Sling Media, the company behind the popular (and very cool) settop boxes that allow you to stream cable from your house to your computer, looks like it has outdone itself. At this week’s Macworld the company will be showing off its upcoming iPhone application, which effectively gives iPhone owners instant access to their Cable TVs and Tivos from anywhere they have a network connection. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait a little longer (the company says that the app will be submitted to Apple some time in Q1), but it looks like it will be well worth the wait.

One thing that didn’t make a lot of sense about the 33 celebrity Twitter accounts hacked this morning - the messages left on the various accounts weren’t consistent and were clearly written by different people with different agendas.

Fox News got “Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay,” and Rick Sanchez from CNN got “I am high on crack right now might not be coming into work today.” But other Twitter accounts had links to sites to generate affiliate revenue. Facebook’s Twitter account had a message pointing to getlaid.info (now shut down), which redirected to a porn site. President Elect Barack Obama’s account had a link to a site that offered a $500 gas card for taking a survey. Both had affiliate links associated with them.

Why were some sites simply defaced while others used to generate affiliate fees? It all seems to point back to one person that goes by “Gmz” on a hacker site called Digital Gangster (this site was also where Miley Cyrus photos were posted after they were taken from her hacked Gmail account). Gmz, says a source, obtained the account credentials for the Twitter accounts and then posted them on DigitalGanster. It was removed shortly afterward, but not before others grabbed the information and started to post on the various sites.

RipCode, a company that offers online video streaming and transcoding services, has closed a $12.5 million funding round led by Granite Ventures with participation from existing investors Hunt Ventures, El Dorado Ventures, Vesbridge Partners, and ATA Ventures. The company, which was founded in 2005, had previously raised $19.5 million in funding. As part of the deal, Granite’s Eric Zimits will join RipCode’s board.

One of the major issues with streaming video lies in offering content compatible with the wide array of devices that can access the web. Sites are oftentimes forced to store the same video multiple times in different file formats and sizes to accommodate as many devices as possible, but this can lead to unnecessary storage and processing costs.

You hear about 3D printing here and there, but for the most part it’s a bit irrelevant to the average person because fabrication is messy, difficult, and prohibitively expensive. Even dedicated DIYers have to get their stuff custom made. Hopefully that will all change with Shapeways, a new service which bills itself as a sort of Etsy for 3D models.

For those Web companies that comply by it, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is turning out to be their best friend. Last week, Universal Music Group (UMG) was denied a summary judgment by a Los Angeles court in its copyright infringement case against Veoh. (Court order embedded below). UMG wanted a summary judgment against Veoh, arguing that it could not hide behind the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, which state that Web services are not liable for the copyright infringement of its users if it takes certain steps to prevent it.

This is the second time a summary judgment has been denied to a company trying to sue Veoh for copyright infringement. (The last time it was a porn company). These orders are setting important legal precedents not just for Veoh, but for YouTube and others also facing DMCA lawsuits.

Picasa, the popular free photo management software made by Google, has finally made its way to the Mac. The application has long been noticeably absent on the Macintosh - especially given the fact that it has been available for Linux (which typically lags behind Macs and Windows) since 2006. It’s also a direct competitor to Apple’s long running iPhoto product, which has come with all new Macs for years. So how does it stack up?

In my brief testing the application seems to be very snappy (much faster than iPhoto), though it lacks the sleek look of Apple’s products. Photos import quickly, effects are easy to find and apply, and most things are intuitive, though the folder browsing can be a little confusing. It might not be as pretty as iPhoto, but I won’t be surprised if power-users make the switch (or at least consider it).

After picking the wrong horse in the Presidential Election (where she might have become Secretary of the Treasury if John McCain had won), former eBay CEO Meg Whitman now looks to be laying the groundwork for a run at the governorship in California in 2010. (The current Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, cannot run for another term under existing laws). Whitman today resigned from all the corporate boards she serves on—eBay, Procter & Gamble, and Dreamworks Animation. While she hasn’t formally declared that she is even exploring the possibility of becoming a candidate, that is the scuttlebutt.

