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TiVo To Be Acquired
May 9, 2016 by admin
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Online entertainment company Rovi plans to purchase digital video recording firm TiVo for $1.1 billion in a stock and cash deal, the companies announced on Friday.
TiVo has cloud-based technology for integrating live, recorded, on-demand and Internet television into one user interface, with search, discovery, viewing and recording options from a variety of devices. Its technology has been deployed by operators including Virgin Media and Vodafone Spain.
Rovi announced in March that Sharp’s new Aquos TVs would include its G-Guide electronic programming guide.
The combined company is forecast to have more than $800 million in revenue in the current year. More than 10 million TiVo-served households are expected to be added to the current base of about 18 million homes that use Rovi guides. The new entity will serve nearly 500 service providers worldwide, the companies said.
The deal between Rovi and TiVo, besides creating a large media and entertainment technology company with complementary products and services, will also lead to the setting up of a company with a worldwide portfolio of more than 6,000 issued patents and pending applications worldwide.
The two companies have a strong licensing business and have also sued key players like Comcast for patent infringement in the past. The companies said they have more than $3 billion in combined IP licensing revenue and past damage awards.
The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter and the combined company will use the TiVo name. Tom Carson, CEO of Rovi will be the chief executive of the new company.
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/consumer-category/tivo-to-be-acquired-by-rovi.html
Is The US & UK Lacking In Broadband?
December 11, 2013 by admin
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The US and UK are stragglers when it comes to consumer broadband download speeds and appear far down in table rankings.
This puts the countries, swaggering authoritarian surveillance monsters that they are, rather low down on the satisfaction scale.
The ranking produced by Ookla is based on results from Speedtest servers, and is called the Net Index.
“Based on millions of recent test results from Speedtest.net, this index compares and ranks consumer download speeds around the globe,” is the explanation.
“The value is the rolling mean throughput in Mbps over the past 30 days where the mean distance between the client and the server is less than 300 miles.”
Hong Kong takes pole position and it is credited as having download speeds in the area of 71.03 Mbps. There is a big drop of around 20 Mbps down to Singapore in second place with 52.85 Mbps and third is Romania, where speeds are 50.82 Mbps.
You have to look a long way down the list before arriving at the UK, which is in 25th place. Here, or there depending on where you live, consumers get a rather meagre sounding 23.55 Mbps.
The United States weighs in at 31st place and has download speeds of 20.77 Mbps. This puts it below the UK, Germany, Estonia, Hungary, Greece and 25 others.
Closer to home the European Commission has published its report on Broadband Coverage in Europe (2012) and reveals progress on broadband coverage targets. It found that while broadband has improved, it could be faster.
Comcast Starts IPv6 Network Rollout
Comcast has begun the production rollout of its new IPv6 service, with 100 customers upgraded in San Francisco’s East Bay in one week.
IPv6 is an upgrade to the Internet’s main communications protocol, which is called IPv4. IPv6 features an expanded addressing scheme that can support billions of devices connected directly to the Internet at faster speeds and lower cost than IPv4, which is running out of addresses.
Comcast began an IPv6 trial 18 months ago and is a leader in the deployment of IPv6-based services among U.S. ISPs.
The production rollout began on Oct. 31. It offers customers “native dual-stack service,” which means Comcast is supporting both IPv6 and IPv4 services.
The initial subscribers of Comcast’s production-quality IPv6 service have stand-alone computers running Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Vista or Apple Mac OS X that are connected directly to a Comcast cable modem. Comcast plans to support IPv6 for customers with home routers at a later date.
ISPs Close Internet Gap
Broadband speeds on average are within 80 percent of what major Internet service providers advertise, an appreciable increase from two years ago, according to a government study.
The Federal Communications Commission studied cable, DSL and fiber-to-the-home services at 13 top U.S. broadband providers.
The FCC found Verizon Communications Inc’s fiber network was best at meeting or exceeding advertised maximum download speeds, while Cablevision Systems Corp came in last place.
Overall, the numbers were a big boost from 2009, when data indicated download speeds were often about half of Internet service providers’ (ISP) maximum advertised speeds.
“Most major ISPs are providing service close to what they’re advertising. This represents a significant improvement over the findings from two years ago when we first shined a light on this issue,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said, unveiling the study’s findings at a Best Buy Co store in the District of Columbia.
During peak consumer usage hours when networks are busiest, actual download speeds varied from 114 percent to 54 percent of advertised speed among the different ISPs, the FCC said.
The complete findings of the report, its raw data and an FCC-prepared guide for consumers will be made available online. The FCC says the data will help consumers decide which Internet speed, service and provider best meet their needs.
“This report pretty well dispels the myth … that there’s a huge gap between advertised and actual speeds, and in fact we do pretty well here in the United States,” said Richard Bennett, a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
Not everyone was impressed with the study’s findings.
An Apple/Hulu Hookup In The Works?
Apple Inc is in very preliminary talks to join the bidding for Hulu, the online video site that Walt Disney Co, News Corp and its other owners have put up for sale, Bloomberg cited two anonymous sources as saying.
Apple has begun initial discussions that may eventually lead to an acquisition, Bloomberg reported without providing any more details.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the rumor.