A disruptive change of face for IPTV

A disruptive change of face for IPTV

By Daniel Briere and Patrick Hurley, Network World, 05/24/05
Briere

So by now, a very large audience of carriers has determined that IPTV is the way to go as they move towards a fully converged network of offerings. The pace of development has been furious, with most deployments focused on plain vanilla TV service, possibly with a little spice of interactivity thrown in.

Well the most disruptive technologies usually start with a simple demonstration. At Walt Mossberg’s D Conference this month, we think that such a demonstration happened, and that it is going to have an order of magnitude change on the face of IPTV as we know it. A small company with telco-equipment roots, Hillcrest Labs, showed for the first time publicly its new HoME navigation system for the TV.

Big deal. From Moxi to MicrosoftTV2 to ATI’s HDTV Wonder to all sorts of interfaces, people have been trying to remake the image of the TV to make it a bigger and better home for the next generation of revenue-generating services. Indeed, there are a lot of players pounding the pavement, each trying to get the attention of the people holding the big IPTV franchise purse strings. However, it is essential that telcos differentiate their offerings if they want to get real traction in the market. Just a “redo” of the cable TV experience isn’t going to cut it.

Hillcrest is different, and any telco player who has the opportunity to see it work up close will realize how dysfunctional their existing approach to IPTV is. HoME is that much of a disruptive force for applications being driven on the TV.

Harken back to the days of the first computers and the land of gargantuan machines and garage startups, and figuring out what works on the latest processors and screens and how to make computers usable. Companies were truly making orders of magnitude shifts in the way people interacted with the computer.

When people look back over the history of computers, a few disruptive changes rise to the very top. Few can doubt that the advent of the IBM Model 1 PC changed the face of computing in our lifetimes by making a computer something that could sit on a desktop. How about the invention of the portable PC – a laptop to match?

Certainly right up there, if top of the list, is Douglas Engelbart’s invention of the Mouse. He took something that was the domain of engineers – complete with command line codes and search strings – and added a whole user interface that changed the face, literally, of computing. We’re just glad they did not stick with the original name: “X-Y position indicator for a display system.”

For an idea of how lost we’d be with out the mouse, look at your keyboard right now. Look at the up/down/left/right buttons. And try to imagine doing all your work using just those buttons to navigate. Try to imagine browsing for products at Amazon.com without the mouse to move around the page easily and select whatever you want. Ever copy and paste from an article on the screen? Think how painful that would be using directional keys. Point. Click. It’s more than a technology; it’s part of our life.

Enter Hillcrest Labs. By now, you probably have seen the pictures of their ‘Loop’ and their HoME ‘Spontaneous Navigation’ products. Hillcrest’s is the first offering that has the potential to truly change the way we viewers interact with our TVs. In fact, Hillcrest’s navigation technology will be as disruptive to the television set as the mouse and Windows were to the computer.

It will allow you to go wherever you want to go whenever you want to go there – you are not limited to the two-dimensional interface of present TV navigation schemes. Think of how you navigate your TV guide – up a few rows, over a few boxes. Same for anything on the system. It works for a few lines in a TV guide, but what about 50,000 movie titles or all of your personal photos? It falls apart quickly. The ability to zoom, hover, pan, drill down, spontaneously move…these elements are standard if not the lifeblood of computer apps, but no where in present IPTV implementations.

You might be thinking, “What about Gyration, or Light guns, or any of these other peripherals that have come out before?” These products were like the early attempts to cross the Atlantic by plane – they started the trip, but failed to make it; Charles Lindberg was the first because he put everything together to make it happen. Hillcrest reaches all the way to the bottommost part of the food chain – the metadata that ties everything together – and then carries that forward all the way to applications, the screen, and the device. This threaded approach is what makes Hillcrest solve the problem in an integral and converged way.

You can’t get to full convergence with just a pretty and fancy screen, you really need the underlying elements to be integrated so you can truly have application-independent navigation. You also have to allow the user to use the same navigation and interface with all applications on the TV.

This usability separates a truly landmark navigation improvement from the others – something that is so intuitive that users ‘get it’ within seconds of using it. Hillcrest’s technology is intuitive to even a technophobic grandma. Gone are the 180+ buttons on a remote control. We’ve entered the age of true ease of use for any application on the TV. With Hillcrest’s Spontaneous Navigation products, any computer application now can easily find a home on the TV, and new revenue-generating applications on the TV have a framework for quick introduction. The results will be stunning to users and IPTV pocketbooks – because there’s a direct line between the two.

