Much like the AppleTV (at least in outer-design), the Myka is gearing up to be a digital media and content delivery system based on BitTorrent technologies.

Myka calls it “the magic box you’ve been waiting for.”

BitTorrent, for those not in the know, is a way of transfering large files to many users, using the bandwidth of those users for all transfers. Rather than one user sending a file to one other user, one user instead pulls the content from multiple users at once. However, once users turn off their BitTorrent clients, a source of the file is lost and depending on the total number of sources and ’seeds’ (users that have 100% of the file), the overall downloads speeds and final transfer suffer.

With the Myka, the potential for Torrent management could make this box a great competitor for the AppleTV, as well as open it up to more user generated content. The box, theoreticly, could activate, throttle, and turn off transfers at will depending on the number of users currently sharing the file. This, however, is not mentioned on the Myka website and is mearly wishful thinking on my part.

As for the specs of the device:

• WiFi Enabled - 802.11/g
• Ethernet Connector
• HDMI, Composite, S-Video and SPDIF ports
• Internal Hard Drive ranging from 80GB ($299.00) to 500GB ($459.00)
• Front and Rear USB ports for future expansion
• 16 MP of Flash Memory (I assume for software updates)
• 256MB DDRAM
• Runs on a varient of Linux
• Supports MPEG-2, H.264, VC1, WMV9, DivX 3, 4 and 5, MPEG-4 Video codecs
• 4:3 (full-screen) and 16:9 (wide-screen)
• Standard & High Definition Formats: 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i (i hope support for 1080p is added before release)
• MPEG, MP3, AAC and WMA Audio Codecs
• 32-levels of volume with mute
• Outputs in Mono, Stereo and Dolby Digital

Currently Myka is taking pre-orders for this device, but I suggest waiting until it is released and keep an eye out for any bugs or hot-fixes. Best to be a 2nd generation adopter than a 1st gen one.