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TiVo Buys Super Secret Strangeberry
Raindeer writes "According to SEC-filings Tivo has bought a start up of Marimba-founder and Java-designer Arthur van Hoff. The name of the startup is Strangeberry Just because of their job-titles they must be building something cool Chief Hackberry, Chief Wiseberry, Chief Smartberry. The SEC-Filings show that it has something to do with delivering broadbandservices to televission. A Dutch web-log claims to have a picture of what they are building. Anybody got anymore ideas on what this could be?"
Inquiring minds want to know.
An oscillation overthruster
Best Slashdot Co
Sound like a bunch of dingleberries to me.
That thing you are looking at is a FAKE, not a real red flower. It is kind of hard to tell, mainly because there is so much unidentified techno-garbage in the foreground.
-Charlie
Kastjes onder de radar
In een voormalige winkel in Palo Alto zit een start up waarvan de oprichters op een lauwe dinsdagmiddag naar Fry's Electronics zijn gereden om componenten te kopen waaruit ze deze vreemde kastjes hebben gebouwd. Ik denk dat binnen twee jaar iedereen met een DSL- of kabelaansluiting zo'n kastje in huis heeft. Meer mag ik er van de oprichters niet over zeggen, want die hebben de illusie dat ik er veel van snap en dus veel kan verklappen, een tragisch misverstand. Ze zijn heel bedreven in het 'onder de radar' blijven, maar intussen lopen bedrijven als Apple en Google de deur bij ze plat. Ik zie Philips of Shell niet zo snel audientie vragen bij een paar nerds uit Delft. Helaas.
English translation
-------------------
Boxes below radar
In a former shop in Palo Alto there's a startup whose founders rode to Fry's Electronics on a tuesday afternoon to buy some components to build these weird cases. I think that within two years, everyone with DSL or Cable will have one in their home. I can't say more from the founders, because they think I understand it (a grave misunderstanding) and can this tell you guys about it. They are very skilled in staying 'below radar' but in the meantime, companies such as Apple and Google are knocking at their door. I can't see Philips or Shell asking for an audience with two nerds from Delft. Pity.
look at archive.org (way back machine) at what they used to be before becoming vaporware :) click here
sorry officer, left my sig in my other computer.
...and apparently TiVo shouldn't company shop like that either. ;)
libertarianswag.com
And it only has 1 wheel! It will revolutionize the... the... the... well it will revolutionize something!
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
Damn, I hate it when the caffeine in my morning coffee hits all at once and I have these hallucinations flashing back to the '90's.
"Chief Smartberry"? - "They must be building something cool, because of their job titles"?
I thought the days of the dot.bomb were OVER!
Seriously - does this look like VC-bait to anybody else? I mean, I love my DirecTivo, but good hardware, good software and a good service do NOT equal good management decisions!
Like so many other things in this world, I will wait and see if anything meaningful comes out of this. Until then, I shall exercise a healthy skepticism on this matter.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I'm working on a project that will use broadband services to deliver digital cable TV and internet services. In fact, I'm trying to wrap my head around the TS packet structure for the transform filter.
I have been pwned because my
The name of the startup is Strangeberry Just because of their job-titles they must be building something cool Chief Hackberry, Chief Wiseberry, Chief Smartberry. [...] Anybody got anymore ideas on what this could be?
The makings of another fucked company?
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Wasn't the strangeberry what all the Smurfs were after? I think that's what got them all drunk and lusting after Smurfette.
___ Shout Central - Crushes your nuts!
Looking at the picture, it looks like they make:
- Cable Modems
- Router/Hubs
- Breakout Audio/Video Box
- Those artificial flowers that dance when they hear noises
or some combination thereof.
--Stephen
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
I heard it is a device to zap your mother-in-law to the other end of the universe.
Oh, and it runs on Borg Technology, I've been told !
Sounds to me like they've invented a breakfast cereal.
Sounds to me like they were making breakfast cereals...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Strangeberry is... PEOPLE!!!
Maybe this is some kind of device which should be connected to regular TV device and other equipment, expanding its features with WiFi and broadcast content. :-)
Just a thought...
Blame me flame me.
