It looks like the folks at Sling Media have a few interesting things up their sleeves.

The folks over at the Sling Community have spotted a patent application that seems to indicate Sling Media has plans to enable advertising over your Sling connection. There are a couple of different ways the company could insert ads. For example, your Slingbox or SlingPlayer software could determine which batter is at plate during a baseball game and then choose a fitting ad to display on your playback window. Sling Media could also insert preroll advertisements or insert an ad at the end of a video.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that Sling Media plans to issue a software update within a month. Users will be able to pause, rewind, and fast-forward video using the SlingPlayer software rather than sending a command over the internet to your PVR at home. This should cut down on any lag time between hitting pause and seeing your video pause. It looks like the software update will also add the Clip + Sling feature we first heard about back in January.

And in related news, Applian Technologies has launched At-Large Recorder 2, which supports recording video from SlingPlayer. In other words, if you're using a SlingPlayer to stream video from your TV over the internet to friends or relatives in another house, time zone, or country, they can record and save your video. The software works with any version of the Slingbox. There's a free trial available, but a full version will set you back $50.