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
- Gregory M. Drahuschak: Marriage of Internet & TV comes next (3-28-99) (Tribune-Review) (link may expire or change)
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist Gregory M. Drahuschak writes that the recent cable and Internet merger and buyout stories suggest "the next most significant step in the evolution of the Internet will be to put it on your television set, not merely your computer.... Although household penetration by personal computers has increased dramatically in recent years, their presence pales in comparison to television. Instead of waiting for PCs to be part of every home, the reality might soon be the integration of the Internet and television - that is, using existing TVs to bring the Internet to every home." Drahuschak notes that the downside is that "it has to be affordable."
Drahuschak thinks TV. And, yes, it all has to be affordable for everyday people. Otherwise, not too many people will buy any of it.... Drahuschak refers to the convergence of Television and the Internet as "telenet." Are there any old BBS users out there who remember the Telenet company and its consumer long-distance, modem-calling, packet-switching service of the 1980s known as PC Pursuit for calling computer bulletin board systems around the U.S. for thirty bucks a month? Those were the days of the techies and the computer nerds before the Internet we have today.... -ruel - TV manufacturers differ on how smart to make TV sets (3-26-99) (EE Times)
- Strategic Analytics: all-in-one fully integrated digital TVs have no future; instead, get a set-top box (3-24-99) (Electronic Times)
Electronic Times cites Strategic Analytic's interactive home services director David Mercer as indicating, "The strategies of TV manufacturers have reflected their needs rather than the needs of the marketplace. The TV has effectively been a dumb monitor for many years, and the arrival of digital will not change this.... [S]ervice providers will continue to favour set-top boxes because of their need to build audiences quickly without waiting for consumers to change TVs." Electronics Times also cites Strategic Analytic's January 1999 report on set-top boxes and dumb terminals.
IMHO, this is correct. Consumers will generally buy in components and will not necessarily buy all-in-one fully integrated digital TV sets. Depending on how much money a consumer may want to spend, the consumer will buy a TV set first, a VCR next, and then maybe a set-top box for the Internet access and enhanced television functions. Just think about how consumers put together audio-stereo component systems: they buy components one at a time. Consumers will not necessarily buy all-in-one fully integrated digital TV sets particularly if such one-unit packages are very expensive as one would expect them to be. (This is a point that has confused people who think about interactive TV when they quickly dismiss interactive TV because they think of expensive all-in-one fully integrated digital TV sets; they should instead be thinking about consumers' components-buying habits.) Buying individual components one at a time, such as buying a set-top box, is cheaper and more manageable for the everyday consumer's budget. -ruelIBM CEO Lou Gerstner says: "The PC era is over" (3-25-99) (CNET)
CNET cites IBM CO Lou Gerstner's statement ("The PC era is over") as significant and "carries a lot of weight coming from the company that helped invent the business PC." CNET also notes Hewlett-Packard CEO Lew Platt, Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy, and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison have made similar statements. CNET also cites a letter from Gerstner in IBM's annual report that e-commerce "represents an enormous opportunity. By 2002, the e-business segment will grow to $600 billion, and it will grow twice as fast as the industry overall." - Venus Project: Microsoft wants high telecom fees to drop in China (3-25-99) (WIRED)
- uniView intros uniView 310 set-top box with Win98, DVD and VOD capabilities (3-24-99) (uniView)
(alternate link)
The uniView 310 integrates PC features including an Intel Celeron processor, 3.2 gigabyte hard drive, PCI slots, 32MB SDRAM memory with Dolby Digital audio, and MPEG II video support. And with Win98, it sounds like a "power PC-TV box." However, uniView has been aggressive in going after certain vertical markets where flexible capabilities may be needed. (Hmm, the retail version of Win98 comes with "WebTV for Windows." So, will the uniView 310 do "WebTV"? Or will uniView disable the "WebTV for Windows"??) - Larry Ellison: Apple to make "Coolest TV-Computer Combination" (3-23-99) (CNET)
CNET quotes Larry Ellison as saying Apple will be making "the world's coolest TV-computer combination you have in your room. Just as televisions are becoming computers, computers are starting to become televisions with different displays. Apple has a great chance of being the best name in digital appliances." - Dii to supply set-tops to Chinese market (3-25-99) (Denver Post)
Dii Group, located in Niwok, Colorado, will supply television set-top boxes to Capetronic for the Chinese market. Dii vice president for investor relations Sharon Sweet said China, with its 320 million television sets, "is a tremendous growth market. There is no question this will be our largest worldwide site for a number of years." The Denver Post reports that Chinese TV viewers "will swipe a prepaid card across the boxes to access movies and other programs shown on the televisions. Without the boxes and cards, the programs cannot be viewed." - Dii-Capetronic-DVB to provide set-tops for China Internet TV campaign (3-23-99) (PRNewswire)
Dii Group will invest US$15M in Capetronic which owns DVB Company. DVB CEO Bruno Wu said, "After years of exhaustive fact-finding, planning, technical development and partner selection, we are ready for the full-scale project launch. The market potential for providing value-added service applications to existing networks is overwhelming -- there's already an installed base of nearly 320 million TV sets in the [People's Republic of China] alone, and the economic growth rate is expected to be very high for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, there's virtually no similar technology in the market. We anticipate that this project will ramp up quickly -- we have already received our first letter of intent for 500,000 units from a local PRC client, one of more than 100 cable TV operators of its kind in the country. As an added benefit, China's Ministry of Culture anticipates this project will help curb video piracy by providing near-instantaneous release of video rights to first-run movies throughout China at a fraction of the cost of pirated videos." Production of the set-tops is expected to begin in 4Q 1999. - Intertainer on-demand services headed towards General Instrument set-tops (3-24-99) (CNET)
