Archives For TiVo

kiva.jpgWho am I to overlook a TiVo-related human interest story? This week’s Entrepreneur column in Business Week profiles Kiva.org, a peer-to-peer microlending service, co-founded by TiVo alum Matt Flannery.

What the article doesn’t mention is that at least one other former TiVo employee is involved in Kiva and has relocated to Africa. HME maestro Carl Haynes of apps.tv, Word Smith, and WordGrid fame is on the ground in Uganda. You can keep up with his experiences at Carl’s Big Adventure.

Business Week says: Kiva got started as an experiment after Stanford Business School students Matt and Jessica Flannery traveled to East Africa to review projects for the microlender Village Enterprise Fund. Matt Flannery knew of web sites such as Prosper.com and Zopa.com let folks in the U.S. and Europe extend personal loans to one another. Why not globalize it? Within a year the couple got the site up and running. Matt quit his day job as an application developer at TiVo Inc. and recruited former PayPal executive Premal Shah to help run it. Kiva, which is Swahili for ‘agreement’ or ‘unity,’ is harnessing the power of social networking to support microenterprise in the developing world.

(Thanks to Cassidy Napoli for his research assistance!)

Never enough time…

  • Multistream CableCARDs (CC 1.0+ aka M-Card) expected soon. (HD Beat)
  • Better Business Bureau rates TiVo as “unsatisfactory.” (TV Predictions)
  • Samsung’s Blu-ray player comes factory-misconfigured. (Engadget)
  • NBC new season preview DVD available to Netflix subscribers. (Hacking Netflix)
  • UPnP specs updated. (eHomeUpgrade)
tivo-cablecard2.jpg

TiVo has notified both the FCC and cable operators that CableCARD compliant HD Series3 units are currently being tested and should be released to retail… soon!

Letter says: The TiVo Series3 HD DVR product supports up to two CableCARD decoders. This product acts as two independent single stream UDCP CableCARD hosts within one set top box. It can also be configured to operate as a single CableCARD device.

This product is currently being tested by a small number of consumers in cable markets across the country, and will be generally available in retail stores soon. Thus, we wanted to ensure that you are aware of this product in time to make any necessary preparations to support customers who request two CableCARD decoders for their TiVo Series3 HD DVR.

Related stories:

Never enough time…

  • TiVo now selling at Radio Shack. (Davis Freeberg)
  • Echostar invests in CinemaNow. (HDBeat)
  • Check out PVR-oriented podcast. (TechLore)
  • Cingular launches HBO series for cellphones. (Reuters)
  • UPnP AV network specs updated. (eHomeUpgrade)

tivo-emmy.jpgAnyone live near LA? In two weeks the American Film Institute (AFI) is hosting a pretty interesting digital media gathering. Some of the compelling sponsors include presenter Starz (aka Vongo) and exhibitor Brightcove (a TiVo partner). More importantly TiVo and DTV have been nominated for Interactive/Enhanced Television Programming Emmys and the winners will be announced here. The event does cost $150, but access to the cocktail reception is included.

Reuters says: “This is monumental — that any TV distribution over broadband will now be eligible across all categories for the Primetime Emmys,” said Hurst, explaining that content created exclusively for the broadband platform now can compete against network content. Finalists in the category of enhanced or interactive programming include AOL Music On Demand, from AOL/Time Warner Cable/Zetools; CNN Enhanced, CNN; DirecTV Interactive Sports, DirecTV; and TiVo Service, TiVo.

I don’t believe any of my blogging buddies will be attending, so if anyone can provide photos and commentary we’d all very much appreciate it!