Dave Zatz Thomas Hawk presents a less than rosy view of Apple’s one billion iTunes served. Though he is somewhat off the mark… we’re really talking about 50 million suckers. ;) Until recently I was counted amongst those suckers. See, I think the iTunes store is an efficient and reasonably priced service providing a large library of … Read more
Here we have yet another video distribution system that will fail (see MovieBeam ). MovieKlub will send you up to two DVDs a week for $24.99/month. So what’s the big deal? These movies can only be played 3 times… then you toss them out or return them for recycling. We’ve seen similar schemes in the … Read more
Let’s face it… if you’re a journalist, bashing TiVo is good for business. Very few companies inspire the cult-like loyalty and name recognition (a small player like) TiVo enjoys. There’s nothing like a negatory article to energize the masses. That could explain why every few months both the Motley Fool and Phillip Swann of TV … Read more
Democracy, who bill themselves as a free, open source, Internet TV platform, is now available for PC and Mac beta testing with planned support for Linux. The combination video player, publisher, and aggregator seems to be getting a decent amount of attention, but I’m not quite sold. I already have free software which handles video … Read more
Couldn’t make TiVo’s little Valentine’s Day singles soiree? Me neither… Fortunately my secret TiVo Valentine sent me some clever party favors and Davis Freeberg reported his W hotel experiences. I still haven’t decided if this was marketing genius or lunacy, but the folks in attendance seemed to have a good time.
TiVo offered up a little more Valentine’s Day love for us yesterday when they released TiVo Desktop 1.9.2 for OSX. So I went ahead and installed the brand-spanking new software. No new features as far as I can tell, but both Panther and Tiger are now listed as being fully supported. The good news: TiVo obviously has some Mac expertise on staff. The bad… if TiVoToGo for Mac were anywhere need ready to ship, I don’t think this package would have been released as an obvious stop-gap. The update doesn’t support Intel-based Macs, but I’m giving TiVo a pass on this one since Apple delivered 6 months early and few people have them in their possession.
Update: Bob Poniatowski, of TiVo Product Marketing, is hopeful an Intel-compatible TiVo Desktop will be available in 6-8 weeks. Additionally, Mac hacker Dennis Wilkinson has uncovered TiVoToGo-related code within 1.9.2. Makes ya wonder if Mac TTG is only 8 weeks out…
MovieBeam, who just received a large cash infusion, is relaunching in 29 markets this year. In fact, my neighborhood already appears to be online. Basically you buy the Linksys MovieBeam set-top box, every week a few movies are downloaded via a digital over-the-air (OTA) signal, and then you choose which you want to rent. The … Read more
I woke up to some depressing news this AM… Leon Nicholls, the sole developer of Galleon, has decided to move on to “other interesting technologies.” TiVo subscribers are losing a great resource, and TiVo, Inc. is losing a great advocate. I’m hopeful that TiVo enthusiasts with some coding chops will pick up where he’s left … Read more