ReadWriteWeb

Today, the Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF) has launched Miro 4, an updated version of its desktop media player which now introduces a notable new feature: the ability to sync with Android phones and tablets.

Previously, the software was used for finding, viewing, downloading and sharing digital media discovered through a variety of channels including YouTube and BitTorrent. It was simply a browser-less way to access online media.  But with this new release, Miro has positioned itself as the open source alternative to DoubleTwist, currently Android users' go-to desktop program of choice for duplicating the iTunes experience. And while, at present, Miro lacks some of DoubleTwist's polish, it makes up for it in a rich, and ever-expanding feature set, including, at long last, podcast subscriptions for Mac users.

You can keep your fusty old venture capital. For our money, you can't beat the Tamagochi-eqsue cuteness of Miro's Code Adoption Program.

Miro is the free, open source, cross-platform online video player that manages queued downloads much like TiVo for the Internet. And although the number of users has tripled to about 1.1 million uniques over the past three months with the release of Miro 2.0, the amount of funds available for nonprofits such as Miro has dramatically dropped. Insert yet another generalization about the crumbling economy here.

The Participatory Culture Foundation just released version 2.0 of Miro, the open source online TV application formerly known as Democracy Player. Miro is a combination of a video and audio podcast player with a built-in bittorrent client. In this new version, Miro also adds rudimentary support for streaming video, though in that respect, it is clearly outclassed by Boxee. Besides the support for streaming video, the new version of Miro also features a more streamlined user interface, a better programming guide, and, maybe most importantly, significant performance upgrades.