GigaOM » ICOS Vision Systems

HAVA television place-shifting announced for Symbian S60 handhelds

Kevin C. Tofel — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:04:04 +0000

Monsoon isn’t wasting any time adding supported clients to their HAVA content place-shifting platform. Today, they announced support for Symbian S60 handsets; a platform that has a huge chunk of market share world-wide. The HAVA beta player already supports content streaming to the Nokia N800 / N810 Internet Tablets as well as Windows Mobile 5 & 6 devices, and of course works on computers running Microsoft Windows. There’s a few differences in the HAVA device when compared to the SlingBox, most notably are integrated WiFi and the ability to share the content with up to four clients at the same time.Monsoon will be demonstrating the new S60 client tomorrow at the S60 Summit 2008, so if you’re in Barcelona, you might want to drop by. HAVA owners can expect the S60 client as a free download in the third quarter of this year. The full press release is after the jump and I’ll update with a link as soon as I see it posted.

Monsoon Multimedia Announces HAVA Mobile Player Support for S60 on Symbian OSMonsoon Multimedia to Premier HAVA Mobile TV Place-shifting Solution at S60 Summit 2008 in BarcelonaSan Mateo, Calif. – May 27, 2008 – Monsoon Multimedia, an innovative digital video solutions provider, today announced HAVA Mobile Player for S60, a TV place-shifting video-streaming solution for S60 3rd edition on Symbian OS. The HAVA Mobile Player gives HAVA owners the ability to watch and control all of their home television channels and services from anywhere in the world on a mobile device – whether it be cable or satellite, receiver or DVR, standard or high definition. Monsoon Multimedia will be showcasing the new software at the S60 Summit 2008, held in Barcelona, Spain, May 28-29, 2008.Forum Nokia, Nokia’s developer relations organization, was instrumental in providing Monsoon Multimedia with technical and business support to develop the HAVA Mobile Player for S60, which will be available as a free download for HAVA owners in Q3 2008. The HAVA Mobile Player for S60 is compatible with all HAVA models available today.The HAVA Mobile Player for S60 was designed for seamless integration with Nokia’s unique two-way slider multimedia devices allowing viewers to toggle between portrait and full-screen landscape mode at the slide of the screen. Control of the TV viewing experience comes from both channel entries and volume control via the device’s physical keys and all other set-top box functions via the application’s elegant and intuitive onscreen UI. This way, users can watch live TV, pause, rewind, skip, schedule at-home DVR recordings and control their home TV watching from a world away, just as if they were in front of their TV in their own living room.”Monsoon Multimedia is thrilled and privileged to work with Nokia and is looking forward to providing users with first-class video streaming of their home TV to anywhere in the world,” said Paul Friedman, President of Monsoon Multimedia’s US Operations and head of the company’s mobile business. “Our support for the S60 mobile platform gives HAVA owners a great new way to enjoy their local TV news, catch their latest local sports game, watch live shows, or even program their home DVR with their S60-based smartphones.”The HAVA Mobile Player for S60 takes full advantage of high-speed 3G and HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) cellular networks, allowing S60 smartphone users to view and control their home TV anywhere, anytime at optimal video performance.The HAVA Mobile Player for S60 is a Symbian S60 optimized version of the HAVA Player software that Monsoon also provides for PCs and other mobile devices. The HAVA’s unique capabilities enable users to view their home TV simultaneously on multiple PCs in the home network and on network connected mobile devices, including S60 smartphones and Nokia Internet tablets, at home or anywhere in the world.Pricing and AvailabilityThe HAVA Mobile Player for S60 beta will be available by the end of June 2008. HAVA users interested in participating in Monsoon’s S60 beta program can email Monsoon Multimedia at hava-s60@monsoonmultimedia.com. The HAVA Mobile Player for S60 official release will be available next quarter as a free direct download. The HAVA product line is available from Monsoon Multimedia at http://www.myhava.com and through select retailers and etailers worldwide.About Monsoon MultimediaMonsoon Multimedia provides advanced, standards-based multimedia products and technologies for the MSO, PC, PC Peripheral and Consumer Electronics industries. Monsoon licenses highly optimized multimedia solutions comprised of applications, drivers, frameworks, middleware and reference designs. Monsoon products are available through major retailers worldwide, leading OEMs as well as direct through Monsoon’s etail site at http://www.myhava.com. Founded by the founders of Dazzle and Emuzed, the company has offices in California, India and Russia. For more information, please visit http://www.monsoonmultimedia.com.###

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Chip Players Stocking Up on Solar PV Gear

Stacey Higginbotham — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:00:22 +0000

KLA-Tencor, the No. 4 player in the semiconductor equipment market, on Thursday offered to buy ICOS Vision Systems Corp., a supplier of solar photovoltaic manufacturing equipment. ICOS has a lead in selling equipment that inspects solar cells and LED lights, and has recently signed several multimillion deals to put its inspection tools into unnamed solar manufacturing plants.

