Read “Super Bowl XLVI Gets a Social Media Command Center” on Mashable.

The Raidious team has done a great job gearing up for the next two weeks in the past two years. I’m glad to work with such amazing folks every day.

Here it is – 2012. Another year has passed and I find myself rushing to put some sort of holiday / recap of the year together while watching New Years Eve specials on TV. This year it is was a mashup of the Coldplay special and Dick Clark.

I seem to have been privy to an incredible amount of amazing during 2011. For starters – this post began at my kitchen table on my iPad 2 with my 4 month old son on my lap. In the background Christmas Songs played from my wife’s iPhone 4 wirelessly through our AppleTV while photos taken with my iPhone 4S display on-screen via iCloud. Upon the realization that this has become part of my life makes me miss Steve Jobs that much more. His passing this year has been something I’ve been mulling over for the past two months, unsure how or if I even should document my thoughts on the passing of someone who I’ll admit has been a huge inspiration.

Steve Job’s death was one of the biggest downsides of a year otherwise full of pure awesome. The team at Raidious moved into Raidious Control, and our staff has grown with some amazing and talented staff. This March I saw my first SXSW, where I met some truly amazing people and enjoyed some truly memorable music. Late summer and this fall has been full of new baby rad-ness. My youngest son continues to be quite honestly the happiest baby I’ve ever seen. I’m truly blessed to have such a ridiculously cute family. Mostly I have my wife to thank for that.

The new music project continues to go quite well. I am enjoying playing heavy music again, and I’ve been learning a lot while recording this time around. We should be wrapped up by the first of the year and will be playing out soon.

I’ll keep it short and sweet. Happy holidays and happy new year!

I was fortunate enough to hear Neil Gaiman talk in Indianapolis, and it was enchanting, to say the least. I just backed this KickStarter project, and I recommend all fans of either artist do the same. For one dollar you can get a recording of the shows!

Enjoy “You Could Ruin My Day” by Fourtet.

This is some amazing stuff, moving us right into the crazy sci-fi future everyone between the ages of 28 and 37 have been dreaming of.

Wanna know how it works? Me too.

This is powered by eCoupled. Their website explains it best, I grabbed part of this page below:

eCoupled is intelligent wireless power. It removes the age-old constraints of inductive coupling (magnetically induced flow of current). How? It has an intelligent control system. eCoupled can adapt to meet the specific needs of each device it powers by communicating with it in real time. eCoupled assesses and determines not only power needs but also factors in battery or device age and charging lifecycles. It provides only the power required to maintain optimal safety and efficiency.

This is some cool stuff. Now, where are the jet packs?

I borrowed this from Paleo Future - an awesome blog. Please check it out.

This year I finally figured it all out.

After bringing home the Sony Bravia and hooking it up to the Mac Mini, I quickly realized that the mini was not powerful enough to run everything I wanted to run. I sat dumbfounded at the unintentional mess I had created.

My PlayStation 3 quickly rose to the top of my list of solutions. I loved that I didn’t have to worry about ram or processor speed – it was an all-in-one device that required little mental overhead. I started looking at it as a total replacement for the mini, but found myself wondering if the solution would be worth the process of trans-coding the 200 + gigabytes of media and installing a new hard drive in the PS3.

Then I got distracted with a new toy.

On my birthday Apple gave me an iPad. I had to pay for it, but it came out the same weekend as my birthday, so I indulged.

The wi-fi only media player kept me distracted long enough to realize I didn’t necessarily need to experience everything on the TV. I loved watching movies in bed or on the couch, but as the apps rolled out and all of my new viewing options were presented, I realized I still like to watch TV on the big screen in my living room. This got my mind racing once again, and I decided it was time to upgrade to an iMac and just get this taken care of.

However, I never bought the iMac.

The mini was quickly becoming nothing but a receiver for my Macbook Pro, thanks to Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba. I looked back at my mini with more frustration, and I started thinking about the PS3 again. Hulu Plus was released, and I was excited to see it available for the PS3, as well as the iPad and iPhone.

“All I want is a box to get everything I want from – is that so hard?” I thought to myself.

Then it happened. I bought a new Apple TV.

I started writing this post before it was out. It was actually just a rumor. It is crazy how

1. I take so long to finish blog posts, and
2. How quickly everything can change.

I bought it on a whim. I had a gift card and picked it up at the Indianapolis Apple Store. I recommend you get yours from the Mac Experience, though.

I took it home and was streaming video from the mini instantly. I wasn’t surprised that the experience was much better than using the mini on the TV, so I quickly retired the mini to a new home under a chair and began enjoying it’s new life as a dedicated iTunes box.

I thought again about the iMac, but decided to upgrade the drive in the mini, keeping my music on my Macbook Pro. Airplay made it extra easy and removed my need for Airfoil, although I still use it on occasion.

What I hadn’t realized, but should have, is that Apple would change everything by updating iOS a short time later. The heavens opened and I witnessed it.

The holy trinity of Home entertainment = the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple TV.

It finally happened. I can stream from any device. Video, audio -  anything.  Access to all of my media, and more importantly, control. I can pull media up on my ipad and quickly toss it to the living room, I can play something right off of my phone, I can control 2 media libaries. It is so simple, it was always simple. I just needed Apple to connect the dots.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for new apps that can take advantage of the AppleTV Airplay connection. I’d love to see some full screen games with the iPad or phone as controller.

I have friends who have told me they are “just getting a mac mini” instead of an Apple TV, because they “will have a entire computer.” I tell them again and again, get an Apple TV, and save your computer for computing.

You’ll be glad you did.

I must say, it was a worthwhile experience. I definitely recommend watching the original before you go, as the film is not only full of eye candy and epic action, but nods to the original film as well. The plot is what you’d expect from the trailers, and not much more, but I left wanting more; which tells me Disney has definitely set Tron up for a new franchise.

My only criticism is the Jeff Bridges CGI. I’ll try to not to spoil anything – let’s just say that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

As I mentioned, it is worth seeing at the iMax if you can. This was the first feature I’ve enjoyed in that experience, and I’ll look to do it again. The 3D in the film is tasteful and enveloping, and helps bring the viewer into the new, updated world of The Grid.

The Indianapolis State Museum iMax is raffling off a working vintage Tron arcade game as well during the run, so be sure to enter the contest, and throw a big Tron themed party if you win.

Hop to this, at the time of post there is only 24 hours left to pre-order!