Sinisa
From what I can gather from Google, it seems one of their projects was a set of Java libraries designed to work with Apple's Rendezvous service. Here is a link: http://chrisheller.org/blog/archives/000048.html
But, I think this was only a side project... since it seems that development is now moved to Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/jmdns/
------- "One of the joys of travel is visiting new towns and meeting new people." -- G. KHAN
It looks like a wireless reciever with something that may hook directly into your home ethernet, pulling media off of your home computers or the net. Maybe a media-centric version of WebTV?
There's lots of people working on these devices, maybe this company has created a nice interface for it? Maybe Tivo wants to purchase a company who has designed a device like this so that you can watch a tivo's playback on another TV without having to have an extra Tivo in the other room?
Hopefully this will be a killer app that will finally cause them to get bought out by a company with more clout, and get the Tivo system liscensed into more devices, making it cheaper and more affordable for me to get multiple tivo's :)
It looks like a mini-pc with a built in TV tuner to me..
Rus
CPanel + Root from $35/mo - 10% off with discount code SLASHDOT
I used to work for a company whose aim was to build interactive television tools. Apart from the standard webmail/chat/TV guide apps, one really cool feature would have been to add information to TV shows.
Let's say you're watching some show, and see some really nice toy, or outfit, or you're in front of your favorite sports/team match, and want to have some player' stats, you click on the item/player and some web page with the desired info is shown to you
Information on demand for the user and a not so obstrusive yet effective ads/marketing scheme for the companies. this could have become the future of television, as more and more people are looking for real interactivity, and coupling TV for content and the web as a large databank would really reconcile me with TV.
At least that was the idea... What makes me think of it is the home network/broadband/experience words in the announcement.
you can make your own cool recorder with a mini-ITX motherboard, a harddisk and a tv card. plus you don't need to pay a subscription. you can even put it in a teddybear for that cute and cuddly look.
Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government." - Lenny Bruce
Just because of their job-titles they must be building something cool Chief Hackberry, Chief Wiseberry, Chief Smartberry
....
...
...
...
...
JERRY: They sell them by the side of the road. Blueberry, Blackberry
GEORGE: Blackberry, Boysenberry
JERRY: Boysenberry, Huckleberry
GEORGE: Huckleberry, Raspberry...
JERRY: Raspberry, Strawberry
GEORGE: Strawberry, Cranberry
JERRY: Peach.
Free XBox, PS2
Hell, I never figured out what Marimba did, despite being related (by marriage) to one of their VPs. Classic bullshit artism, I'm guessing....
you make it look like the only thing Dutchies do, is smoke pot all day
well... we do, how else do you expect us to invent something called 'strangeberry'
Indeed. A new low.
Oh well, back to downloading pr0n.
I could care less, but not without a lobotomy
if John Smallberries works there.
interesting, Strangeberry created a java implementation of zeroconf, perhaps Tivo are looking at implementing a zeroconf network to share downloaded data with other machines on the network?
Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory!
-redptam-
They probably run around the office all day, screaming that the aliens are coming, and barricade themselves inside the washrooms :)
How else do you expect some tech startups hooked on wacky tobbacky to behave?
One of the 187.
Did anyone else read that as STRANGLEberry? I gotta cut down on the soymilk enemas...
The name of the startup is Strangeberry Just because of their job-titles they must be building something cool Chief Hackberry, Chief Wiseberry, Chief Smartberry
"With a name like Smuckers, it's got to be good".
Why does logic fly out the window whenever some kind of berry or other small fruit is involved?
Jobs
Join a world class team. Build potent software. Strangeberry Inc. is looking for smart, independent people who thrive at startups. Here are some of our openings:
GRAPHIC / USER INTERFACE DESIGNER
Graphic designer with experience building interface for consumer digital media applications. Must be creative and a good communicator. Qualified candidates have 3-4 years experience with interactive design and typographic skills. Knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator required. DVD / Game UI experience a plus.
APPLICATION ENGINEER
Developer with experience creating user interfaces. Must be comfortable with C/C++, Java, Windows and Unix. No VB, please. Qualified candidates have 4-5 years experience building applications.
KERNEL ENGINEER
Linux kernel developer with experience writing device drivers under x86. Qualified candidates have 2-3 years experience working on the kernel. Knowledge of framebuffer internals a plus. Codec experience smiled upon.
