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
- Sony releases new versions of WebTV Plus and Classic boxes (19JUL99) (CNET)
- WebTV learning about pricing set-top boxes (16JUL99) (CNET)
- AOL getting ready for free Internet appliance (16JUL99) (MSNBC)
- Dreamcast intro in America but in contest (7JUL99) (WIRED)
- Hakuhodo Inc. and Toyota Tsusho Corp. to sell and distribute digital entertainment content via Internet (16JUL99) (asia.internet)
- Hanaro Telecom to launch the Internet movie theater of first-run films through high-speed Internet (16JUL99) (asia.internet)
- ABC's Hugh Downs to join Internet TV firm (14JUL99) (InfoBeat Internet Daily)
InfoBeat reports Hugh Downs of ABC's 20/20 news magazine show is planning to join iNEXTV Corp. InfoBeat reports that iNEXTV is "a newly formed Internet video network, to develop online television shows." InfoBeat also cites iNEXTV CEO Edward Bramson as indicating Downs will cover U.S. executive branch and the White House via the Internet on iNEXTV's Executive Branch TV. - PlayTV let's you star in your own TV show online (19JUL99) (SF Chronicle)
- TV watching trails in online homes (19JUL99) (InfoBeat Internet Daily)
InfoBeat reports Nielsen Media Research found "television viewing in Internet households is 'significantly less' than in non-online households, up to an estimated 32 hours less monthly television viewing per household" in a study of 5000 homes. InfoBeat quotes Nielsen Media Research vice president Paul Lindstrom as stating, "As the percentage of mass market consumers coming online steadily increases, we're seeing that television consumption among wired households continues to remain consistent -- at one hour less per day." - Ruel's Spotlight Website: QUICKSCAN (15JUL99)
George Van Valkenburg, of Timeshift Video Services Ltd., writes in to say that the patented QUICKSCAN video-indexing technology "will be synergistic with TiVo and other set-tops, assuming they include normal VCR functions in future boxes, i.e., freeze, frame advance, reverse stepping, and variable slow motion." -
ICTV partners with eGames to deliver CD-ROM games direct to television sets (14JUN99) (PRNewswire)
-
Celerity and InnovaCom form partnership for network video (14JUL99) (PRNewswire)
Celerity CEO and president Ken Van Meter said, "InnovaCom's technology is a perfect complement to our video server and digital set top box technology and the solutions we may now deliver to the video industry are unparalleled by design." The Celerity-InnovaCom partnership would be for video transmission including "full-duplex transmission for two-way simultaneous data movement." -
FutureTrak to begin multi-housing deployment with Celerity set-top boxes (13JUL99) (Business Wire)
- Seagate aligns with MbTV Networks to deliver personalized TV (14JUL99) (PRNewswire)
- Don't throw out your VCR yet (10JUL99) (WIRED)
DVD and Video-On-Demand won't quite replace videotapes yet according to analysts and executives at the recent Video Software Dealers Association's annual convention in Los Angeles. - Retail stores discount WebTV classic box to $50 and WebTV Plus box to as low as $99; new WebTV boxes on the way (12JUL99) (CNET)
The CNET folks report, "[A]nalysts say the current cuts ... reflect ongoing efforts to determine the pricing 'sweet spot' that will help WebTV build its subscriber base." However, don't be surprised to see new versions of the WebTV Classic and WebTV Plus boxes to be at the regular $99 and $199 prices. Nonetheless, the discount prices for the current batch of WebTV boxes are very intriguing.... - Jesse Berst: Don't expect interactive TV to be here yet with the discount $50 WebTV boxes (13JUL99) (AnchorDesk)
Jesse says, "Yes, the convergence of TV and Internet will be the Next Big Thing.... But it's not here yet. And don't be fooled into thinking it has arrived because some retailers have slashed Microsoft's WebTV Classic to an all-time low $50." - PC-TV: Pinnacle's new Studio PCTV $89 video editor and TV tuner card with VCR function for PC boxes (13JUL99) (PC World)
- Forrester says DTV could be DOA unless consumers made aware of DTV (13JUL99) (WIRED)
- Forrester says digital TV is a tough sell in US (12JUL99) (ZDNN)
- Media Metrix says simultaneous use of TV and PC growing (12JUL99) (Business Wire)
- Microsoft-Rogers deal latest in moves to dominate set-top market (13JUL99) (Globe and Mail)
Toronto's The Globe and Mail newspaper reports on Microsoft's deal with Rogers Communications: "Like its investment in WebTV, Comcast, NTL and AT&T, Microsoft's interest in Canada's largest cable company focuses on the digital set-top box -- a device that gives consumers high-speed Internet access, hundreds of channels and a slew of two-way services over their television sets." - Anchordesk's Need to Know paragraph tidbit on Microsoft-Rogers Deal (13JUL99) (Anchordesk)
