verizon

Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we are covering a number of stories in this issue in summary form:

Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against TiVo in a San Francisco federal court, claiming that the DVR company has infringed upon two of its US patents--which cover technologies for securely purchasing and delivering video and for displaying programmable information respectively, Bloomberg reported yesterday. Microsoft, which claims that TiVo is illegally using the technologies described by the patents in its set-top boxes, its software and its subscription service, is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a court order to prevent TiVo from using the technologies.

Verizon announced last week that it has launched a Caller ID on TV application on its FiOS TV platform (note: the company comes relatively late to the caller ID on TV game: other pay-TV operators that offer such applications include AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox, DirecTV, DISH Network, Rogers and Time Warner Cable). The service, which is initially available to FiOS TV subscribers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Texas, is offered at no extra charge. It presents subscribers with information on incoming calls that appears for several seconds in the corner of their TV screen: subscribers can then decide whether they want to pause the program they are watching and answer the call, or continue watching TV and let the call go to their voicemail.

In a posting on a Verizon blog, Wednesday, the company's SVP of media relations, Eric Rabe, announced that it is upgrading its FiOS TV Interactive Media Guide in order to "make on-screen purchasing and navigation faster and easier." According to Rabe, the upgrade was in response to feedback from FiOS TV customers: "FiOS TV customers wanted more detailed program information, interactive video-on-demand, more shortcuts and easier ways to upgrade their FiOS TV, and I'm happy to say the folks in the FiOS lab have come up with some pretty neat responses," he wrote.

The [itvt] editorial team is currently traveling in the UK, and, because of time restraints, we have decided to focus our editorial efforts this week on news that has been less widely covered (or not covered anywhere else at all). Three of the more widely covered news stories from the past few days are covered in summary/round-up form below. We anticipate some additional interruption of our regular news publishing schedule over the next few days, so we apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers. Here is the round-up:

In a posting on a Verizon blog, Monday, the company's SVP of media relations, Eric Rabe, revealed that it will later this week announce that it is opening up--at no extra charge--its Media Manager service to any FiOS TV and Internet customer who also has a DVR. The service was previously available only to subscribers to the company's Home Media multi-room DVR service who were also subscribers to its Internet service. It allows FiOS TV customers to use their TV to view personal photos, play music and stream videos from a PC, and also lets them use their TV to search and watch online videos from Blip.tv, Dailymotion and Veoh.

[itvt] has just published in-depth audio interviews with Jan Steenkamp, VP America at Irdeto, and Russell Barnes, senior producer at the BBC.

In a press release issued Tuesday, in which it officially announced the upgrades to its FiOS TV Twitter and Facebook interactive TV widgets that it had first announced in a posting on a corporate blog last Friday (note: for more on the updates--which allow viewers to use the widgets to send tweets and post their own Facebook updates--see the article published on itvt.com, August 3rd), and also claimed that FiOS TV subscribers had already used the new widgets to view "millions of tweets and Facebook gallery photos," Verizon

In a posting on the company's Verizon At Home blog, Friday, Verizon's SVP of media relations, Eric Rabe, announced that the company has added some new features to the Facebook and Twitter interactive TV widgets that it launched on its FiOS TV platform just last month (note: for more on the new widgets and on Verizon's new Widget Bazaar applications store, see the article published on itvt.com, July 15th).

Verizon is set to make several major announcements about its FiOS TV platform today. It will 1) unveil interactive TV services which it has developed with Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, Veoh, blip.tv and Dailymotion, and which it says will create a "truly converged Internet-to-television experience" that will allow FiOS TV subscribers to connect with one another while watching TV and view a range of online and personal PC-based videos on their TV screen; 2) launch a Widget Bazaar applications store, loosely modeled on the Apple App Store; and 3) launch an open development platform, enabling developers to write interactive TV applications for FiOS TV, which will be made available through the new Widget Bazaar.

Verizon said Monday that it is now offering its Web-based remote DVR management service to all DVR-equipped customers of its FiOS TV service, as well as expanding its mobile DVR management service to a larger range of wireless handsets. The company launched its remote DVR management service, free-of-charge, to FiOS TV Media Manager subscribers in January: those subscribers have been able to access the service via a special Web site or through a small selection of Verizon Wireless handsets. The company says it is now opening up the online version of the service to all FiOS TV DVR users.

In a July 31st letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), US incumbent telco, Verizon, complained that the US cable industry's tru2way standard "is not compatible with other video providers' networks, including Verizon's all-fiber FiOS network" over which it offers its interactive TV-enabled FiOS TV service; and encouraged the FCC to take a "platform-agnostic" approach to fostering the implementation of two-way interactive TV.

In this recorded episode of [itvt]'s talk radio show, "The TV of
Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow," Dalen Harrison, CEO of
Ensequence; Peter Low, president and COO of Ensequence; Bill
Niemeyer, chief of analysis and research at BlackArrow; Gowri
Shankar, SVP of sales and business development at

--Interactive Media Guide Now Available across Entire FiOS Footprint

US incumbent telco Verizon has launched HD VOD service in parts of
nine more states where it offers its FiOS TV service: California,
Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, eastern
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Texas (note: it has also announced
plans to launch it in Oregon in the near future). It initially launched the
service last December in Florida, Indiana, western Pennsylvania and
Virginia. It also recently expanded the service's content line-up via new
deals with CBS (note: the CBS deal allowed it to offer both SD and HD