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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?"
It sounds like a wireless video decoder/sender so you can use your broadband connection as a pipe for video on demand.
The hardware won't be what makes this successful or not, it will be the deals they can make with content providers. This is probably where Tivo could help.
I don't have much hope for Strangeberry's success given the entertainment industry's history with new delivery technologies.
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/
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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.
Strangeberry were known for jRendezvous (a java zeroconf library). It's moved to SourceForge, for future reference.
I think the series 2 tivo uses rendezvous, which is the only connection I can think of between the two companies.
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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?
No patents filed under strangeberry, but the latest Tivo patents are interesting.
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.
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.
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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).
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.
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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
This was only posted by one AC earlier, but he had a good point: the device on the left appears to be SMC's Wireless Multimedia Receiver http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?sec=Products&pg=Produ ct-Details&prod=308&site=c
Heh, it even says "SMC" on it.
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