My guess, the whole business is about connecting the television to Intranet-based multimedia. What iTunes is to MP3, this system could become for movies, etc. I expect this to both schedule and maintain downloads of multimedia material, in particular from Intranet-based video channels. Mind you that Quicktime already partly implements video channels, so the step to paid video channels, and hooking them up to your television is not so far away. Given illegal copying of movies, the movie business is very much following the same fate as the music business. Pushed some further: DSL router to capture video data, stream it to a detachable, iPOD like video viewer. But then please: also put PDA and cell-phone features into it: away with cable salad and connector mess.
The best I've squeezed out of the online translators are these:Version #1: Near the beursgang with Mary scooter Dutch oppertechneut Arthur with Hoff ( center) once more: he and one's four colleagues gone they ultrageheime start-up Strangeberry, lodged within one store within Palo Alto, upon Tivo. The transaction vond yard worn 12 January j.l. solely Tivo bracht the novelty passport yesterday outward. Established in April 2002 wax Strangeberry yet 'pre revenues, like who thus pretty named towards perpetrate who yet act they technology within put forth. The hermit works upon one employment within the field with the station below. After With Hoff and Jonathan Payne yet sooner work together towards Sun and Mary, wax yonder between they one volume sping up what by the relative province more than projecting wax. Yet was a failure the sometimes inconvenient until pretty the activities with Strangeberry not with the daken within squeal. With Hoff is rightly the spite with the HIO within Enschede and the university with Strathclyde. Solely unfortunately who he one's succession achieves within Silicon Valley and one's knowledge and experience not within The Netherlands pitcher transmit.
Version #2: After the floatation of Marimba Dutch oppertechneut score Arthur van Hoff (in the middle of) again: hij en zijn vier collega's verkochten hun ultrageheime start-up Strangeberry, housed in a winkeltje in Palo alto, to Tivo. The operation took place on 12 January j.l. but Tivo brought the news just yesterday to. Opgericht in april 2002 was Strangeberry nog 'pre revenue', such as that this way nicely is called at companies which still busy its their technology to develop. The lords work for an application in the field of the posting below. Nadat Van Hoff en Jonathan Payne al eerder samenwerkten bij Sun en Marimba, between them a link as a result of which mutual environment more than, had arisen sticking out were. Already it fell sometimes difficult for friends shout the activities of Strangeberry of the roofs. Van Hoff is rightly proud of the HIO in enschede and the university of Strathclyde. Alleen jammer dat hij zijn successen behaalt in Silicon Valley en zijn kennis en ervaring niet in Nederland kan overdragen.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It's always good to get a second translation for comparison. Here's mine, courtesy the translation software that comes with Apple's Sherlock:
Best I can tell, these oprichters are building some kind of kastjes.
I'm going to sign up as a beta tester -- I don't care how "strange" they are!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
A Television Local Area Network, so you can view Tivo'd shows/movies anywhere in the house without having to have multiple Tivo machines (or cable boxes). About time someone recognised that TV is nothing but push media that can go across a network just like anything else.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves
Looks vaguely to me like they're trying to put a Blackberry in your TV set. That's a logical thing for the TiVo folks to go after, if so. When I'm in the living room watching TV, it might be nice to be able to check my mail without firing up the laptop, as long as it doesn't involve any hardware or service that I wasn't going to have already (just got a TiVo).
Actually a company with a minimal number of employees, buying what is now cheap office space, and keeping themselves under the radar sounds pretty coherent to me. It's the start-ups that have hundreds of employees with millions of VC and they go blow it on stupid unessentials that you should worry about. Frankly, Dean Kamen couldn't keep his mouth shut. He was constantly bragging about "it". Of course, it all turned out to be a bunch of garbage.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
He will naturally supervise the merger process of the two companies.
First, the image is much larger than in the page.
Anyway... here's my thoughts.
The far left has RCA, SVIDEO, and Ethnernet. Maybe some way to output data over a network to RCA-based stereo systems, something like a PRISMIQ.
The middle device looks to be the same, except it has DV and optical in addition to RCA and SVIDEO. It could be another PRISMIQ-esque device, or it could also be something designed to go the other way too.