The Anchordesk folks say, "Watch for Windows CE and WebTV to have big roles" in the $400 million Microsoft-Rogers cable deal in Canada. - Rogers Communications and Microsoft announce agreements to develop and deploy advanced broadband television services in Canada (12JUL99) (PRNewswire)
- Microsoft looks to Canada for interactive digital cable TV by investing $400M in Rogers Communications (12JUL99) (CNNfn)
Watch out for the invasion of Canada by interactive TV via cable by Microsoft TV and WebTV.... Dial-up telephone-based WebTV was previously introduced in Canada. - Microsoft invests $400M in Rogers Communications (12JUL99) (CNET)
- Videocon to make Net TVs for India (12JUL99) (asia.internet)
- DiviCom powers digital TV service in Carribean (12JUL99) (Business Wire)
- The Kitchen PC in the middle in the home (12JUL99) (MSNBC)
- Find it difficult to choose which television channel to watch? Digital Revolution likely to make decision more complicated... (10JUL99) (Daily Telegraph)
- ONdigital's set-top box giveaway brings in viewers (9JUL99) (Evening News)
- Free set-top boxes connect ONdigital to demand surge (9JUL99) (Scotsman)
- ONdigital shows impact of free set-top boxes (9JUL99) (Daily Telegraph)
- Big changes for European Television with American-style consolidation and cross-border alliances (8JUL99) (NYTimes)
- The different definitions of HDTV (8JUL99) (ZDNN-WSJ)
- Allied Business Intelligence says worldwide digital broadcast services market to grow substantially (8JUL99) (PRNewswire)
-
The Interactive Home: Strategy Analytics forecasts networks in 21% of homes by 2005 (7JUL99) (PRNewswire)
- David Futrelle: R.I.P. PC (9JUL99) (Upside Today)
- Other Net Devices: Will web-screenphones connect? (9JUL99) (NYT-Bloomberg)
- Teknema announces Formenti-Seleco Group of Italy licensed Internet ApplianceTechnology (8JUL99) (Teknema)
"Formenti-Seleco will use Teknema's technology to bring to market the Home CTV, an Internet-enabled television set, an innovative consumer oriented product for web surfing, e-mail, and watching television, with an easy to use remote control and wireless keyboard." - ATI takes system-on-chip wars to set-top and other net devices (8JUL99) (CNET)
- Samsung announces development of digital TV receiver chip (8JUL99) (Semiconductor Business News) (alternate link)
-
Panasonic launches World's First High-Definition Digital VCR for U.S. market (8JUL99) (PRNewswire)
The Panasonic Model PV-HD1000 high-definition digital VCR debuts this month with a price tag of $999.95. - Web is a TV test site for TV shows (8JUL99) (Upside Today)
- ONChannel announces OS 2000 for powerful set-tops (7JUL99) (PRNewswire)
The OS 2000 will let PC manufacturers get their computer boxes get into the set-top market (watch out for more of the power PC-TV boxes). OS 2000 is derived from Linux. So just about any Linux application should run under OS 2000 including most likely any of the Linux browsers (about a month or so ago, another company asked about OS 2000 and browsers....). - Ruel's Website Spotlight: ONChannel (7JUL99)
- UK-based Oregan Networks intro new Enhanced TV set-top box reference design in Taipei for Asian analogue datacasting market (7JUL99) (Oregan) (alternate link)
- Ruel's Website Spotlight: Oregan Networks enhanced TV "Net TV" set-top box design (7JUL99)
- MarkeTVision wants to let TV viewers make their own customized "television home page" portals on Television.com (7JUL99) (Boston Globe)
- Ruel's Spotlight Website: Paradise Innovations AiTV set-top box (6JUL99)
Paradise Innovations is known for graphics adapters and modems, but also has a telephone-based Internet TV box that they call the "Advanced Interactive TV" (AiTV) and which is specifically for OEM only. This is a box I would like to play with. Their Singapore office sent in a brochure of information (their main corporate office is in Fremont, California). The Paradise Innovations website provides good information. Check out the screen shots showing the channel scanning and "picture-in-graphics" capabilities. - India's Zee-TV to provide cable Internet services (6JUL99) (asia.internet)
Although at least the initial focus will be on cable modems, Zee Television Limited "will also offer businesses value-added services through application service providers. Network computer users, operating with a set-top-box will be able to use applications via network servers." The launch of Zee-TV's internet services in India is scheduled for October 1, 1999.
