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iTV not Apple Interactive Television Box
Yesterday Digg was all abuzz with the news that Apple's forthcoming iTV wasn't a new idea at all, in fact, Apple had tried the very same thing in 1994! PVRWire's Chris Tew gets to the bottom of this, and corrects the Digg crowd.It would seem that Diggers found out about Apple's ill fated Apple Interactive Television Box, which was a set-top box that you plugged into your TV. It featured fast forward and rewind capabilities like today's DVR, but the content wasn't stored locally. The Interactive TV needed to connect up with a cable channel (this device was developed in partnership with British Telecom). There were plans for game shows, children's shows and the like for the interactive TV but the project was abandoned.The iTV, on the other hand, is used to stream media from your Mac onto your TV. There is some talk that the unit will have a hard drive, but no one is sure if that will be for buffering or if the iTV will be able to store media.After the jump check out a picture of the remote that was to come with the Apple Interactive Television Box, it isn't as simple as Apple's current remote.
HDTVs connected to Media Center PCs to triple by 2007
We love market studies, they give us an idea of the reasons why companies are misled and fail to offer the right products and services at prices we want make the decisions they do. Pacific Media Associates believes their research indicates that in the three year period from 2005 to 2007 the number of HDTV-connected Media Center PCs will have tripled. Not entirely surprising considering all the features added over that period, the manufacturers who have started shipping Media Center PCs en masse and that whenever Windows Vista does launch, Media Center will be a part of the Home Premium and Vista Ultimate versions. While streaming and Xbox 360 integration is great, we're not totally sold on the Media Center PC dream just yet; we'll wait until the QAM, HDCP and CableCard questions have been settled before making any long term decisions.[Via PVR Wire]
