AT&T has confirmed that it is going to acquire satellite television operator DirecTV for $48.5 billion.

With a customer base of more than 35 million subscribers (as of December 2012), DirecTV is the second-largest pay TV provider in the United States. AT&T notes that the move will create “a unique new competitor with unprecedented capabilities in mobility, video, and broadband services.”

BARCELONA, MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS – Excito is an AppleTV-a-like puck which hooks up to your home network and lets you stream TV, music and movies to any stereo or screen in the house.

So what, right? The Apple TV already does that? The difference is that the Excito only uses your phone as a remote, and streams the content either direct from the internet, or from your own local media server. Oh, and it costs around half the price if the already-cheap Apple TV.

Hate, nay loathe the horizontal? Does laying down leave you feeling unseemly? Does landscape orientation drive you crazy? Would you rather live in a tiny apartment at the top of a skyscraper than in a luxurious two-story country home? Then NewerTech’s new NuStand Alloy stands are for you.

The US Patent Office has awarded Apple another patent tonight, this one for the Cover-Flow interface that showed up in iTunes 7.0 in 2006, and then in the Finder as a view option in 2007 with Mac OS X Leopard and the iPhone itself.

US Patent Number 8,230,360 is credited to Jeffery Ma, Gregory Dude, Rachel Clare Goldeen, Justin Henzie, and Fainer Broderson, with Apple as the assignee. This patent was filed on January 14, 2008, which is a far less amount of time than the mouse cursor one granted today as well, but still – four years?

This replica is probably the closest you’ll ever get to having a real Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver. What does it have to do with Apple, you ask? After all, this is the Cult of Mac.

The Screwdriver is also a universal remote, which means that it will not only control your TV and VHS VCR, but also you Apple TV and – via the Universal Dock – your iPhone or iPod.

At last, here’s the Apple TV everyone is waiting for. Well, kinda. Bang & Olufsen’s new V1 is a 32 or 40-inch 1080p TV with a hole in the back where you can hide your little puck-sized Apple TV. This, combined with a remote that can be used to control Apple’s set-top box, means that the V1 is the closest you’ll get to an actual HDTV from Apple.

What a world we live in. The things we can do with our iOS devices are world changing, and would make a person visiting from just a few decades ago squeal with delight or shiver with fear, depending on their philosophical bent.

Today’s tip is one of those “obvious if I’d thought about it” kind of tips that, well, is pretty obvious when you think about it. Here’s how to live stream the camera from your iPad 2, New iPad, or iPhone 4S to a big screen TV via AirPlay and an AppleTV.

Here’s a scary scenario: you’ve spent hours and hours creating the perfect Keynote presentation for your job, and you show up to the room you’re going to show it off, only to find that you’ve forgotten your little white dongle that connects the iPad to the big screen TV in that room. Uh oh. Luckily, there IS an Apple TV sitting there (conveniently). Lucky you, you get to keep your job. Getting the iPad signal up to the big screen isn’t quite as intuitive as connecting it to a HDMI cable, but it is pretty simple.

It appears that Apple has had a Hulu Plus app for the Apple TV cooking in Cupertino for over a month, and the app is running on prototype Apple TV units inside Apple’s headquarters.

According to 9to5Mac’s sources, a Hulu Plus app is “ready to roll out” to current Apple TV users right now. Apple hasn’t pulled the trigger yet due to “political” reasons, like the fact that Hulu Plus directly competes with the TV section of iTunes.

Bringing your own equipment with you while on the road often requires some planning ahead. If you plan to use an AppleTV while traveling you might want to bring some ethernet cables or a WiFi router along with you:

Since I travel a great deal, I have been wondering if there is a way I can use AppleTV and the hotel’s WiFi network to stream video from my laptop to their television. In looking at the Apple Support Discussions, it appears that a similar question has been raised by those in college dorms.

I realize that this requires a HDMI cord and port on the television. But is there a way that the Mac can then “talk” to the AppleTV?

Thanks, Bill