Mike Slocombe

TiVo Software For Comcast In Strategic Partnership
TiVo has signed a multiyear deal to make a version of its personal video recorder software available to customers of Comcast Cable, currently the King Kong of largest cable operators in the US.
The deal is the first of the partnerships the struggling pioneer hopes to forge with cable operators and will result in Comcast and TiVo working together in peace and harmony to develop a version of the TiVo service to be made available on Comcast’s current DVR platform.
The new service will be marketed with the TiVo brand, and is expected to be slipping out on Comcast’s DVR products in a majority of Comcast markets in mid-to-late 2006.
This long-term, non-exclusive partnership will provide Comcast customers with the opportunity to choose the TiVo service with features like Season Pass and WishList, available as an additional option.
If all goes to plan, the service will showcase TiVo’s home networking, multimedia, and broadband capabilities.
“We are focused on providing our customers with a 21st Century television experience,” said Brian Roberts, the chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation. “TiVo has revolutionized the way consumers watch and access home entertainment. By partnering with TiVo, we are continuing to deliver technology that enables our customers to watch what they want when they want on TV. This agreement also reflects our commitment to work with leading technology providers to offer customers more value and choice in their home entertainment experience. Customers love the ease and convenience of our current DVR service, and we look forward to working with TiVo to enhance that service and offer customers the best-in-class DVR experience.”
Steve Burke, the president of Comcast Cable and COO of Comcast, added, “The strong TiVo brand, the clear track record of customer loyalty it has and its cutting-edge features make this a terrific partnership and exciting new product for Comcast.”
Tom Rogers, the vice chairman of TiVo, noted, “It is very important that TiVo has found a way to work with the nation’s largest cable operator on a cooperative basis to develop a state-of-the-art TiVo service, fully integrated with a cable set-top box, that will make TiVo available to millions of cable viewers. … This is a real milestone for TiVo and for the cable industry, but most importantly it is a milestone for television viewers.”
Analysts are hailing the agreement as a lifeline for the Californian-based company, whose shares jumped 75 percent, or US$2.87 (e2.14/£1.50), to close at US$6.70 (e5/£3.50) in Tuesday trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Although TiVo currently boasts more than 3 million subscribers it has struggled to find a business strategy that would increase its subscriber base and withstand gnawing competition from generic DVRs offered directly by big cable companies.
In the quarter that ended Jan. 31, TiVo lost a thumping great $33.7 million, substantially heftier than the $12.4 million loss in the same period a year earlier.
The Comcast deal means that TiVo will have to adapt its software to work on Comcast’s existing DVR platform. This will enable TiVo to blast out the advertising it sells as interactive video clips in their onscreen menu to Comcast subscribers.
Comcast will continue to market its own DVR, with new customers getting a dual-tuner DVR, letting viewers record two shows at once and high-definition television; TiVo offers such features only to DirecTV satellite customers.
Comcast subscribers who plump for the TiVo service will get funky features such as “Suggestions,” which recommends shows based on past viewing habits, and the ability to schedule recordings over the Internet.
The agreement gives TiVo access to Comcast’s 21.5 million cable customers, including 8.6 million digital cable customers who can take advantage of DVRs
TiVo
Comcast
16 March, 2005
A780/ MPx220, Motorola Phones Bundle GPS Navigation App
Motorola is to bundle GPS navigation software and hardware with the European versions of its A780 and MPx220 smart phones.
The handsets will include ALK Technologies’ CoPilot Live navigation software and Navteq ‘street and places-of-interest’ maps for European countries, installed on a memory card.
The Linux-based A780 has a built in GPS receiver hardware, while the Windows Mobile-based MPx220 will require a separate Bluetooth-enabled GPS receiver.
CoPilot Live uses maps and GPS location data to calculate multi-stage routes, displaying turn-by-turn directions on screen and speaking them out loud to avoid drivers crashing into hedges while looking at the groovy 3D map display.
The software also plugs into ALK’s GPRS-based tracking system, which allows third-parties to find out precisely where they are and how long it will take for them to arrive at their destination (we fancy there’s a few in this office who could benefit from such a feature after a night in the pub).
The product can also quickly plot alternative courses in response to updated traffic news and traffic jams.
GPS navigation has proved a bit of a hit in Europe, with sales bolstering up an otherwise declining PDA market.
A variety of vendors have busied themselves bundling together low-cost handhelds, GPS receivers and navigation software packages that together cost far less than a dedicated GPS systems.