We can't see the back of the last unit, but I'm gonna guess it's something w/ wireless similar to the first two.
...and that's all there is to it.
Apple's Safari browser was one of the first to make use of the Rendezvous technology and, from what I gather, the most interesting thing it does is to enable local servers transparently (e.g. you can bookmark them, and you can make any computer around serve files). Open source browser Camino is also taking this route.
Tivo has expressed what Rendevous has to do with their plans:
This is just a collection of web-based info gotten through google. I may be seeing it all wrong, but the picture seems to make some sense to me. They are acquiring a company that brings something which Tivo intends to be a core offering of their system.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Hmm.. a rather stale comment and a username/sig thats just an advertisement.
Is this the new form of spam?
I hated it better the first time when it was called WebTV.
Speak truth to power.
Linkies.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Seems pretty straight forward to me !!!
On January 12, 2004 we acquired Strangeberry Inc., a small Palo Alto based technology company specializing in using home network and broadband technologies to create new entertainment experiences on television. Strangeberry has created technology, based on industry standards and including a collection of protocols and tools, designed to enable the development of new broadband-based content delivery services. In exchange for all of the issued and outstanding capital stock of Strangeberry, we issued shares of TiVo common stock to the stockholders of Strangeberry in a private placement. We have agreed to file a registration statement on Form S-3 to cover the resale of these shares by the Strangeberry stockholders.
DVR vendor/service provider, TiVo, generated a fair amount of news at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas:
http://milkshake.dexy.org
-h-
Besides killing elm trees and sawing doors in half? AUTBTD
A sound mind, a healthy body. . . pick one
I geloof dat I like those translators you have gebruikt. Grote chance that no hond er one reet van understands. :-)
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
LINK: http://www.frackers.com/2004/01/24/000098.html
Translation Dutch->English
Tivo buys Strangeberry
Extreme-techie Arthur van Hoff scores again after his stock-exchange launch of Marimba:
He and his four collegues sold their top secret start-up Strangeberry, housed in a small shop in Palo Alto to Tivo.
The transaction took place on the 12. of January
but TIVO only disclosed that yesterday.
Founded in April 2002, Strangeberry still was "pre-revenue", as companies who are still developping their technologies are called.
The gentlemen are working on an application of the technology best described with this posting.(posting points to a story of Haupage showing on CES a box to play multimedia on a TV from your local ethernet/internet)
Van Hoff and Jonathan Payne already worked together for SUN and Marimba. They work well together.
It was difficult not to tell anything about Strangeberry to their friends.
Van Hoff is, justly, the pride of the Technical IT college in Enschede and the university of Strathclyde.
It, however, is a pity he'll make his accomplischments in Silicon Valley and the Netherlands won't benefit from his knowledge and skills.
Hey!! I know those guys!! At least I met two of those three back when they worked at Marimba, the Java based software/content distribution tool (good design behind the product, were it not for the adherence to a non-standard GUI (Bongo), even after Swing finally came out). And before that, worked at Sun developing much of the original Java APIs. If you look through the Java sources, you can still find several references to @author Arthur van Hoff.
Anm
...Kramerica Industries!
I think it's a video on demand system where requests for programs are passed over the internet, but the actual programs are broadcast using the standard TV broadcasting network (Mpeg encoded - obviously.) That way, several thousand people can request a new film, but it only needs to be broadcast once. Less popular programs will be broadcast more slowly, or they may be sent over broadband. Tivo are needed for the recording / storing / replaying software.
Training monkeys for world domination since 1439
I'll bet it's some sort of IPTV STB.
The picture on the page is much larger than you actually see on the page. Just insert the picture url into your browser for a much larger view (http://apollo.lunarpages.com/~fracke2/DCP_1976.JP G)
You know how stressed the suprnova-trackers are already. This is not helpful at all. ;>
I know the media pigopolists always get panicky when someone mentions "TV" and "broadband" in the same sentence when speaking about a concept for a new product.
Looks like the editor missed a couple of typo's in the sentence. Televission should be television and Broadbandservices should be broadband services.
This sig was generated by a barrel of trained kittens for SeXy_Red (550409).
They're building a device that will revolutionize personal transportation by letting you ride around major cities standing on a lawnmower!
