The Mercury News is reporting that on January 3rd, Lycos filed a patent lawsuit against TiVo, Netflix and Blockbuster over their use of recommendation technology. The article doesn’t give the exact patents that are alleged to be violated, but a quick scan of Lycos’ patent filings shows patents 6775664 and 6308175 as the most likely candidates.

Patent 6775664 was originally filed on Oct. 22, 2001 and describes a search method that uses a user feedback system to provide “collaborative feedback data for integration with content profile data in the operation of the collaborative/content-based filter.”

Patent 6308175 was filed on Nov. 19th, 1998 and according to the patent, it covers technology whose “filter system compares received informons to the individual user’s query profile data, combined with collaborative data, and ranks, in order of value, informons found to be relevant. The system maintains the ranked informons in a stored list from which the individual user can select any listed informon for consideration.”

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In a relationship announced nearly two years ago, the Comcast TiVo is just about here and on public display at CES. (Rumor has it, they showed back-room demos for VIPs at the 2006 CES.) There were at least three Motorola 6412 units running TiVo software in the booth. Not only did I poke around on them, I had the chance to sit down privately with David Sanford, VP of Product Management in the Service Provider group — one of the guys behind this custom build. In addition to the obvious functionality questions, I was particularly interested in learning of the deployment mechanics and the technologies in play.

Deployment

The Comcast-Moto-TiVo is already in trials, and deployment is slated to begin this Spring. The roll-out will be managed by Comcast — they set the schedule within their various markets. (As in: not all regions are likely to get the TiVo option simultaneously.) While there are no details on monthly pricing yet (which I assume could vary by market), David tells me Comcast really wants to get this product out there and is planning to charge only a “modest fee.” (I’ll take a stab and guess a $5 - $10 increase over current DVR rental fees would cover licensing and allow Comcast to make a few bucks without sticker shocking customers.)

So here’s how it works… You let Comcast know you want to upgrade your DVR to TiVo, they flip a switch, and your current Motorola box (6412 or 3412) downloads the software. Reboot, and voilà you have TiVo — with prior settings and recordings preserved and no truck roll required. Your current crappy Comcast remote will control the TiVo software, but as part of the upgrade Comcast will mail you a custom Comcast TiVo remote (with new OnDemand, A, B, C, and D buttons).

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Call me a generous soul, but I could not be more impressed with ThinkGeek’s handling of a difficult vendor situation.

As I’ve written before, I like the eStarling WiFi photo frame, but plenty of people have had reason to complain. The biggest issue is the fact that the power adapter only allows users to keep the frame within a few feet of a wireless router. eStarling was supposed to ship new adapters, but ThinkGeek has just emailed to say they found only marginal improvement in the replacements. Instead, ThinkGeek has decided to ship replacement WiFi adapters in 4-6 weeks. The new adapters should not only create a range of up to 60 feet, but they’re apparently less obtrusive than the original ones, which stick up rather annoyingly from the top of the frame.

Why am I impressed with ThinkGeek? The company was honest and up-front about the issues with the eStarling frame, and even managed to convey apologies without completely throwing eStarling under the bus.

…PF Digital, the manufacturer of the eStarling, is committed to the product and they are rolling out a series of firmware updates to the eStarling with bug fixes and improved features…

In addition, ThinkGeek is offering a full refund to anyone who doesn’t want to wait the 4-6 weeks, and a $25 coupon to all eStarling-frame owners for any future purchase at ThinkGeek.

Now that’s customer service.

• Getting My Game On At BlogHaus
• The Netgear Booth Tour: Center Stage
• Embedded With Netgear @ CES

Notes: It doesn’t look like the last two made it online yesterday. Things are frenetic at CES, but I’m hopeful they’ll get them posted at some point. Speaking of Netgear, they were the most gracious of hosts and took excellent care of me! They also put on a heck of a show in Vegas.

I’m back on the east coast, but my extended laptop battery seems to have given up the ghost (for good) at the LAS airport… so I didn’t get any blogging done on the plane. I do have more coverage to provide (as soon as I find my notes) and a wrap-up — stick around.

No love for Comcast from the FCC. The regulatory agency has decided not to grant Comcast’s request for a waiver to continue offering a low-cost, non-CableCARD set-top past the July 1st 2007 deadline. Instead, Comcast must ship only CableCARD-compliant set-tops starting in the second half of the year.

I had the pleasure this week of listening in on a CES panel that included Comcast’s VP of digital development, James Henderson. When CableCARD came up, there was some distinct grumbling from Mr. Henderson, who nonetheless attempted to be diplomatic. While Mr. Henderson agreed that separable security is good for innovation in the long run (indeed cable companies wanted this once upon a time), in the short term he believes it will hamper what cable can introduce into the home.

No word yet on Verizon’s request for a waiver.

There’s a good article on the FCC ruling in xchange online. However, the reporter there argues that cable companies are protesting CableCARD because they stand to lose set-top leasing revenues if consumers buy CableCARD devices at retail. I think the bigger issue at the moment is the fact that operators have to spend more to put CableCARD-compliant set-tops in consumer homes.

Reports today indicate Canon will buy out Toshiba’s stake in their joint SED flat panel display business. The hope is that this will clear the way in a patent dispute with Nano-Proprietary, who asserts their technology is licensed solely to Canon. The ongoing tiff prevented SED sets from making an appearance at CES this week.

The Snappy/Monsoon team has just released HAVA Gold, their latest placeshifting device. It has the same basic functionality and software of their higher priced line of placeshifters. The input/output lineup is slightly different, such as an additional audio input… So you can support composite and SVideo sources simultaneously, for example. The Gold box lacks WiFi and an internal tuner. It comes in black (compared the the original’s silver plastic) and is about 50% smaller.

With a list price of $129 (available now, online only), and $70 cheaper than their mainstream Ethernet box it looks like a good value. Which makes me wonder why they’d risk cannibalizing their own sales. They’ve told me they want to get this model into wholesale clubs, so I can only assume they haven’t been able to work a deal at this point.

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