Michael Swanson's Blog : Automated Continuous Integration and the Ambient Orb™

Michael Swanson's Blog : Automated Continuous Integration and the Ambient Orb™: "Automated Continuous Integration and the Ambient Orb™"

looooooooooooop

The image from the WSJ article on us as posted in someone's blog. I love the file name that they gave it: "looooooooooooop.jpg"

Start-up Hillcrest Labs delves into digital TV

Start-up Hillcrest Labs delves into digital TV
By Carol Wilson

May 24, 2005 11:44 AM

A Maryland start-up company is promising to dramatically change the way consumers navigate the increasingly complex world of digital television, creating a new navigation system the replaces the 100-plus button remote control with a two-button, intuitive free-space pointing device that is the trigger to a new multi-dimensional content framework.

Hillcrest Labs was founded by Dan Simpkins, who previously founded softswitch-maker Salix and sold it to Tellabs, and is taking its story public today by demonstrating its HoME navigational system at the Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference in San Diego. The company has already been working behind the scenes with many of the companies who are battling for market share in the digital home space, including consumer electronics firms as well as competing service providers.

And while some of the early press has focused on the free-space pointing device, called "The Loop," for its lightweight circular design and two-button simplicity, what Hillcrest Labs is offering is intended as truly disruptive technology.

"It's not really about the device but a revolutionary navigation system," said Simpkins, in a telephone interview from San Diego. "We are seeing a real sea change in the industry--the battle for the digital home is on. There are a number of companies trying to take the leadership position. What we realized was that there was a significant gap in technology. There was no effective navigation platform that allows users to easily get at all the new digital content."

What Hillcrest Labs created is a system its calls "Spontaneous Navigation," that combines the free-space pointing remote with an application framework, known as Hillcrest HoME. Within HoME is a metadata engine that presents a library of data on applications in such a way that users can easily move in many different directions from any one point or application within the system.

Unlike existing remote controls, The Loop is multi-dimensional--it behaves much more like a computer mouse than a traditional TV remote, said analyst Daniel Briere, president of TeleChoice.

"Today's navigational systems are hierarchical--you follow the bread crumbs," he said. "Those systems can only go up-down or left-right. This is a six-dimensional system and it can also go backwards and forwards."

Instead of having to back in and out of a set of hierarchical menus or to use a combination of 180 different buttons on a remote control device, consumers can intuitively use The Loop and the Hillcrest Labs navigational system to go from viewing movie possibilities to choosing a sound track instead, or from looking at one movie by an actress to seeing a list of all of her movies.

Ease of use is the critical factor, Simpkins said.

"We have two kinds of behavior--instinctive and learned," he said. "The idea is to use the instinctive. We have given it to people five years old and 85 years old, and they are all able to pick it up and start playing it. It's dramatically different from all the others. For the first time a device is able to be used in the living room at 10 feet that allows consumers to point at what they want. We point before we speak, before we walk, really. And this is very simple, much like a mouse."

Simpkins and management partners Andy Addis and Mitch Praver, both executive vice presidents, said they are not directly challenging Microsoft, whose IPTV platform includes navigation, but intending to sell its software across the market.

"What we've done is build a highly portable environment--Hillcrest as a universal supplier of software technology to various manufacturers," said Simpkins. "We are very excited--it is highly flexible and highly personalizable. It can give service providers the power to present a service in their own unique way. It changes the equation as they are able to present their own individual products and to brand them as never before."

Addis, a former Comcast executive, said telephone companies in particular see Hillcrest HoME as a means of differentiating their video offerings--although Hillcrest Labs is also talking with cable companies.

The company has been smart in making it possible for companies to easily add "skins"--or customization--to its systems, while providing the front-end and back-end hooks to integrate existing and new applications, said Briere. "This is truly disruptive technology--like the mouse was to the PC," he said.