David Quin, ALK’s UK marketing chief, said the Motorola deal was “an important step on the road to mass-market adoption of GPS navigation”.
The Motorola deal follows a similar agreement with T-Mobile, which recently announced that it will bundle CoPilot Live with its SDA and MDA Compact smart phones (and offer CoPilot Live separately to existing SDA and MDA users.)
Both handsets use Bluetooth to communicate with a separate GPS receiver.
Motorola’s handsets and GPS bundles will be available from “select” mobile operators throughout Europe, with pricing and availability determined by the carriers themselves.
Motorola
ALK Co Pilot
15 March, 2005
AOL And Wanadoo VoIP Services Overview
America Online has announced a consumer VoIP application, Wanadoo joins the party. The AOL offering will go head-to-head with traditional telephone companies, cable firms and a multitude of start-ups competing for the mainstream-bound VoIP market.
AOL CEO Jonathan Miller announced the decision at VON Spring 2005 trade show, “Within the next month, AOL will launch an Internet phone product, and we believe it will be a truly differentiated product. The initial launch targets specific markets and AOL users.”
Miller added, “Consumers just want something that is reliable and easy to use. Over 60 percent of consumers don’t know what VoIP is or don’t understand what it is, but it is possible they could be sold on it.”
“AOL aims to closely integrate the VoIP service with AOL’s popular email and IM service to create a sort of “communications dashboard. “It will become the centrepiece of the way consumers handle their communications online”, beamed Miller.
The company’s customers will continue to use their traditional phones, but will plug them into adapters connected to their broadband source rather than the socket provided by the telephone company.
The AOL product will also allow customers to turn IM sessions into phone calls when one of the parties enters the phrase “Can I Call?”
At this point the AOL product will “almost instantaneously” switch the communications session to a VOIP call if the user on the other end is “present.”
To provide the VoIP service, AOL are teaming up with Level 3 Communications who will provide the infrastructure needed to comply with federal 911 and number portability requirements and Sonus Networks who will be responsible for the softswitching.
The company is yet to divulge pricing details for its US service or timetable roll outs in international markets.
Wanadoo
Meanwhile, the stampede for ISPs to reinvent themselves as telcos continues with the French Telecom-owned Wanadoo announcing a new voice over broadband service last week.
For £4 a month, Wanadoo’s broadband customers can get a slice of the free phone call action to other UK landlines during evenings and weekends.
The ISP maintains that the cost of other calls made using its “Wanadoo Wireless and Talk” service are cheaper than BT, while calls to other “Wanadoo Wireless and Talk” punters will cost customers jack diddly squat.
The new service uses Wanadoo’s “Livebox” wireless box to route calls over broadband. Wanadoo’s broadband telephony service is designed as a secondary phone line service for now, but the ISP is hatching cunning plans for it to replace a household’s primary phone line.
Wanadoo UK’s chief exec, Eric Abensur, was on hand to give it the big one, boasting that his company was at the “cutting edge of this fantastic technology”.
He went on to say, “As broadband becomes a standard feature in UK homes – like turning on a tap it will become second nature to use it for all types of services – such as plugging a phone or two into your home network or watching TV, and we look forward to making further exciting announcements over the coming months.”
Wanadoo’s VoIP service launched in France last year, but was riddled with so many bugs that almost 300 Wanadoo staff in France went on strike before Christmas in protest at having to deal with extra-stroppy customers complaining that the service didn’t work.
However, a spokeswoman for Wanadoo UK said that call centre staff in the UK had been fully trained to support the product. “We’d only launch a product that we have confidence in,” she said.
AOL
Wanadoo
15 March, 2005
ATI IMAGEON: Full Multimedia Phone Chips
ATI Technologies have introduced two new media processors, IMAGEON 2282 and IMAGEON 2182, offering a shovel load of ‘groundbreaking’ multimedia capabilities for mobile phones.
The company boasts that their mighty new chip can turn the ‘umble mobile phone into a high-resolution megapixel digital camera, a high-fidelity digital audio player and a digital camcorder with streaming video and video conferencing capabilities (tea-making features extra).
The IMAGEON processors are fully compliant with the 3GPP mobile media standards and capable of delivering high-levels of performance and quality independent of the host processor.
Ravi Gananathan, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Handheld Products Group, ATI Technologies Inc invites us to stick on our “visioneer” glasses:
“Just imagine the freedom of taking the functionality of your camcorder, MP3 player and digital still camera with you in a package that only weighs a few ounces.”
