Today Microsoft officially launched their MSNBC News beta in Media Center to the world (err, I mean US and Canada).  This was actually something that popped up on one of my beta machines a few months ago, but when I asked about it Microsoft said I wasn’t even supposed to have it, and thus I didn’t blog about it.  Much like the Internet TV Beta, access the new application can be found on the TV + Movies strip.

Ian Dixon and Brandon LeBlanc have some screenshots up on their respective blogs.  These out-of-band “feature” plug-ins might be Microsoft’s hope to keep the Media Center platform moving between Windows releases, so I’m hoping this isn’t the last one that we will see.

• Access the latest U.S. Election 08 videos
• Editor Picks and Most Popular videos, as selected by viewers
• Five-day weather forecast for any zip code in the U.S.
• Customize your own news video playlists
• Ability to browse by category, such as Business, Sports, and Entertainment
•  Search for stories using keywords
• Related videos for each story