Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Looking for a drop-dead simple solution for streaming media (photos, music, video) and accessing files from home on your smartphone or tablet? Or how about backing up your smartphone's recently taken photos and video? Well, Pogoplug's new $79 Pogoplug Mobile product offers to do just that."

There's definitely something very appealing about having access to all of your music, videos, and photos anywhere you go. I've solve this by by uploading every photo I've ever taken to Smugmug, every song I have to Amazon's Cloud Drive, and videos...well, I don't have a good solution for that yet. I can access them remotely via my Windows Home Server, but only when that works (the last time it didn't). This is rather appealing, especially given the $79 price point. What solution do you use for everywhere-you-go media access?

"San Francisco-based Cloud EnginesTM, maker of Pogoplug®, today unveiled its next-generation personal cloud solutions, making cloud storage safe and affordable for everyone. At a showcase in New York the company introduced new software and hardware products that give users instant access to all of their personal content from any connected device, anywhere - without fees or storage limits."

I'm familiar with Pogoplug, but have never made the jump to using their product - given that I already have a Windows Home Server in place, I don't see much need for it. Some of their new announcements are making me re-think that fact: they've added software that can be installed onto a desktop PC, turning it into a device you can access remotely via the Pogoplug software on your mobile device. Pretty slick! There's also a new device in the line-up: a Pogoplug Video ($199) that adds "enhanced video capabilities" - reading between the lines it looks like it's a real-time transcoder, allowing you to view your video files without having to first download the entire thing. Slick!

The real shame of course is that hardware and services like these become harder to easily use when usage-based caps are being implemented in the USA and Canada.