Hillcrest Labs Demonstrates HoME, a Ground-breaking Line of Navigation Products for TV, at The Wall Street Journal's ''D: All Things Digital''

Hillcrest Labs Demonstrates HoME, a Ground-breaking Line of Navigation Products for TV, at The Wall Street Journal's ''D: All Things Digital'' Conference

"D: All Things Digital" Conference

CARLSBAD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 23, 2005--Hillcrest Labs(TM) will give the first public demonstration of HoME(TM) to attendees of The Wall Street Journal's prestigious "D: All Things Digital" conference on Tuesday, May 24, 2005. HoME(TM), an application suite based on Hillcrest's ground-breaking Spontaneous Navigation(TM) system, reinvents how consumers access and control content on the TV.

Spontaneous Navigation combines the power of Hillcrest's "free-space" pointing technology with highly visual content directories to provide consumers an unparalleled navigation experience. HoME was chosen by The Wall Street Journal columnists and conference co-hosts Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher to be one of a select number of new technologies to be showcased at the D conference. Hillcrest's technology demonstration is a preview of HoME, which will be formally launched later this year.

"The proliferation of content choice on the TV has far outpaced navigation technology," said Dan Simpkins, founder, president and CEO of Hillcrest Labs. "The battle for the digital home is now well underway and those companies that make it easy for consumers to unify their applications and navigate vast content choice will be the winners. We believe HoME, our family of Spontaneous Navigation products, will change the way we use the TV in the same way the mouse and Windows(TM) changed the way we use the PC."

Hillcrest's HoME simplifies how consumers navigate thousands, if not tens of thousands, of entertainment choices. It also unifies disparate forms of digital content (e.g. personal photos and games) by creating a common navigation paradigm that extends across both applications and devices. HoME's highly modular architecture makes it easy to integrate with existing consumer electronic devices as well as service provider's set-top boxes and networks.

HoME's line of Spontaneous Navigation products includes the following:

-- The Loop(TM), a completely new remote control that replaces the dozens of buttons found on traditional remotes with a sophisticated, ergonomically designed interface with just two buttons and a scroll wheel to control all programs and devices.

-- HoMEtv(TM), a visual, on-screen guide for TV, which supports linear channels, video-on-demand, and digital video recorder, and Internet-delivered content.

-- HoMEmedia(TM), a suite of applications that enables viewers to easily access, manipulate and display personal music, photos and home videos.

-- HoMEbuilder(TM), a software development kit that enables customers and partners to easily customize Hillcrest applications to meet their needs.

These products reflect the Hillcrest team's extensive experience in software application design, human-computer interfaces, communications systems, communications software, and electronic product design. Hillcrest has filed dozens of patents on its new technology, which has been in development over the past four years.

About Hillcrest Labs

Based in Rockville, Maryland, Hillcrest Labs, formerly known as Hillcrest Communications, was founded in 2001 by Dan Simpkins and Peter Jackson. The company is funded by NEA, Columbia Capital and Grotech Capital. For additional information, please visit our website at www.hillcrestlabs.com.

Hillcrest Laboratories, Hillcrest Labs, Spontaneous Navigation, Loop, HoME, HoMEtv, HoMEmedia, HoMEspree and HoMEbuilder are trademarks of Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc. All other names are trademarks of their respective companies.

Hillcrest Has View of TV's Future

Hillcrest Has View of TV's Future
Rockville Firm to Demonstrate Media System at Conference

By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 24, 2005; E05

Daniel S. Simpkins crosses his legs, slouches a bit in his chair and holds up a melon-size ring of gray plastic. This, he says, is the future of television.

Simpkins clicks a button on the ring and a screen full of cartoon-like images with titles such as "Music," "Movies," and "TV" appears. As he moves his wrist slightly, an arrow on the screen follows suit, gliding over categories of content that include basic cable as well as digital files that were purchased and stored on the system. A click on the movies image brings up a collection of hundreds of movie-poster graphics divided into genres such as comedy and drama. Another click brings the foreign-film images to the full screen, and with two more clicks he has selected a movie, displayed its description and made it play.

"That's entertainment like you haven't experienced before," says Simpkins, a Maryland-based serial entrepreneur who made millions of dollars with the sale of his last company. "In a couple of clicks, I get to all my content, rather than page-down, page-down, page-down. That's very powerful."

The next few months will determine just how powerful the system created by Simpkins's company, Hillcrest Communications, will actually be. The Rockville firm has operated in stealth mode for the past four years and today will demonstrate its system publicly for the first time at an exclusive technology conference sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. Hillcrest is one of a few young companies invited to display their wares at the San Diego event, which attracts big-name executives and journalists, and the firm's executives are hoping the exposure will boost their company's reputation in the industry.