If she wins the Republican nomination, candidates she could face on the Democratic side include former California Governor Jerry Brown (who is thinking of running again) and two popular mayors (Gavin Newsom of San Francisco and Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles). If she hopes to stand a chance, she needs to cultivate more of a populist streak. Expect to see her on a lot more talk shows.

The iPhone is the hottest platform around, leading some small-time developers to overnight riches and spawning over ten thousand apps in only a few months. But without knowledge of Objective-C or the intricacies of the iPhone SDK, many talented designers have no way of getting their wares onto the App Store. Today, Viximo has released a landmark new development platform called VixML that allows talented designers to create basic applications with a minimal amount of programming knowledge. The new development platform could easily turn into one of the most important tools for novice iPhone developers, and with the the tagline “this way to iPhone awesomeness”, it’s clear that Viximo has high expectations.

Phishing attacks, which hit Twitter over the weekend, are a sign a service has arrived (Facebook has the same problem). But someone hacking into Twitter’s internal admin tools and compromising 33 high profile accounts, including President Elect Barack Obama, has Twitter users freaking out about what to do.

Here is Twitter’s official explanation:

The Crunchies ceremony and party in San Francisco is just four days away. Who’s going to win best startup of 2008? It’s up to you. Just make sure you vote by Wednesday (we’ve extended the voting deadline by two days).

We’ve got an awesome evening planned. The ceremony kicks off at 7:30 pm, Friday, January 9 at the historic Herbst Theater in San Francisco. Awards will be given out to the winners (yep, those gorilla statues - here’s the back story).

Among other surprises at the event, you’ll see the famous Richter Scales make a return performance. We’ve commissioned them to write a special song just for the Crunchies.

Right after the main event is a big party at City Halls Rotunda, from 9 - midnight. MySpace will be showing up with a fancy DJ, and drinks will be flowing.

Tickets are available here until they are sold out. See you there!

Just a friendly reminder that CrunchGear will be at Moscone tomorrow (1/6) for Phillip W. Schiller’s very first keynote speech. Wait. MacWorld keynote? What? Isn’t Jobs dead? Who the hell is Schiller? Where am I?!

Smarter-email startup Xobni has raised $7 million in a B round of financing from Cisco Systems and existing investors Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, and Atomico. Three of the four existing investors increased their ownership stakes in the company. But Cisco led the round, highlighting the importance of enterprise e-mail for Xobni (that’s where the money is). CEO Jeff Bonforte says:

Two notes from Wall Street analysts came to my inbox today with top-ten predictions for what 2009 holds in store for the technology industry. J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan, for instance, predicts Yahoo and Microsoft will finally strike a search deal, video advertising on the Web isn’t working, retail bankruptcies could actually help e-commerce companies, and that M&A activity will pick up in the second half of 2009 (but the IPO market will be dead until 2010).

Barclays’ Doug Anmuth thinks that both Yahoo and eBay will make major strategic moves this year to try to right their businesses, distribution wars in search will break out between Google and Microsoft, and there will be consolidation among the 300-plus ad networks out there. Both believe that performance-based advertising will continue to rise in importance.

Rather than reproduce all 20 predictions from both analysts, I’ve picked six from each and listed them below. You can vote for your favorite predictions, or the ones you think are most likely to happen, in the poll at the bottom of the post.

JPG magazine, which was declared dead less than a week ago, is most definitely for sale and it looks like a transaction will close shortly.

Twenty or so potential buyers have expressed interest, say our sources, including Flickr (a natural fit because the photos published by JPG Magazine are submitted by readers), Smugmug and Alexander Muse. Wordpress also expressed early interest, we’ve heard, although they’ve pulled out of the bidding.

It’s unclear how much it’ll take to get the JPG Magazine assets, but our understanding is that 8020 Media, the company behind the publication, is fielding cash offers only and is being fairly successful in getting a bidding war going.

