SITE METER *
says you are
TV Viewer
number
Set-Top Page Interactive TV Top.Box.News |  |
News Wires | More News | PR Wire Net Stats | Ticker | Calendar | Search |
- CLICK FOR MORE RECENT INTERACTIVE TV NEWS
- Ready to Interact with TV (1-4-99) (Los Angeles Times)
The Los Angeles Times writes, "[I]nteractive TV is poised to move from regional experiments into living rooms across the nation this year." However, "[C]ontent providers won't be able to accurately determine exactly what services consumers want until the infrastructure is firmly in place to distribute interactive TV." The hardware and the infrastructure upgrades first go into place. Then the content providers will begin to provide the information and data services to see what viewers want to see from interactive TV. - Winter CES: from Net Phones to DTV (1-4-99) (CNET)
- Microsoft may bid on British Telecom cable TV franchises (1-4-99) (CNET)
Microsoft reportedly plans to "use television as a route onto the Internet for million of homes." -
TV advertising to promote the Internet more (1-3-99) (New York Times)
Expect the Internet to make more of a recognition "presence" on TV through conventional TV commercials. - Getting closer to your TV set (1-1-99) (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
- ABC to provide synchronized "Enhanced TV" Football Bowl coverage (12-30-98) (InfoBeat Internet Daily)
InfoBeat reports that the ABC-TV broadcast of the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl will feature what ABC-TV calls "enhanced TV" coverage of the college football game between the Florida State Seminoles and Tennesse Volunteers. The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl will be broadcast on January 4, 1999. InfoBeat reports ABC President Robert A. Iger as stating, "This project is a major stepping stone toward true television-online convergence, and will give our viewers a taste of what's to come in the future. Sports, with its natural breaks and related statistics, is ideal for convergence."
Although the InfoBeat report does not say this, this is really Internet coverage of the football game that is SYNCHRONIZED with the actual TV broadcast. You don't need a WebTV or a computer with a TV tuner card. So, you can watch the game on a TV set while separately viewing the ABC website on a computer monitor. For the consumer, this is really a "convergence" of consumers' TV viewing habits and Internet access activities. However, for ABC (and ESPN), this is an actual implementation of providing real-time data that is meant to accompany an actual TV broadcast. This is a test for when ABC and ESPN begin to provide actual enhanced television broadcasts of football games and other sporting events on a regular basis to TVs equipped with set-top boxes and to enhanced-TV capable PC-TV boxes. The ABC-TV synchronized "enhanced TV" presentation of the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl will provide a hint of what to expect for the future of ABC's Monday Night Football and ESPN's Sunday Night Football shows. - Click Here for the ABC synchronized Tostitos Fiesta Bowl "Enhanced TV" website
This website is part of Disney's new GO network. (Disney owns ABC and ESPN.) - TV can be your friend that a set-top box stores TV shows for (12-30-98) (The Record)
- Chicago Sun-Times says a computer better than a WebTV (12-30-98) (Chicago Sun-Times)
-
Comcast Cable to deploy Wink enhanced television programming & advertising (12-30-98) (PRNewswire)
- IBM Japan selects Microware's OS-9 & DAVID for new set-top boxes (12-30-98) (Business Wire)
-
World CallNet & Zilog plan for MailTV TV sets in Europe and the U.S. (12-29-98) (PRNewswire)
MailTV TV sets are to provide email and other Internet functions. World CallNET CEO Paul Goodman-Simpson states, "The MailTV technology was designed specifically to allow every consumer to get connected easily, and at no cost, to the rest of the world without needing to buy a single additional device. The proprietary server-based software architecture developed by World CallNET, Inc. makes it possible to offer this capability directly inside the TV at no significant premium in terms of the overall cost of the TV set." Using Zilog technologies, World CallNET plans to enable the manufacture of MailTV-capable TV sets (without the need for external set-top boxes) in Europe and then in the United States. -
CNET's high-tech stories of 1998: set-top box 1998 sunrise (12-29-98) (CNET)
On the second page of CNET's "Fad or future? 1998's top tech stories" article, CNET says set-top boxes experienced their sunrise in 1998 and to expect more in 1999. Listed as #17 "Set-top box sunrise," CNET writes, "The Internet fuels growth in digital TV set-top computers. Myriad companies from different industries, including Intel, TCI, Sun, NBC, and Sony, seek alliances in the burgeoning market...." Note that CNET says "digital TV set-top computers." I guess CNET had to throw "computers" in there somewhere. But that's okay since the TV-Internet-computer convergence lines are a little blurry. Look for the "set-top" market to be divided into telephone-based set-tops, cable-TV set-top boxes, and what I would call "power PC-TV (computer) boxes" in the years 1999 and 2000. - Ruel's Spotlight Website: ADS 2000 DVD Home Entertainment System (12-29-98)
The ADS 2000 is a "power PC-TV box," made by Sunrex, that emphasizes its DVD system for the living room. The folks at Sunrex say they have been selling "a huge amount [of ADS 2000 systems] through the Home Shopping Network...." - If you're wondering: FutureNet is becoming an ISP (12-29-98) (InternetNews)
- How they pay for BBC TV in the UK (12-28-98) (WIRED)
-
Memories of a Commodore 64 Xmas (12-22-98) (NYT)
NYT essay about a past Christmas when different interactive boxes were attached to TV sets. You are also invited to visit Ruel's Holiday Greetings Page. Happy Holidays! -
WebTV, Santa.com, and Good Guys provide free Internet to Lucile Packard Children's Health Services at Stanford (12-22-98) (PRNewswire)