That explains the offer’s $465.6 million price tag. Making the equipment that makes chips is a grim business to be in. As chipmakers build fewer fabrication plants, there are fewer customers for the manufacturing equipment, so businesses such as KLA-Tencor and rival Applied Materials are looking for growth. Solar could be the key to that.

The process of making PV chips and solar panels is similar enough for equipment makers to feel comfortable snapping up smaller PV equipment makers. Applied, the industry leader, has spent about $1.4 billion buying companies in the solar space. In February the company closed its $334 million acquisition of Italy’s Baccini, a maker of metallization and testing equipment for photovoltaic solar cell production, and back in August, Applied completed a $483 million acquisition of Swiss solar wafer equipment company HCT Shaping Systems. KLA’s move suggest that Applied’s competitors might be trying to catch up.

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Thursday Morning Vid-Biz Headlines

Jackson West — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 18:28:38 +0000

Box in a Box Has Crush on Obama; Team behind popular “Dick in a Box” parody brings back the magic to support the fresh-faced candidate. (ABC News)

UK Networks Join Forces; BBC, ITV and Channel4 going in together on a new broadband video portal codenamed “Kangeroo” (sic). (PaidContent)

U.S. Open of Golf Online; Cory Bergman reviews NBC’s “HD” stream of the tournament featuring Tiger Woods. (Lost Remote)

Portugal Gets IPTV; New 88 channel service from Portugal Telecom, which controls 80 percent of the Portuguese broadband market. (Variety)

NBC High On iCue; New educational site will leverage NBC’s library of historical footage and on-air anchor talents. (NY Times)

Flash DRM Blocks Burns; Citing the new RealPlayer’s ability to burn flash content to disc, IndustryNext touts its enScramble “encryption.” (release)

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Install vs Archive & Install: Performance Testing

Nick Santilli — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 23:00:11 +0000

Recently, after Vista launched, I read one article about the way Vista installs over Windows XP. Microsoft took a different approach from the past and Vista actually copies its image onto the machine, and then goes through, weeding out the old operating system to make way for the new bling. In the article they ran benchmarks to test whether or not this process resulted in less bloat than a fully clean installation. The results showed that both resulted in pretty similar performance, post install.

I bring this up now, because as we get closer to Leopard (whenever it drops between March and June…) all those who jump on the newly released upgrade will have to decide whether to run an Archive & Install or a clean installation. Last time when Tiger came along, I discussed my migration plan and got quite a bit of feedback. The camp largely rested on clean installs it seemed.

But how does Apple stack up? Does the Archive & Install procedure create unnecessary bloat on the system? Or is it clean enough that benchmarks would be relatively the same (granted new systems would inevitably be a bit faster) in either case?

I’m all for the clean installation. I don’t mind that little bit of extra elbow grease to do it that way over an Archive & Install, and to me, it’s worth that piece of mind. But I can’t help but wonder if this practice is representative of my years on the Windows platform. With so many ‘Switchers’ in the past couple years, I’m betting many subscribe to the same practices that I do. So what say you? Is the clean installation method just a bad Windows-based habit, or good sense? Does anyone have any proof of performance boosts in one over the other?

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Say No To NPR

Om Malik — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 16:04:08 +0000

What happens when you have a reporter get drunk on cheap Press Club of India whiskey? He starts bitching about a fellow reporter. This evening I picked up some juicy gossip. Apparently the last National Public Radio correspondent in India (Some Sullivan chap) was living large. He had a nice place in Golf Links, which is a really posh colony in South Delhi. Like Brentwood in LA or Seacliff in San Francisco or upper Madison Avenue in New York. The rents there are generally about $3000+ in this hood. Do the math and imagine what he was getting paid!) Anyway it is clear that despite working for a “network of the masses” he was not living with the masses. So next time NPR wants to hit you up for cash, well think again.

He was not alone. For instance, Bloomberg’s head honcho lives in Jor Bagh, which is like Presidio Heights in San Francisco. Others have equally posh addresses. But nothing like the New York Times which has this beautiful colonial mansion in the most prestigious neighborhood. Actually my evening mates were ranting against the foreign correspondents who lived in India. They get pretty serious salaries, and something called a hardship bonus. What hardship – two servants, a driver, and a palatial house. I would pay to get a gig like that.

It is no surprise that anything new is ever written – after all luxury begins at home!

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