Or was that the LAST mysterious project?
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Strangeberry released a java version of Rendezvous/Zeroconf. It actually works. The code is now open at sourceforge. I've used the code and the discovery works well, even under windows.
Having something like Rendezvous/Zeroconf working for Tivo is key to making it even simpler to intergrate a Tivo into a home network.
Simpler to use = deeper consumer penetration
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
Where, exactly, in the GPL?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The object on the right in their picture looks a lot like a Linksys WRV54G Wireless G VPN Broadband Router. Linksys has a similar product for 802.11b (WMA11B). I can't imagine that they would mod the router so that leaves the other two objects as the candidates.
Paraphrasing from the Linksys site:
- 802.11g Wireless Access Point
- 4-port full-duplex 10/100 Switch
- Router
- DHCP Server
- SPI firewall
- VPN Support
TiVO Buys Super Secret Strangleberry!
TiVo recently announced the acquisition of Strangleberry, a new startup producing super-secret equipment with which TiVo plans to take over the world.
A spokesperson for TiVo attempted to comment, but was only able to make odd coughing and gagging noises.
How bizarre!
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
StrangeBerry is involved in a lot of networking projects, including UPnP and Java Port of ZeroConf.
Obviously this is going to allow for some level of interaction between your TiVo and equipment on your LAN, be it your router, your PC and/or your Mac. This could lead to an interface betweeen your TiVo and iTunes using Java. Maybe it is about pulling down content over broadband to your TiVo, though DRM concerns immediately come to mind. Maybe it is both.
Only time will tell.
http://apollo.lunarpages.com/~fracke2/DCP_1976.JPG
Here's the link to the best image yet of this super secret project:
Click Here
Their office is literally a block away from mine and their name made me quite curious. Their blinds are typically closed, there are circuit boards lying around in the windows (for kicks I presume, and certainly not related to what they do) and people work a large number of hours there.
... this time it was more a snide 'no'. They were definitely tight lipped.
I can say they do seem to be more a software shop from when I have seen inside (odd occasion with the blinds up). Seems they are probably prototyping on pretty standard equipment.
One day I saw someone coming out and decide to start up a friendly chat. I asked if they could say anything about what they did. Got a rather quick 'no'. I then asked, what about the sector
The art's pretty good, too. Looks like classic Stan and Jack stuff.
The nature of the secret device will be revealed next iss.
-FL
tx for the translation
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Hold on a bit....I'm working on decoding the image to try and lift the FCC ID off the back of unit # 2.
The pixelation enhancing technology is going to take some time to run though, I would guess that it will be done by the end of the day.
I know that some of you guys will be working against me to slow the process down, or to somehow insert bad data into the image so that I come up with the wrong answer. Don't even try it, as I'm onto your plan and have covered every concievable exploit!
I have a strange feeling I've seen this before, maybe it's a scooter?!?
"as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (One man's humorous is another mans flamebait)
These devices appear to be compact, next-generation DVR/cable modems. Note the USB and FireWire ports on the back, and the VCR-type controls along the top.
. . .called "Dingleberry"?
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
What about tvPOD?
Here's the original one on the site:G G
http://apollo.lunarpages.com/~fracke2/DCP_1976.JP
And with a little bit of URL tweaking, the better pic:
http://apollo.lunarpages.com/~fracke2/DCP_1975.JP
Karma: \Kar"ma\, n. [Skr.] (Buddhism) One's acts considered as fixing one's lot in the future existence.
And here's a picture!
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
I know why TIVO made this move. It has to do with one piece of technology: ZeroConf, aka Rendezvous. I won't go into it, though. People's jobs are on the line.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
oh,here is the pic again.
the picture
Your father smelt of elderberries!
[snort]
My Precioussss....
You know, I used to use that term quite often.
Now that I know the other meaning I don't think it has a place in my vocabulary anymore.
... will want the title of "Chief Hockenberry", but I think his wife Joan will have something to say about that.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
Their faithful leader, Chief SnozzBerry.
Picture (L to R)
1)?
2)Play@TV
3)Linksys
At that time, it was a system that allowed you to connect multiple media sources to a television set for, you guessed it, on-demand media. They were using Rendezvous to implement auto-discovery of media services on a network without having to use traditional IP, which might have to be configured.
