Wearing a software box on your head might have seemed sporty on Monday, but now it just looks stupid.
Read on past the break and you can begin this potentially short, hopefully sweet journey with me, starting with a quick rundown of my test rig (which also happens to be my mission critical work computer) and an anti-climactic revelation about whether, in the end, I ever found the software box I was looking for.
Set-top box software may hold the biggest opportunity for Microsoft.
Now, for the first time, Allen is competing directly with Gates for the same business: set-top-box software that lets cable companies offer digital video recording, video on demand and, eventually, shopping.
Among other things, the company makes set-top box software.
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It would be possible for someone like TiVo to develop OCAP software like they are for Comcast right now, but it would be up to each provider to distribute the software to the box you rented or purchased.
Because UCB develops our own proprietary software system, every box we purchase is tracked and reported online in real-time.
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Virgin Media in the U.K. is using TiVo's set-top box and software as the cornerstone of its advanced TV rollout to its 4 million subscribers.
The Internet also helps Dell provide better and cheaper technical support with technology that allows buyers to log on to a Web site for instant answers and software fixes (see box, opposite).
Virgin Media ( VMED - news - people ) in the U.K. is using TiVo's set-top box and software as the cornerstone of its advanced TV rollout to its 4 million subscribers.
In the future, Microsoft could also license Kinect software to TVs and cable set-top box makers just like Google embeds its Android software in TVs to come out with Google TV.
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Jobs said that Apple is essentially a software company whose hardware is a beautiful box for the product, but that close coupling of hardware and software was generally necessary in consumer electronics.
Imagine downloading a software upgrade for your cable box from the Internet or upgrading your printer with a mouse click (for more on PLDs click here).
To corner the market, one of the two billionaires will first have to win over Comcast, which is currently offering Microsoft's Foundation Edition software and testing the Moxi box, made by Allen's company, Digeo.
According to an email sent out to Kickstarter backers this evening, their new box will have a software update required as soon as it's plugged in.
Now that TiVo and Replay have caught everyone's attention, set-top box manufacturers and smaller software companies like Metabyte Networks are trying to muscle in on the market.
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Media center software, a streaming set top box and a TV-tuning USB dongle -- Boxee already has a pretty decent amount on its plate.
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Sensors out in the field monitor all the traffic area and report back to the box, and the software provides users with a real-time, graphical view of what's going on inside their network.
Once stuck in a box, Vudu's software now lives in the cloud.
"Sun has become a premier software provider to the set-top box market, and enjoys a good reputation in the cable industry, " says Cynthia Brumfield, a senior analyst at Paul Kagan Associates.
They claim that they will have a magic box of telecommunications hardware and software that can eliminate the bottleneck known as the Last Mile: the final stretch of cable, fiber or copper into homes.
The first speaker is Dan Levin, the COO of Box, a cloud business collaboration software company.
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The biggest: a software developer kit for the AppleTV set top box.
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Out of the box the Studio comes with a software suite that enables tuning the cam's settings (full manual control is available) plus recording video or capturing snapshots.
And so there is a land-grab afoot where the younger, nimbler Web software firms Salesforce, Workday, Netsuite, and Box are aiming to gain share from the giants including Oracle and SAP.
In addition, Quidsi developed a software program, called Boxem, that calculates the best sized box for any individual order, saving on shipping and other costs.
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The key to innovation in the set-top box space is giving consumers a choice of hardware and software.
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Samsung also announced that it would make a Google TV set and a set-top box, both of which can run Adobe's software but not Hulu's.
Each of these companies wants to strengthen its position in the corporate Internet software market, and all would benefit from buying Netscape (see box, opposite).
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