- Telewebbers make convergence work even without a set-top or a PC-TV (12-23-98) (Investors Business Daily)
(Note IBD links change daily so the above link may expire.) Investors Business Daily (IBD) reports on the Inteco survey that found convergence is already here in the form of people who watch a TV set and surf the Internet on a PC at the same time. Inteco found that 18% of Internet users surfed the net and watched TV at the same time. Inteco said these users are "telewebbers." Inteco found 8 million out of 45 million Internet users simultaneously watch TV and surf the net at least once a week while another 5 million simultaneously surf and watch TV occasionally. Inteco also found that 29% of "telewebbers" were more likely to buy products online every three months compared to 17% of all Internet surfers. IBD quotes Inteco analyst Mark Snowden as stating, ''We were surprised there is so much crossover between television and Internet.... Suppliers are looking at delivering new [interactive] services because there is already a significant base of potential customers." mrwebron:)
(Hmm, perhaps the ultimate in TV convergence without set-tops and PC-TVs are the Teletubbies.... "BIG HUG!"....) -
WavePhore to broadcast film clips from Warner Bros. and News America Digital Publishing (12-23-98) (Inter@ctiveWeek)
(a PC-TV news item, relevant for "power PC-TV boxes") - Watching TV becoming "uncool" for some young people? (12-21-98) (WIRED)
Nielsen Media Research finds that young Americans in the 18-34 demographic age range are watching less television by 6%. Wired quotes one TV advertising executive as describing these young 18-34 Americans as "people that eat, sleep, and drink computers and the Internet." Although some may say this statistic may hint at the possible demise of television, it really means part of the audience is smaller and that may be interpreted to mean television has to change in order to bring back that 6%. The TV industry is NOT going to roll over and play dead anytime soon. The statistic is perhaps more of an indicator that television will be forced to make changes by integrating interactive and Internet capabilities in order to attract future TV audiences who will demand "enhanced television" programming.... (For those who have been following this website, you already know that many of these changes are already taking place or are being set into motion.) - Microsoft ordered to accept Xmas cards after rival's accusations of IE 5.0 and WebTV blocking rival's Xmas card email (12-21-98) (CNET)
- Microsoft ordered to stop blocking Xmas card email (12-21-98) (Mercury)
Mercury Center reports, "Blue Mountain Arts, whose Web site received 10 million visitors in November, also accused Microsoft's WebTV unit of blocking its greeting cards, a practice that WebTV has since stopped"
Try out Blue Mountains's Holiday Cards or Microsoft's Holiday Cards - Interactive TV ready for 1999 (12-19-98) (Florida Times-Union)
The Florida Times-Union reports Interactive Channel CEO Tom Oliver as saying, "Simplicity is what will make [Interactive Channel, as well as interactive TV in general,] attractive to consumers." It's not necessarily the "television of tomorrow," but that '[w]e're just adding some things. It's about enhanced television." The Florida Times-Union article also mentions Wink, WebTV, and MoreCom. The Florida Times-Union article mentions "[WebTV's] updated system, available next year, allows a TV image to remain on the screen while Internet data also is displayed." The WebTV Plus picture-in-picture capability is available now, but the article may be referring to the new WinCE software to be available sometime next year (some say Summer 1999). - Replay Networks to begin testing "VCR" personalized on-demand TV service (12-18-98) (CNET)
- ReplayTV testing "VCR" service (12-17-98) (ZDNN)
ReplayTV set-top to cost approximately $500 and to be on sale sometime in 1999. Hmm, although it's not being positioned as a VCR replacement or as an Internet TV box, it's still a pricey "VCR" set-top where you have an online program schedule guide and a couple harddrives for recording instead of using VCR tapes. I would guess you could hook up a real VCR or other permanent storage recording device to a ReplayTV for those folks who like to collect recordings of TV shows and movies, but that could be overkill for some people. For those WebTV Plus fans out there, you know you can do something similar with the cheaper WebTV Plus box and an ordinary VCR that you may already have: click here to read about the WebTV Plus VCR record function.- See Jesse Berst's take on ReplayTV (he likes it) (11-3-98) (AnchorDesk)
- Also see short blurb on TiVo TView system (12-21-98) (AnchorDesk)
- And elsewhere, news reports indicate Sony and Western Digital are working on a digital video recording device that seems to be similar to the ReplayTV box.
- Allied Business Intelligence predicts telephone's ADSL will overtake cable by 2004; consumer g.lite version of ADSL will lead the way (12-18-98) (WIRED)
-
@Home licenses Macromedia Flash for use in advanced digital set-tops (12-17-98) (PRNewswire)
- Neon Technology's set-top boxes committed to standards; and will have RealAudio and Java (12-17-98) (ruel)
- Ruel's Spotlight Website: Neon's Set-Top boxes (12-16-98)
The Neon telephone-based set-top boxes are VERY INTERESTING. They have all the expected capabilities including HTML 3.2 compatibility, Javascript 1.1, SSL 3.0, and pop email. There is a "basic" version and a "standard" version. The "standard" version has internet telephony WITH still-picture transfer. Now that is INTERESTING. Neon Technology is located in Milpitas, California.
-
*** CLICK FOR PREVIOUS NEWS ***
|
 
|
|
Thank You
For Visiting
Ruel.Net
RUEL.NET TV PAGE | SET-TOP | PC-TV
TV-VIA-NET | PC-TV TUNER CARDS
THE LIST | LINKS | RESEARCH | BOOKS
INTERACTIVE TV DEVELOPERS
CONFERENCES | NEWSLETTER
INTERACTIVE TV TOP.BOX.NEWS