The idea, it seemed, was that you would have a home network, plug in your Strangeberry box, and it would discover images, audio and video living on specialized servers (Rendezvous services) running on your other networked hardware. Technically, it could also connect to video feeds over the Internet. Plugging the box into your television would present a UI on the screen that would allow you to select what you wanted to see/hear using a remote. The UI was written in a proprietary language that was supposedly very extensible, so that it would be easy to re-brand the device or to make it more purpose-specific if some big company wanted to buy it.
At the time, I thought it was all a bit too ambitious. The real value of such a system (IMHO) lies in the media, not in the technology that delivers it.
That said, the possibilities for TiVo are very interesting. Their angle might be use the technology to have a single (or multiple) DVR serving up media to multiple TVs using a (potentially wireless) home network that requires no configuration. That would be sweet.
...Flux Capcitor.
A two wheeled balancing scooter that's going to revolutionize our cities!
Are you sure the far left box has Svideo? The center box definately looks like it has svideo, but the black circle on the left looks too small to be svideo. Perhaps it's a power connector?
Is that an antenna, or am i just glad to see this box?
without having to have multiple Tivo machines
Find out what they know.
Just like SMC'c EZ-Stream Universal Wireless Multimedia Receiver. You plug the unit into your TV with RCA jacks and load software onto your wireless PC. Then you can stream video over wireless. My guess is that they've taken it a step further by having a direct digital cable hookup to allow you to stream your cable signal anywhere in the house. This would be handy for all sorts of applications like watching TV by the pool or in the bathtub if you don't have a pool. "Look Ma...no cables!"
Obviously anything this secret is going to turn out to be some form of scooter.
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
Maybe Tivo is acquiring technology to put them in a place to compete w/ Moxi. Well, that is if the thing is ever released anywhere...
Don't waste time... procrastinate now!
It looks like one of those ethernet powered can openers. (running linux of course)
TiVo stopped innovating and now are brown-nosing the movie and TV industries by crippling their software's features on purpose.
Not sure those mixed berries will help.
Studying the picture, I make out the following ports.
On the leftmost device from bottom to top: Ethernet, A/V connectors, and a something that appears to be a minijack (1/8" stereo).
On the middle device from bottom to top: DC power, strange unidentified connector, A/V connectors, S-Video, another unidentified connector (could be many things), and an ethernet.
The last device (the one with the antenna) appears to be showing it's front, on which there is a remote control thingy (I'm drawing a blank on what they call them), and a power button.
Observations: The leftmost device doesn't appear to have a power port. It's also odd that there's a minijack on the back - most minijacks you would find on the front of a device because of their most common use - headphones. The middle device doesn't have the minijack, but does have everything else the smaller left device has and more. Most interesting is the port 2nd from bottom that has a most peculiar shape. The third device is entirely different from the other two, and sports an entirely different color. It could easily be mistaken for a wireless router was it not for the remote control thingy (arrgh!!!) on the front.
What do they do? No idea in the least.
You know... Chief Uber-hacker Spice... or whatever.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
"Chief Hackberry, Chief Wiseberry, Chief Smartberry"
What, no CEO?
My guess it isn't something that will allow you to connect to any of the various sites that have free TV listings, rather than paying $13 a month for it.
Personally, I don't have a Tivo, or even digital cable. I've seen the PVR that the local cable company (Time Warner) offers, and it's absolutely useless.
Although, having used it, the most useful thing I could think of doing with it would be to allow configuration of the program guide to reorder/eliminate channels from the list, and have the stations listed in order of time spent viewing them.
According to this . It seems TiVo has registered an additional port:
tvnetworkvideo 3791/tcp TV NetworkVideo Data port
tvnetworkvideo 3791/udp TV NetworkVideo Data port
Kevin Brunner brunner@tivo.com July 2003
Hi, I make the Dutch blog mentioned in the article. Just to get the story straight: the boxes in the picture on my site are similar to the ones that were featured in this week's PC World. See http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114355,0 0.asp There's nothing secret about those devices: they connect your tv to your home network. As I understand, they were seen all over this year's CES.
