If you thought that the last PowerControllerMCE news was amazing, you are going to blown away by the latest updates.

PowerControllerMCE is now supports multiple formats

That’s right – due to popular demand, we now support Bye Bye Standby, Z-Wave, Mi Casa Verde and IP Webcams, all in one control system. Mix and match devices as you build your system

Support for multiple zones

Split your house in to different zones or rooms to allow you to group your devices conveniently

Support for scenes

Create multiple scenes for different activities, e.g. Watch Movies, or Bedtime to set multiple devices on or off, and set the dim level, all from one control

Universal Remote Control

You can set a keyboard shortcut for any of the devices or scenes so that you can turn them on or off and dim them without even going in to PowerControllerMCE. If you have a programmable remote control you can even program those keys in to it to control your devices without even turning on your PC

Server support

Rather than leaving your media center PC on all the time to monitor the state of your devices, you can now install a windows home server add-in to control and monitor everything. Best of all, when you do this all of the settings and state information is stored on the server and can be shared from multiple PCs.

In a massive double whammy, we have two Power Controller pieces of news. First of all, an upgraded version of PowerControllerMCE, which allows you to control Bye Bye Standby devices from your media center PC. The latest updates overhaul the UI, and add constant monitoring of devices to display live information about which ones are on and off.

And secondly, there is a new Android application for controlling your BBSB devices, called simply Power Controller.

It also brings the ability to control devices, but this time from your Android phone. It also optionally integrates with PowerControllerMCE to pull in a list of devices, and to share information about which devices are on and off. Available to buy now in the Android Market.

I have just created my first android app, Spinner. Why? Playing board games with my son, and the damn spinner wouldn't spin. Decided to make my own software version. It's free (with ads), so if you have an android phone why not give it a go. Here's the QR code;

Coming soon – LoveFilm for media center.

Featuring the ability to manage your rental list, watch trailers, and even watch films online, all from your media center.

See here for details.

A major new version of TunerFreeMCE has just been launched. It includes a huge number of new features that people have been asking for;

• A new popup screen for managing the TV programs, allowing you to play the program, set a timer recording to record other showings of the program if you have a TV tuner configured, and if the program supports it you can add it to a playlist or download it (the last two work for BBC WMV programs, but not flash).
• When playing flash content, sometimes the mouse didn't click in the right place. Now you can mode the cursor round the screen with the remote by pressing the cursor keys, and OK to click. This allows you to play even the most troublesome programs.
• The interface is now touchscreen enabled, so if you have a touchscreen media center you can easily navigate through the screens.
• Plugins are now directly available within the application. When you go to preferences you will see a list of plugins. When you pick one, the system will take care of installing and updating it to keep you up to date with your favourite content.
• MSN has been removed. This is because there is now a native media center app to support MSN.
• Improved memory management – only one instance of TunerFreeMCE will be active at any one time

This new version of TunerFreeMCE is for Windows 7 only. The reason is that Vista Media Center doesn't support some of the code that I needed to make these improvements happen. Before making this choice I did look at the number of existing TunerFreeMCE users who are still using Vista (when the system checks for new versions, it sends the OS version so that we know what file to send). Those statistics show that just over two thirds of active TunerFreeMCE installations are already using Windows 7, so this update is applicable to the vast majority of users. For the third of users still on Vista, it's important to remember that while you don't get these latest features, TunerFreeMCE will keep working, and you can keep watching all your favourite programs streamed straight to your media center.

MillieSoft are pleased to introduce the latest application for windows media center – My Media Center. It's primarily a child friendly interface for media center that parents can use to control what content the children can see.

Have you been terrified that your toddler is about to pick up the remote and start watching the latest episode of Doctor Who? Are your kids frustrated with having to remember if something is in Recorded TV, Videos and DVDs? Are you fed up with your remote-happy kids deleting their favourite program? Do you want to set up a whole hour's of TV without constantly having to come back and pick the next program? Then this is the add-in for you.

My Media Center allows you to;

• Decide which channels, videos and DVDs are available to watch
• Put all media items in a single list
• Add videos and recorded TV to a playlist to set up a whole viewing session
• No option to accidentally delete precious videos

The settings are all PIN protected so the kids can't change them, and you can launch straight in to My Media Center, bypassing the other screens. Plus there's a funky animated front end that should make it a real hit. Download now from here.