“The new IMAGEON processors from ATI combine advanced audio and video processing capabilities to turn mobile phones into mobile entertainment centers.”
The audio engine in the chip is a flexible and programmable beast, enabling CD-quality, 3D ring-tones along with high-quality stereo recording and playback in industry standard formats, including AMR, AAC, MP3, Real Audio, WMA and MIDI.
Meanwhile, the video engine enables a mobile digital video recorder/player and a 3 mega-pixel digital still camera, with the IMAGEON 2282 providing video streaming and video conferencing functionality with picture-in-picture support.
“The best camera is the one you have on hand to capture a memorable moment. That applies to all media devices,” enthused Gananathan. “Digital camcorders are the next killer application that carriers and consumers are looking for on mobile phones. The next generation IMAGEON powered mobile phones will allow users to be ready when they need to be – to snap a picture, record a movie or listen to music with no compromise on quality.”
ATI is promising ‘unparalleled visual quality and display features’ for the new chips with its ‘ATI’s PowerPlay’ power management technology claimed to offer the lowest power consumption at all levels of functionality.
The higher performance IMAGEON 2282 is targeted at the high mid-tier mobile phone segment while the IMAGEON 2182 targets the mainstream, low mid-tier segment.
Phones powered by the new IMAGEON processors are expected to ship later this year from leading handset manufacturers.
ATI IMAGEON
15 March, 2005
C-Flash Smart Phone Memory Cards Launched by Pretec – CeBIT 05
Announced at the CeBIT tradeshow, Pretec have introduced a new memory card format for smartphones, called the C-Flash cards.
Created as a rival to SanDisk’s TransFlash format, these fellas are absolutely tiny, with diminutive dimensions of just 0.7 inches by 0.5 inches by 0.04 inches (17 mm by 12 mm by 1.0 mm) – making them about the third of the volume of RS-MMC or miniSD cards.
Pretec C-Flash Cards will have support for SD/MMC and USB, and Pretec will also offer various adapters for C-Flash such as SD, miniSD, MMC, RS-MMC and USB.
This format will also have support for MU-Card, a specification from China lead by Mu-Card Alliance. C-Flash has been adopted as the next small form factor version of MU-Card (called MU-Flash).
Coming with built-in smart card (SIM card) support, these Lilliputian cards require less space for their memory card slots than rival formats – so could contribute to even smaller phones.
The trouble is, with a card this small, we could easily see it disappearing behind the back of the sofa, under a beer mat or being swallowed by the family guinea pig. And does the world really need yet another Memory Card Format?
C-Flash has also been submitted to the MMC Association to be considered as the next small form factor standard of MMC.
Pretec is currently sampling 128 MB C-Flash cards to major mobile phone makers, and 1 GB cards are expected to be available by the second quarter of this year. Mobile phones with C-Flash slots will be in the market this summer.
Pretec
15 March, 2005
Jens Of Sweden Takes On Anti-MP3 Legislation
MP3-player supplier Jens of Sweden and Jonas Birgersson (founder of broadband supplier Bredband2) have reported the Anti-Piracy Agency to the Swedish Data Inspection Board (SDI).
The complaint to the SDI was precipitated by the Anti-Piracy Agency’s introduction of computer software enabling them to register thousands of Swedes on a daily basis (IP-numbers and surf behaviour on P2P-networks), register illegal behaviour and prompt the ISP’s to send warning letters or add them to the 136 complaint cases with the police.
Jens and Jonas have filed their complaint on the basis that it is illegal to archive information that purports to, and can be linked to, individual data (i.e. IP-numbers that can be linked to subscribers) and to try to link this to criminal actions.
Perhaps getting a little carried away, Jens and Bredband have labelled the authority’s “vigilante behaviour” to be “the equivalent of Stasi registration”.
The accusers see the current “witch-hunt” and the severe breach of personal integrity as a serious problem, which threatens the growth of digital media in the long run.
Bredband2 has already received queries from the police based on the agency’s registrations.
“As society becomes ever-more digitised and everyday activities are increasingly being pursued over the Internet, individuals need strong integrity protection,” says Jonas Birgersson, CEO of Bredband2.
“We take our lead from the serious attitude of the former national telephone company, Televerket, regarding ‘tele-confidentiality’.
One of the cornerstones of a functioning society is faith in authorities and businesses, with the principles of transparency for authorities and integrity for individuals.
