! It is a wonderful idea (every room), builds on a cultural phenomena (pimp...), starts off with credit giving (Dave W), builds on some DIY, and most of all - hints on a future beyond PC:s.
p.s. The RSStroom reader is a fake, or rather a "conceptual idea". d.s.

[Stephen Davies]

""Microsoft is a client of Edelman" -- at the risk of sounding hypocritical, I'm not sure if that was *really* necessary, but I think we appreciate the effort nonetheless. ;)"

Haha! You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

[Ron]

Funny, you can win three mister tipsters on popurls.com at the moment.

[jdanylko]

Excellent post, Steve!

I'm sending traffic your way on this one. :-)

I never thought some of these gadgets even existed.

[robert ouimet]

What we really need now is a Heads Up Display in the car. A perfect use of the digital data channel on the DAB system in use in Canada, UK and Australia (Eureka 47). Oops, did I just give away a 1.5 billion dollar idea ?