Three years ago when Web 2.0 began proliferating, Israeli startups used eSnips as the poster child for their case that a successful social network could be founded in Israel. Based on the criteria in those days, eSnips was in fact delivering: It was able to convince top tier VCs to buy into an advertising-based business model, it leveraged user-generated content (the main activity is sharing personal media), used free storage as a hook, traffic was rising steadily, and it became a press darling domestically and internationally. As we say in Israel, “It was all honey”.

Now fast forward to Q4 2008. A shell of its previous self, eSnips is now a startup train wreck: Founders divorced and dismissed, threatened litigation courtesy of a record label and, with no possibility for further funding, the company was unloaded for approximately $750,000 to the Logia Group.

In the past three months I have spoken to a number of sources close to the company and have managed to reconstruct the circumstances that brought the company from its zenith, to its nadir.

Not much else to add but the Roku Netflix box will soon be able to stream 40,000 Amazon titles on demand, “enabling Roku customers for the first time to watch new release movies titles instantly.” The movies cost as much as the do on Amazon and the box will simply connect to your online account and have no movie adding/browsing functionality. The system should be similar to the current Netflix scheme.

Watch new release movies the same day that they are released on DVD. Hit titles such as “The Dark Knight,” “Hancock,” “Pineapple Express”, “Tropic Thunder” and hundreds more that are not currently available on the Roku Player.

My guess is this has nothing to do with the phishing attacks that started on Twitter a couple of days ago. But a few minutes ago the official Fox News Twitter account posted “Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay” (referring to the host of the popular Fox show O’Reilly Factor), right after a legitimate message about making turkey lettuce wraps.

My guess is they’re just finding out about it now, and realizing their password, which was probably “password,” has been changed. Twitter will promptly restore the account to its rightful owners, I’m sure. But here’s my question - if you’ve had your Twitter account hacked, how long did it take you to get it back?

After Steve Jobs pulled out of giving the keynote at this year’s Macworld, there was rampant speculation once again about his health. The shares took a hit as investors began to worry about whether Jobs would be able to remain at the helm of the company. Despite an obvious distaste for talking publicly about his health, Apple released a letter today from Jobs designed to dispel the rumors that his cancer has returned, but which reveals that a mysterious “hormone imbalance” has caused him to lose weight. It also admits that this health problem indeed was one of the reasons why Jobs won’t be giving the Macworld keynote. (Apple’s chief marketing officer Phil Schiller will be filling in for him instead).

Here is an excerpt from Jobs’ healthnote:

At the beginning of each year I traditionally publish a list of my favorite startups and products. This is the fourth year I’ve done this - previous lists: 2006, 2007, 2008. You guys get to pick the winners of the Crunchies - this list is all mine.

This is a list of the products I tend to use daily. Some are for work (Wordpress, Delicious, Zoho, etc.), some are for fun (MySpace Music, Hulu, etc), and some are useful for both (Digg, Skype, YouTube, etc.). But I use most of them every day, or nearly every day, and I would not be as productive or happy without all of them.

The list changes a bit from year to year, and is also getting longer (see chart). Just three products have been favorites all four years: TechMeme, Skype, Wordpress. TechMeme continues to be the news aggregator I check multiple times per day to keep up on tech news. Skype is the instant messaging and VoIP platform that I use most often, and Wordpress software powers all of our blogs.

I’ve added nine new products, including one gadget (which I’ve left off in the past): Animoto, Friendfeed, Hulu, iPhone 3G, MySpace Music, Pandora (which was on in previous years) Docstoc/Scribd and Yammer.

We have information from a trusted source that the latest Palm smartphone running the Nova operating system will be launched Thursday. The new phone will have a full QWERTY keyboard that will slide down under a portrait-oriented touchscreen. This only a mock-up based on information received.

The new operating system is described as “amazing” and there will be a full software bazaar on launch. It will have media playback functions along with standard Palm calendar, email, and contact functionality.