Is it right for a lobby organisation to undermine this by hunting and registering thousands of citizens every day – which they freely admit in their press releases?
Besides, we think that terrorizing and persecuting the users is the wrong method. Instead, we should popularise and support all the great Swedish companies that develop unique digital services. Stop the witch-hunt and support the legal alternatives.”
Jens Nylander, founder and CEO of Sweden’s largest supplier of digital media players, Jens of Sweden was equally outraged:
“We have every opportunity for explosive growth, cheaper products and new jobs in the digital media, but that won’t happen until a handful of giant companies stops trying to tie down consumers to their own products and prices with heavy-handed methods.
The Anti-Piracy Agency’s method of spying on, secretly registering and threatening people may have been encouraged in the former East Germany, but must be banned in modern Sweden.”
In Sweden, the Data Inspection Board is responsible for enforcing the Personal Data Act of 1998, which heavily restricts the right of individual players to register citizens without their express consent.
Jens Nylander and Jonas Birgersson have contacted the Data Inspection Board, which encouraged them to register a formal complaint.
The Swedish police have prosecuted 136 people for illegal file sharing after complaints from the AP-agency, and the agency has vowed to increase the number.
The complaint will be turned in within a week.
Jens of Sweden
Swedish Data Inspection Board
Bredband2
14 March, 2005
ROB-1: Bluetooth Controlled Remote Camera From Sony Ericsson – CeBIT 05
Straight out of the Billy Bonkers School of Barking Inventions, Sony Ericsson’s new Bluetooth controlled camera, ROB-1, lets users steer a wheeled camera around using the joystick or keypad on a mobile phone.
The yo-yo shaped device can rove around for a distance of up to 50 meters from the user, sending back a streaming video to the phone’s display.
Images can then be captured on the phone in the usual manner.
Eleven centimetres in diameter, the roaming ROB-1 can move forwards, backwards, look around corners, pivot on the spot or tilt the camera 70 degrees upwards and 20 degrees downwards.
The device’s three wheels and spherical shape make it an agile and flexible fella, with clever camera technology offering a wide field of vision.
The ROB-1 also features an ultra bright light on the front allowing shots to be taken in dark spaces.
The perambulating picture-taker comes with ample onboard memory, capable of storing lots of photos. These can then be uploaded to the user’s phone or transferred to a PC via the supplied USB cable.
Our darkly twisted minds can’t stop coming up with so many dodgy, dangerous and downright illegal uses for this sneaky, swivelling, straying camera that we’d best let Ulf Persson, Corporate Vice President and Head of Accessories for Sony Ericsson, give us the squeaky clean version:
“This is a great gadget for people who really like testing the latest technology first hand and having fun with new applications. Just like the Sony Ericsson Bluetooth Car which appealed to a wide range of gadget fans, we believe that ROB-1 will become the ‘must have’ Bluetooth gadget to show off to friends and family!!
The Bluetooth Motion Cam ROB-1 will be available during Q3 2005.
Sony Ericsson
14 March, 2005
MTV Unveils Interactive TV Portal – CeBIT 05
MTV in Germany has been demonstrating an interactive TV portal that combines satellite and broadband services.
The interactive portal will shunt a veritable cornucopia of personalisation and revenue-boosting options to customers, including games, news and the latest pop-tastic charts.
A deal with T-Online will also let annoying teenagers download the latest cray-zee ringtones for their mobiles, with the option to download extra goodies like wallpapers and song downloads from the comfort of your armchair.
There are also plans afoot to provide interactive voting and advertising, as well as offering access to video-on-demand archives.
Content and links to the interactive television services will be transmitted via satellite, while a broadband connection will be used to deliver specific items requested by the user (viewers will need an MHP compatible satellite receiver with broadband access to take advantage of the service).
The service was showcased at the CeBIT trade show in Hannover and MTV intends to introduce the service as soon as suitable receivers are available in retailers.
“Being the first to offer this interactive TV technology, MTV has once again confirmed its leading role in the field,” beamed Catherine Mühlemann of MTV.
MTV is using Alticast for the technical implementation and broadcast of the interactive service.
The company will be using Nionex´s HTML-based pontegra platform, which acts as a browser supporting a fully compliant subset of DVB-HTML, OCAP 2.0 and ACAP-X.
Pontegra’s open-ended concept makes it suitable for all kinds of iTV services, with the company claiming it to be the “iTV platform par excellence for all kinds of iTV services as EPGs, iTV-portals, T-commerce, voting and polls, interactive TV shows and commercials, community functions such as email and chat, etc.”