Start-up executives say that since the dot-com implosion, large companies and investors are appropriately wary of unknown firms offering the next new thing. This week's conference will be crowded with great ideas from companies considered to be among the most promising of the nation's new technology firms, but even for them, success is a long way off. Hillcrest's executives said they are intimately aware of the challenges that lie ahead.

Their system, called Hillcrest Home, organizes the content on a user's television visually, in much the same way that software applications are displayed on a computer desktop. Then by moving and clicking the circular remote, called "the loop," users can navigate fluidly through various categories of media accessible through their televisions.

Management of the rapidly increasing volume of media being funneled into American living rooms will be at the center of digital innovation in the coming years, some analysts say. And Hillcrest is far from alone in the quest to capitalize on the need for order within the convergence of cable, the Internet, and personal libraries of movies, music, games and recorded television shows.

"There has probably been a million companies, at some point, in this kind of a space," said Stephen Baker, a technology analyst with the NPD Group. "What you're really talking about is a product that wants to be iTunes, wants to be TiVo, wants to be Windows. So it has be able to do all those things better than what other companies are able to do and package them in a way that's better than they have ever been packaged."

Hillcrest executives insist they have found the winning formula. The company was founded in 2001 by Simpkins and Peter S. Jackson. Simpkins sold his previous company, a Gaithersburg firm named Salix Technologies Inc. that made switches to enable Internet telephony, for $300 million in January 2000. For the first year of Hillcrest's existence, Simpkins and a dozen Salix alumni hunkered down in their Rockville office, intensely studying a variety of issues related to the technology industry. Out of the study sessions, nicknamed "Hillcrest University," came 12 fully formed business plans, which were debated until the team settled on the plan to build a content navigation system.

Simpkins financed most of Hillcrest's growth until 2004 when three local venture firms, New Enterprise Associates, Grotech Capital Group Inc. and Columbia Capital, invested $10 million in the firm. NEA and Grotech made out well as investors in Salix.

"In terms of new technology development, this is the most exciting company in the area. We haven't seen anything in the last year or more . . . that is as exciting or has as much upside potential as Hillcrest," said Patrick J. Kerins, a general partner at Grotech. But, Kerins added, the company's success will depend largely on its ability to broker deals with established consumer electronic companies.

A report issued by Forrester Research yesterday said that for Hillcrest, "just as with Google, the power of the system comes from a bone-simple interface backed by powerful technology." But, the report added, the firm's technology "can't succeed until consumer electronics companies, cable companies and others build applications from its basic building blocks."

Rather than sell the system directly to consumers, the company plans to partner with major consumer electronics makers, that make products such as televisions and DVD players, who could integrate Hillcrest's core software with their own products -- a sales strategy that is challenging, to say the least. Hillcrest's executives said they have already lined up several sales partners, but declined to name any of the companies. The firm plans to officially launch its technology this fall.

Hillcrest's system can also record and store television programs, just as a digital video recorder would do. And its "loop" mimics all of the functions of a traditional television remote, allowing a user to change channels and adjust volume levels by clicking and scrolling on images that pop up on the screen.

The firm, which has grown to about 30 people, has already filed 40 patent applications to protect its innovation. But Hillcrest's investors and executives know that cool technology and a stack of patents are not enough to ensure success.

"I have a saying, that a business without revenue is a hobby. . . . At the end of the day our success isn't going to be measured by patents, but by revenue and profits," Simpkins said.

..::littleoslo::..blogpoly

AquaDock

AquaDock

PostSecret

PostSecret: "Mail In Your Secrets Today

You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to PostSecret. Each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

Create your own 4-inch by 6-inch postcards out of any mailable material. But please only put one secret on a card. If you want to share two or more secrets, use multiple postcards.

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A Non-Dogmatic History of the GUI

"Jeremy Reimer provides an 8-page history of GUIs from the early 1930s to the present day. For example, from the conclusion: 'the truth of the story is that the GUI was developed by many different people over a long period of time. Saying that "Apple invented the GUI" or "Apple ripped off the idea from PARC" is overly simplistic, but saying that "Xerox invented the GUI" is equally so."

via /.

Sites and Locations for Weddings and Receptions in Maryland - The Washington Wedding Guide

Sites and Locations for Weddings and Receptions in Maryland - The Washington Wedding Guide