A member of the Sling Community disassembled his Slingbox Pro in order to document the “major chips” — in the process, he discovered what appears to be an IR receiver. Not one to sit on the sidelines, I tore apart my SB Pro to confirm his report. I’m no electrical engineer, but it does indeed look like an IR receiver is hidden behind the Sling logo. Purpose? Like all Slingbox units, the Pro model is networked with both AV inputs and outputs. So one possibility is SlingCatcher functionality: providing the ability to watch a remote Sling feed on TV, controlled by a yet-to-be-released SlingRemote. Or maybe the box could leverage the network connection to stream YouTube video or display information like the forthcoming Wii’s Channels. I’ve got a query into Sling Media and will report back if they choose to publicly comment.