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?"

Comments

Translation of the Dutch weblog post

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

just check archive

[shlomo]

look at archive.org (way back machine) at what they used to be before becoming vaporware :) click here

Jobs

[Quixote]

Here's what they had on their jobs page last year:

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.

Well...

[nuggetman]

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.

Love a riddle. Here is a possible answer

[rcastro0]

Googling around, it seems Strangeberry's claim to fame is their release of an LPGLed implementation of Rendezvous (Zeroconf), an alternative to MS-Backed UPnP (Universal Plug and Play). How important is 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:

TiVo
"TiVo's upcoming premium service package will use Rendezvous technology to automatically discover Macintosh computers within the home network and determine which services they provide, allowing customers to listen to their shared music or view their shared photos on their TV," said Jim Barton, Co-founder and CTO for TiVo. "We are excited about working with Apple on other ways Rendezvous can help TiVo Series2 DVRs connect to a Mac to deliver future services." (see this page)

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.

from the rather good itvt.com (on Tivo)

[fiddlesticks]

TiVo Announces New Products, Services & Licensing Deals at CES

DVR vendor/service provider, TiVo, generated a fair amount of news at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas:

• TiVo's technology-licensing business seems to be becoming an increasingly important element of the company's overall strategy. It announced that Korean consumer-electronics manufacturer, Humax, which is seeking to establish a foothold for itself in the US, will later this year unveil 2 TiVo- powered DVD recorders for the US market (the devices, which will offer home-networking capabilities, progressive scan output, and DV input, are scheduled to be available in retail by the fall), as well as 2 new TiVo Series2 DVR's, featuring 80 hours and 250 hours of storage respectively (these are scheduled to be available in retail at the beginning of the 2nd quarter). TiVo also revealed that it has extended its existing licensing agreement with Toshiba, which plans to launch a number of new TiVo- powered devices later this year, including a DVD recorder that is expected to be available in the fall: last year, Toshiba introduced a TiVo-powered product, the SD-H400, which combines a DVD player with a DVR, and which offers around 80 hours of storage. (Note: Pioneer also has a licensing agreement in place with TiVo, and last year introduced 2 DVD recorder/VCR hybrid products, the DVR-810H and the Elite DVR-57H.) In addition, TiVo said that Hughes, Philips, RCA and Samsung will this year all offer products which combine satellite receivers with TiVo-powered DVR's, and which are designed to support the "DirecTV with TiVo" service offered by satellite-TV provider, DirecTV. (Note: the "DirecTV with TiVo" service is becoming increasingly important to TiVo's bottom line: in its most recent fiscal quarter, TiVo added 150,000 net new subscriptions through DirecTV--representing growth of nearly 100% over the previous quarter and nearly 10 times the number of DirecTV with TiVo subscriptions added during the year-ago quarter--compared to only 59,000 net new stand-alone TiVo service subscriptions.)
• It showcased a new product of its own that is targeted at "DirecTV with TiVo" customers, and that combines an HD satellite receiver with an HDTV DVR. The new product, which is called simply the "DirecTV HD DVR," will be commercially available during the current quarter. It features 4 tuners, and can automatically detect whether an incoming signal is satellite- based or off-air, and then engage the appropriate tuner for recording.
• It said that it plans to launch a mobile version of its service next fall, dubbed "TiVoToGo." Among other things, the new service will allow TiVo subscribers who have purchased the company's "Home Media Option" (note: the TiVo Home Media Option, which was unveiled at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show, is designed to transform the company's Series2 box into an "entertainment center." Among other things, it allows consumers to
  1. use their TiVo remote control to stream video, music and photos stored on their PC directly to their TV,
  2. schedule recordings on their DVR remotely via the Internet, and
  3. access a library of digital content which TiVo is able to offer its subscribers through various partnerships) to transfer programs stored on their DVR's hard drive to any PC or laptop: if their computer is equipped with a DVD burner, they will then also be able to transfer those programs to DVD.

• According to TiVo, TiVoToGo will be made possible by a "TiVo Content Security Key" (a small piece of hardware which viewers must plug into their PC whenever they are watching or recording TiVo content) and by TiVo-enabled versions of the MyDVD and CinePlayer applications from DVD-creation-software specialist, Sonic Solutions: the Sonic Solutions apps, which will be installed on the customer's computer, are designed not only to allow recorded programs to be played back on a computer or burned to a D

Re:Take a crack at this link

[Dutch_Cap]

Let me give you a proper translation:

After Marimba went public [(got listen on the stock exchange)], Dutch ubertechnician Arthur van Hoff (center) scores again: he and his four collegues sold their ultra-secret start-up strangeberry, located in a small shop in Palo Alto, to Tivo. The transaction took place on the 12th of januari but Tivo only went public with the news yesterday.

Founded in 2002, Straneberry was still pre-revenue, as they like to call companies who are still developing their technology. The gentlemen are working on a product related to the field of the posting below. After working together at Sun and Marimba, a bond had grown between the two which created a great atmosphere between them. Though occasionally it was hard to not tell friends everything about the activities of Strangeberry. The HIQ in Enschede and the university of Strathclyde are rightfully proud of van Hoff. It's a shame he makes his accomplishments in Silicon Valley, though, and can't pass on his experience in the Netherlands.

Re:Not *again*!

[mydigitalself]

Marimba is an platform indepedant software deployment and management tool.

Think of it this way: Novell have a product called ZenWorks, which sits on top of Novell Directory. Now say Mr I.T. Guy wants to deploy Napster to his 3,000 users. He could go to each of their machines and install it (sure!), he could edit the global shared login script to deploy it (messy, I'll explain in a bit) or he can use a software deployment tool.

Lets go back the the batch script thing. Great idea, but what if someone logs in again a few minutes later - they try to get the software pushed across to them again. Or what if he only wants to deploy it to people within a certain department - or people who have existing software dependancies, or etc...

Novell's ZenWorks allows you to create a "deployment package", which is essentially a wrapper around MSI to call all sorts of clever silent switches so the user gets a seamless experience. The package then has deployment rules, which can be based on LDAP (so organisational structure), dependancies, time of day, etc.. etc.. it also has licensing reporting capabilities built in so you can tell how many licenses of every single software package you can have installed. In truth, its got hundreds of features that you or I may go "who the fsck cares"...

Marimba is pretty much the same thing - although its "open", yeah whatever that means! It also allows application deployment and management across server architectures as well as desktop deployment.

So, no bullshit I'm affraid. These sorts of tools are very useful to either large and/or decentralised IT departments. Other players in this space include:
* Tarantella
* Microsoft SMS (now outdated)
* Microsoft Active Directory Roll-out
* WinInstall

I think Tivoli from IBM may also do some of this as well.

There you go. Whore the Karma!