@johndow_
Du hast vielleicht doch Recht mit AOL. Dann machen die Geschichten auch Sinn.
Oder gibt es sonst eine Set-Top-Box mit Infrarot Keyboard
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2594954,00.htm…
Interactive TV Takes Variety Of Shapes
Cable operators, tech firms do end run around delayed set-top boxes
By Rebecca Cantwell, Inter@ctive Week
July 9, 2000 9:00 PM PT
The buzz around interactive television is so loud that cable operators and technology companies are scheduling trials before they have a clear picture of what customers want to see.
The future is still hazy, partly because the powerful new generation of standardized set-top boxes that was initially promised more than a year ago now is not expected to be widely available until the holiday season in 2001.
The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (www.scte.org) recently launched a subcommittee to try to develop standards allowing various applications to run on different manufacturers` boxes. But there`s plenty of jockeying ahead among competing players before the outcome of that effort becomes clear.
Meanwhile, a growing debate revolves around whether the notion of putting powerful and expensive computer-like boxes on top of TV sets has been made obsolete by the Internet. Some major players instead are pushing thin-client solutions, putting most of the brains at the cable headend. That way, they say, sophisticated applications can be deployed on digital set-top boxes today. The simpler approach leaves cable operators less vulnerable if customers aren`t clamoring to buy expensive boxes in the future.
"I think we`ll see successes in both, in part driven by the philosophies of individual cable providers and how they deploy capital," says Jeff Huber, vice-president of engineering at Excite@Home (www.home.net). "The thin client-oriented services are likely to focus more on information and entertainment, whereas the more advanced boxes will focus more on interactive applications that run on the box itself."
America Online last week became the latest to announce its interactive TV plans, saying it will launch in eight markets in July. AOL`s service will basically translate Web services to the TV screen, letting users search the Web, participate in chat and e-mail friends. The company also plans 11 channels with interactive content to complement programming.
The service will cost $14.95 for members and $24.95 for nonmembers. Subscribers also must pay $249 for the accompanying set-top box with a 56-kilobit-per-second modem, infrared keyboard and remote control.
Other approaches seek to take advantage of the millions of people who currently use TVs and computers simultaneously.
ACTV (www.actv.com) has partnered with its 16 percent owner Liberty Media Group (www.libertymedia. com) to exploit the two-box audience, aiming to deliver Web content that enriches the TV show that a viewer is watching while he or she is using the computer.
The companies are launching what they claim is the first regularly scheduled weekly programming block of convergence programming, as "HyperTV with [Liberty] Live wire" teams up with TBS Superstation (www.tbssuperstation.com) on Wednesday nights, starting at an unspecified time this summer.
As Ted Turner`s "superstation" airs Ripley`s Believe It or Not and the wrestling show WCW Thunder, those who want more content can get it on their computers. Viewers can log on to the station`s Web site, register and download the HyperTV Networks software plug-in. From there, a range of content related to the shows will be provided while the shows are on.
"We`re providing a parallel Web experience," says Bruce Crowley, president of HyperTV (www.hypertv.com). "It marries the emotive power of the TV with the interactivity and intimacy of the PC."
For example, viewers watching a segment on the world`s smallest bicycle on TV can use the Web to find out that Karl von Sauerbronn invented the bicycle in 1816 and learn more about him. Or they can chat about bicycles with other viewers. When the wrestling show comes on, HyperTV will provide such PC add-ons as wrestlers` bios, quizzes in which viewers guess how much each can bench-press and a chance to buy just about all the wrestling-related merchandise imaginable.
HyperTV is expected to be a key part of the new Liberty Livewire subsidiary`s plans to develop Internet content, television shows and movies.
While HyperTV`s software is ready to run on PCs today, Crowley says the company has agreements with Liberate (www.liberate.com), Motorola (www.mot.com), OpenTV (www.opentv.com) and others to incorporate its products into new, advanced set-top boxes. "When the boxes are adequate, we`re there," he says.
