TiVo releases an... SDK?
Digital-video recorder company TiVo plans to announce Monday the release of a software development kit that lets third-party application makers add new features to TiVo's DVR service.
Yea, I got excited when it came across my desk too. Unfortunately, at least from the examples given, I'm hard pressed to find the inherent coolness in the release...
The company expects to release three applications with the kit. One will display on a television weather information gathered from a broadband-connected PC. Other applications include an RSS reader and a game. A home network and broadband connection are needed to take full advantage of the applications.
The SDK seems to be akin to allowing developers, through Java, to add in more web-based services that you can access through your TV through your TiVo. Which isn't to say there isn't some coolness here, as whenever a platform allows for plugins and such you never quite know what can come from it.
But this is still a PVR, and the vast majority of third party coolness would be from leveraging the fact that it's a PVR in ways TiVo isn't prepared to go, or hasn't yet thought of. If this is just a java platform to pull in services from the web and display on the TV, that's one thing... if developers will actually have access to your stored content, that's a much larger, and much cooler thing.
Posted by drunkenbatmanJanuary 31, 2005, at 02:48 AM