If my email is any indication, with at least one email message per week from a dot .in email address asking about Internet on TV, set-top boxes, and PC-TV, India would seem to be a large market for set-top boxes for whoever can get the boxes into India. -ruel - Will ReplayTV and TiVo digital recorders change TV and TV advertising? (5JUL99) (NYTimes)
-
EchoStar to carry ValueVision home-shopping network on EchoStar's digital satellite TV service (5JUL99) (PRNewswire)
Although not discussed in the EchoStar-ValueVision announcement, don't be surprised to see home-shopping networks and informercials take advantage of enhanced television functions to allow TV viewers to instantaneously click over to an order page to buy a product featured during a TV program. Interactive television functions will let the TV viewer immediately click on a link seen during a TV show on the TV screen to go to a detailed information page, or an order page, for an item that may appear during the TV show or TV commercial. - ValueVision and NBC announce multi-year agreement to carry ValueVision on DIRECTV's Digital Television Service (6JUL99) (PRNewswire)
- NBC and GE Equity increase stake in ValueVision to 39.9% through additional $175M equity investment (7JUL99) (PRNewswire)
- Wrangling over TV standards, also EPGs as portals for Interactive TV (2JUL99) (CNET)
The CNET folks write, "... [E]lectronic program guides (EPGs) will be the equivalent of Web browsers for digital TV. As such, they also represent a significant piece of screen real estate to control, especially as cable companies start to use these guides to offer viewers the ability to buy merchandise related to ads or shows they've seen. That's something that participants in the commoditized TV market want to take part in by building cable-ready TV sets that bypass the cable set-top box."
When people ask about the difference between "enhanced television" and Internet on TV, I usually describe cross-over hyperlinks that may appear during TV shows, talk about digital recorders, and then describe EPGs and how EPGs are going to be the browsers for Interactive TV (last week I described EPGs to some non-TV ISP folks who wanted to know about the difference). There are people out there who have interesting ideas for using the EPG beyond just changing channels and going to target shows or data links.... -ruel - A look at the TV video game console wars (2JUL99) (MSNBC)
MSNBC quotes Sega president Shoichiro Irimajiri as stating, "As you know, all over the world, $199, 199 Pounds, 19,900 Yen is a kind of magic point to sell console and home electronics goods to mass markets. We have already reached that point."
Make electronic products affordable for everyday people. Consumers begin to think more seriously about getting an electronics product when it is in the under $200 price range. -ruel- Ebiz aims $199 PIA at the mainstream (6JUL99) (CNET)
Ebiz Enterprises is marketing their Personal Internet Appliance (PIA) through ISPs including Prodigy. The PIA is apparently a generic "white box" PC using the Linux OS and requires a computer monitor. The PIA shows the type of the competition that set-top boxes are up against on the PC side.- Microsoft's "Neptune" OS to be living-room ready for Game PCs and Media PCs (7JUL99) (ZDNN)
- Ebiz aims $199 PIA at the mainstream (6JUL99) (CNET)
- TCOSoft releases tools for remote upgrading of WinCE apps on set-tops, handhelds, and other net devices (2JUL99) (allNetDevices)
- Liberate Technologies (formerly NCI) to offer 6.25M shares in IPO (1JUL99) (CNET-Bloomberg)
-
*** 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