MTV in Germany
Nionex pontegra platform
14 March, 2005
Skype 1m SkypeOut. Voice Mail and SkypeIn Coming
Skype is proudly trumpeting the fact that more than 1,000,000 users have subscribed to SkypeOut, their premium service offering global calling to PSTN numbers for local rates.
This makes Skype the 1000lb gorilla of the VOIP-category product, worldwide.
“We’re thrilled about Skype’s growth and credit support from users who have told their friends and family about the cost and quality gains they’ve found with Skype,” cooed CEO and co-founder Niklas Zennström, speaking from the CeBIT tradeshow in Hanover, Germany.
“Our one million SkypeOut users prove that savvy consumers will pay for value – and we will continue to delight users by delivering the software and services they seek to realize the potential of modern communications.”
Describing themselves as the ‘fastest-growing global communications tool in history’, Skype have got a shedload of facts to back up their claims: the company now boasts more than 29 million registered users and they’re adding more than 155,000 new users per day.
At most times, 2 million people are simultaneously using Skype to connect with friends, family members and colleagues and ‘Skypers’ have now talked for approx six billion minutes.
The company intend to hang on to their numero uno position with soon-to-be-announced new premium offerings and enhancements to the basic free service.
Hotly anticipated is Skype’s new voice messaging service which is currently in beta trial with pundits expecting an April roll out.
New information on Skype’s website has the pricing details:
“The price for Voicemail is 5 Euro for a 3 month subscription or 15 Euro for a 12 month subscription. If your billing address is in the EU, you will be charged 15% VAT when you purchase a Voicemail subscription. Therefore the prices will be €5.75 (US$6.70/£4) for 3 months and €17.25 (US$20/£12) for 12 months. However, a Voicemail subscription comes free with purchase of a SkypeIn number!”
There’s also a new section in the Skype knowledge base describing SkypeIn, the forthcoming additional pay-for service where you can get a phone number and people can call you (similar in concept to what rival Telcos offer).
Skype have also stated their commitment to expanding platforms beyond the Mac, Linux, Windows and Pocket PC platforms currently available, although there’s been no indication of a Palm release (a source of much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Palm community).
Skype
11 March, 2005
Is 3G Content Delivering? – Pt 2
Unlike the creative whirlwind that accompanied the dot.com explosion, innovation seems to be a lot slower in the 3G content market.
Limited by strict marketing and corporate product strategies, 3G owners haven’t exactly had a lot to shout about when it comes to mobile content.
Although watching tiny video clips of goalmouth action has a certain appeal (particularly when it’s Cardiff City doing the scoring), all of the networks seem to be offering much the same collection of services.
Predictably, there’s already been many lucrative tie-ins with popular TV shows.
Fans of the teen soap Hollyoaks were offered daily MMS picture slide exclusive stories and Celebrity Big Brother fans could download “behind the scenes” shots, updates and summaries of the show.
ITN news got in on the act too, supplementing their mobile news updates with “today in history” style clips trawled from their vast video archives.
Perhaps Vodaphone’s 60-second “mobisodes”, based on the hugely successful ’24’ series was one of the more successful TV offerings on 3G, with scenes written and shot exclusively for 3G.
All twenty-four instalments of ’24: Conspiracy’ ran for sixty seconds with a cliff-hanger ending leading directly into the next instalment, thus keeping consumer’s fingers hovering over the ‘download video’ key.
“Joel Surnow, Bob Cochran, Howard Gordon, Kiefer Sutherland and their entire creative team have built ’24’ into one of the world’s leading television brands. It’s incumbent upon us at the studio to continually develop new initiatives to service, enhance and extend that brand,” commented Twentieth Century Fox Television President Gary Newman.
“The ’24’ mobile series and the licensing and marketing partnership with world wireless leader Vodafone are truly unprecedented in our business, as they capitalize on the absolute latest in technological innovation and represent a whole new way to reach our fans and promote the original television series.”
So far, almost all the 3G content has been linked to a TV show or brand and mobile consumers seem to value the exclusivity of such content.
While this kind of cross-platform repurposing of content appeals to opportunistic TV stations looking for additional revenues, for the mobile platform to flourish as a medium in its own right, it needs content that exists in its own right.
We’ll take a look at what kind of ideas are bubbling up in part 3.
Hollyoaks Interactive
Fox 24
11 March, 2005

Mike Slocombe

Wanadoo