The official Tivo statement says 'Strangeberry has created technology (...) designed to enable the development of new broadband-based content delivery services.' And as you can judge by the resumes of the Strangeberry guys (http://www.strangeberry.com/about), they are software specialists, not hardware guys. And just to be clear (as I am getting a lot of e-mail since your posting on Slashdot linking to my blog): I am not associated with Strangeberry in any way. I am just a friend of Arthur's, as I wrote on my English blog about this: http://mf.typepad.com/on_the_road/2004/01/chief_sm artberr.html
As I have commented elsewhere, TiVo has been frozen in time ever since I first bought it a few years ago. I have not noticed any new features in terms of user tools or interface improvements ever. I love TiVo but I wish I had more control over it, as an "advanced user" mode or something. Somebody's going to come along and do something better. Competitors haven't yet figured out though that most people need a way to drive their cable and satellite boxes. Anybody know of a unix driver for something like the infrared "blaster" that comes with a TiVo?
Currently hooked on AMP
Acquisition of Strangeberry Inc.
On January 12, 2004 we acquired Strangeberry Inc., a small Palo Alto based technology company specializing in using home network and broadband technologies to create new entertainment experiences on television. Strangeberry has created technology, based on industry standards and including a collection of protocols and tools, designed to enable the development of new broadband-based content delivery services. In exchange for all of the issued and outstanding capital stock of Strangeberry, we issued shares of TiVo common stock to the stockholders of Strangeberry in a private placement. We have agreed to file a registration statement on Form S-3 to cover the resale of these shares by the Strangeberry stockholders.
Those names sound suspiciously like the names the Three Stooges would use.
ie: Ziller, Zeller and Zoller
or: Mr. Onay, Mr. Amscray and Mr. Inxay.
The box in the middle is a Play@TV. I've been selling them in my computer shop since the begining of the year.
It's pretty cool.
More info here
http://www.playattv.com/eng/
And you get Chief Cockenberries instead.
If you can't read Dutch, don't pretend that you can. Frackers.com has added an update today to straighten out the people who pretend to speak Dutch.
;-)
UPDATE, January 27
Some information for English speaking visitors to this blog that got here through the Slashdot-article: just to get the story straight, the boxes in the picture on my site are similar to the ones that were featured in this week's PC World. There's nothing secret about these devices: they connect your tv to your home network. As I understand, they were seen all over this year's CES. What I wrote below in the original (Dutch) posting was that the Strangeberry guys drove to Fry's one day to buy the components to build these kind of devices. And that they managed to do so pretty quickly; meaning that these are smart guys and also that there's not much of a barrier to entry in this market - providing there is a market. I never meant to imply or infer that these were the kind of machines Strangeberry was actually developing as their core business, just that they are working on technology for this space. As the official Tivo statement says: 'Strangeberry has created technology (...) designed to enable the development of new broadband-based content delivery services.' And as you can judge by the resumes of the Strangeberry guys, they are software specialists, not hardware guys. Just to be clear: I am not associated with Strangeberry in any way. I am just a friend of Arthur's, as I wrote on my personal blog about the acquisition of Smartberry by Tivo. Anyway, thanks for stopping by. Makes me think of doing this media & technology blog in English... nah, too much work, and this was supposed to be a hobby
http://www.frackers.com/2003/11/10/000035.html
Chief Hackberry Jonathan Payne is the same Jonathan that wrote jove ("Jonathan's Own Version of Emacs"). He and I used to live on the Computer Interest Floor at the U of Rochester. We both played drums and had this verbal language of speaking drums to each other. Will never forget the hallway argument we had about the two-bar drum trade in Rush's "YYZ"--- I think it went like this:
me: it's BRApata BRApata brapada-BRAP BRAP BRAP PSSHHH! biddi-BiTi BiTi BiTi BiTi BiTi BiTi BiTi PSH PSSHH!
Jon: you're totally wrong, it's BRApata BRApata brapada-BRAP BRAP BRAP PSSHHH! biddi-BiTi BiTi BiTi BiTi BiTi BiTi Bi-PSSHH PSSHH!
you can imagine our friends' reactions.... now that I think of it I should probably post this to rec.music.makers.percussion
pete!
"The cup... the drop... it's a YES!"