Hal Krisbergh, chairman and chief executive of WorldGate Communications (www.wgate.com), hasn`t been waiting for the elusive new boxes either.
That`s partly because Krisbergh headed the division at General Instrument responsible for making set-top boxes before GI was taken over by Motorola. His experiences led him to surmise the super-complex boxes under development would take longer to deploy than the cable companies have predicted.
Keep on moving
"We basically put the horsepower in the cable headend -- not in the box -- and we`re able to get all the applications and speed we want, but we don`t have to use an expensive box," Krisbergh says. "While others are still waiting for a fancy box, WorldGate`s got a major lead."
WorldGate`s product allows cable subscribers to access the Internet, e-mail and other interactive services through existing cable converter boxes, plus a wireless keyboard and remote control. The company`s Channel HyperLinking technology provides instant access from a TV program to a related Web site.
WorldGate is deployed domestically in 15,000 homes in six different operators` cable systems, including Comcast (www.comcast.com) and Charter Communications (www.chartercom. com). Internationally, WorldGate has deployment and trial agreements with 21 operators in 13 countries. In mid-June, the company announced its service will be rolled out to more than 115,000 homes in Pennsylvania in the next year through an agreement with Blue Ridge Communications (www.brctv.com).
Most of the big cable operators are working on their own interactive plans with a variety of partners. Cox Communications (www.cox.com), for example, announced in mid-June that it is working with Excite@Home, the nation`s leading cable Internet service, on part of a trial it plans to launch in San Diego later this year.
Cox plans to offer customers a menu that lets them click to entertainment and shopping destinations using a new remote control, says Braxton Jarratt, director of interactive TV product strategy at Cox.
"There will be a number of destinations designed specifically to look elegant on the television," Jarratt says. "It will require a minimum of keyboards, leading to rich graphics and interactive media using a remote control."
The Cox-branded service will encompass e-mail, Web browsing and video-on-demand, he says.
"We plan to provide services at a level consistent with what we offer on the PC, but in a uniquely TV experience so it will not feel like Web pages on TV," Excite@Home`s Huber says.
Some of the personalized services the company offers on its cable modem service -- such as a personalized selection of news, sports and stocks, as well as chat, e-mail and instant messaging -- will be revamped for the TV, with the goal of providing an integrated experience.
"We are extending it further with services unique for TV, with the nature of the living room," Huber says. "One application we`ll be testing is photo sharing."
Cox`s first deployment of interactive TV will be in San Diego. The company plans to begin testing in employees` homes in the third quarter, with a limited rollout to customers later this year, says Cox spokeswoman Amy Cohn.
Time Warner Cable is also moving ahead on interactive TV with existing digital set-top boxes, focusing on the video-on-demand services it has been developing since its 1995 trial in Orlando, Fla.
Time Warner (www.timewarner. com) launched video-on-demand for customers near Austin, Texas, on June 14 with partner SeaChange International (www.schange.com). That follows commercial deployment in Honolulu, Hawaii, in December 1999 with partner Concurrent Computers (www.ccur.com).
"We expect to continue rolling out in a gradual basis over the balance of this year, with more to come next year," says Time Warner spokesman Mike Luftman.
SeaChange digital video servers are being installed in 14 cable hubs in the Austin area to store movie titles, which customers will be able to access with VCR-like control at all hours.
SeaChange began working with Time Warner on video-on-demand in 1997, and the two companies reached an agreement this month calling for SeaChange to continue supporting Time Warner`s rollouts.
In a sign of the increasing interest in interactive television, SeaChange filed a patent infringement lawsuit June 13 against video server competitor nCube (www.ncube.com). Sea Change claims infringement on the patent covering its MediaCluster, which connects computers so that they act as a single server and provide large quantities of video via a fault-tolerant configuration.
NCube responded by saying the claim is "completely without merit," noting it has been selling products that embody the features of its system since September 1993 -- two years before SeaChange filed for a patent on its MediaCluster technology.
Demnach wäre AOL das eCommerce Unternehmen
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