Big Screen TVs Need to Act More Like Monitors

An interesting comment inside this article got me thinking: "Casual games offered through FiOS TV (think: chess) didn’t take off until the company added a video window to run television alongside game play." Ultimately, TVs need to look and act more like computer monitors, allowing us to resize various screens to fit on the TV simultaneously. Just imagine your 55" screen (or larger) with the flexibility to watch a movie or game and then have the picture shrunk so that it is not affected as you play a a casual game of chess with your "social network" on another portion of the screen. We multi task on our PC, why not multi task on our TV screen as well. Add a wireless keyboard or just as easily use your PC keyboard but display the output on the TV screen. It will require the cable companies and telcos to finally merge cable, broadband, and communication into one interchangeable connection. What fun. That would surely create real subscriber engagement.

Tivo Wins!

How many times does Echostar have to lose in court before they finally pay their fine and do a deal with Tivo. Of course, Dish will continue to appeal, clogging our judicial system, rather than recognize that they need to partner with Tivo. I am a fan of Tivo so you can tell who I am rooting for.

According to Dish, "We are disappointed in the district court's decision finding us in contempt," Dish said in a statement. "We believe a stay is warranted and that we have strong grounds for appeal. Our engineers spent close to a year designing-around TiVo's patent and removed the very features that TiVo said infringed at trial." So in an attempt to work around Tivo's technology, you still worked from it. Sounds rather fishy to me and the courts seem to agree. Stop fighting, pay your fine, license Tivo technology. Dish has bigger battles to fight to grow and retain its subscriber base.

Comcast has been taking the lead to partner with Tivo on their DVR and I for one can't wait for it to be available in my home. I currently have a standalone Tivo in one room and a Comcast DVR in another. I actually give up getting digital signals in my Tivo TV because I so prefer the functionality and ease that the Tivo box offers.

Congrats to Tivo on winning another round. Keep innovating!