General Instrument's DCT-5000 set-top is be released in mid-1999. - General Instrument set-tops to have Intertainer entertainment-on-demand services (3-23-99) (PRNewswire)
General Instrument's digital network systems marketing VP Denton Kanouff said, "General Instrument is delighted to welcome Intertainer to the Horizon Developers Program. Interactive, on-demand services like Intertainer are a strong force in the future of digital cable. We look forward to working together as Intertainer moves onto GI's interactive digital terminals." - Celerity sells T6000 set-tops to Optelecom for digital surveillance (3-22-99) (Business Wire)
- Sensory Science and Loewe intro full product line of digital TV products for North America (3-22-99) (PRNewswire)
(alternate link)
Sensory Science chairman Roger Hackett said, "We have succeeded in our initial mission of becoming the industry's sole source of a complete line of direct-view digital televisions, and in doing so have emerged as a fully integrated domestic supplier of premium consumer electronics products." Sensory Science was formerly known as Go-Video. Loewe TV sets are nice looking TV sets.... - NetGem announces NetGem TV for TV manufacturers (3-22-99) (PRNewswire) (alternate link)
NetGem CEO Joseph Haddad said, "Putting NetGem's know-how inside the television set means that TV manufacturers can start building Internet TV sets today, giving their customers top-quality Internet-enriched television at prices aimed at the mass-market worldwide. NetGem is proud to be leading this new wave in the revolution to bring Internet home, to hotels, and wherever TV's are found." - Neon set-tops to use Bitstream's TrueDoc fonts (3-22-99) (Business Wire)
Neon Technology's software vice president John Hsueh said, "The use of TrueDoc technology in our set-top products has helped Neon to provide the best display of text on a television in the industry. Bitstream's transparent support for multi-lingual fonts lets us bring our products to a world-wide audience, which now includes parts of Asia, Europe, and Latin America." The Neon line of set-top boxes include Neon's n.TV 1000 basic box for internet and email at this time. Neon's n.TV 2000 is to be released in Summer '99 and includes a built-in TV tuner and smart card. And Neon's n.TV 3000 is slated to debut in time for Xmas '99 with DVD capability. - INTECO predicts Interactive Multi-Point Content Distribution to surround consumer by Y2003 (3-22-99) (Business Wire)
INTECO's surround-the-consumer "Interactive Multi-Point Content Distribution" scenario predicts "[t]he Internet user of 2003 ... will be able to jump on the Internet through his TV set as he catches the morning news, tap in again through his digital wireless phone (or PDA) on the way to work and continue from his computer once he arrives at the office." This sounds like the "Internet Anywhere" scenario (some privately call it the "Star Trek Now" scenario; and then there is also the "AOL Anywhere" namesake, etc., etc.) where you access the Net from almost anywhere (in the home, in the car, in the mall, in the office, etc.) using a variety of different Internet appliances and devices (as well as via a PC). - Washington Post doesn't like WebTV for business in hotels (3-22-99) (Wash Post)
(alternate link)
- Sony to beam CD-quality music to Sky PerfecTV satellite subcribers' set-tops (3-19-99) (WIRED)
- GeoCities promotes GeoGuide by giving away 13 Sony WebTV Plus boxes for March 1999 contest (3-19-99) (GeoCities)
- Kagan Digital Entertainment Summit East panel: Set-Top space is most valuable square foot in America (3-18-99) (Business Wire)
(alternate link)
One of the panels to be presented at the Kagan Digital Entertainment Summit East is "BOX BUSINESS: Why the Set-Top Space is the Most Valuable Square Foot in America." Representatives from General Instrument, Scientific-Atlanta, Pioneer, Replay Networks, TiVo, Encore, and Emc2 are scheduled to be on the panel. The summit is to be held March 23-25 at The Park Lane Hotel in New York. The Kagan set-tops panel is scheduled for March 23.
Elsewhere, Dataquest at its Predicts 99 conference will have its own set-tops panel entitled The Set-Top Box: Point of Convergence. The Dataquest Predicts 99 conference is to be held March 22-24 at the San Diego Convention Center and the San Diego Hyatt in San Diego. The Dataquest set-tops panel is scheduled for March 24. - TV-listings websites turn up the volume (3-18-99) (E&P Interactive)
- Philips Electronics sells WebTV Plus boxes with Smart Cards to schools in "one-step" registration program (3-18-99) (PRNewswire)
WebTV president Steve Perlman said, "Making it simple and easy for education institutions to have Internet access is the reasoning behind the development of the One-Step Register program. This initiative with Philips will significantly accelerate the process of getting institutions up online." - Teknema announces Developers Environment for its Internet TV box (3-18-99) (Business Wire)
Teknema vice president of engineering Stathis Kassimidis said, "The browser is really the operating system of the set-top box, and with the Development Environment, developers have a way to add value to the product." The Development Environment allows the developer to use the Teknema Internet TV set-top box's browser scripting and graphical capabilities to create custom applications, menus, screens, and to change the flow of operation of the box's software. - NetGem and Deutsche Telekom demos NetBox using ATVEF standard at CeBIT in Germany (3-17-99) (PRNewswire)
- NetGem's NetBox does Linux (3-17-99) (PRNewswire)
NetGem CEO and co-founder Joseph Haddad said, "Open architecture and interoperability have been two of the guiding concepts in designing the NetBox right from the start. It is, therefore, significant that the NetBox is the first device for the mass consumer market to run on Linux.... We believe that the true innovators today are tuned into Linux, and will provide us with that edge for the future." - NetGem's NetBox connects with Alcatel's HomeTop (3-17-99) (PRNewswire)
-
*** 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