It brings all new meaning to " TivoToGo." As a Comcast subscriber I was very pleased about last year's announcement about the Tivo agreement with Comcast. Now we're getting closer to deployment, and details on the product offering may be available soon.

"Customers will be able to choose Comcast's own existing DVR service, which currently has a monthly fee of $9.95, or download the TiVo service right over the Comcast network for a price yet to be announced, Moyer said."

More on this article here.

If you're a user of MediaTicker 2 Beta, you might be wondering why our blog just showed up in your ticker window. Well, its because MediaTicker 2 BETA includes an embedded RSS feed that, until today, wasn't hooked up to anything. We'd configured MT2Beta to never display embedded feeds unless they're redirected to something useful. We just had our own Scott Stewart (webguy extraordinaire) hook up that embedded feed to the Labs Blog so we could test whether or not it worked. Well, seems like it does :)

What will this embedded feed be used for, you might ask? Well, we have a new promotion that's going to show up soon. We think that MediaTicker users are going to like it, so stay tuned. It'll be turned on when we officially launch MediaTicker 2 in a little while.

In the meantime, go ahead and enjoy the blog...

All the best

The Labs Team

Microsoft announced the release of Windows Media Player 11 on Monday this week. Seems like most of the "new stuff" is all about better marketing, although there are a few cool new features, including:

- Improved GUI with customization capabilities
- Improved device handling including shuffle sync, reverse sync, device exploration in the library and intuitive syncing of DRM'd content
- Better library navigation
- Audio fingerprinting
- New formats for ripping and playback

The next frontier for video sharing services is 'mobile.' Rather than download & copy files to your device, services like Microsoft Soapbox and YouTube would rather have you stay in their branded experience (complete with advertising). This also lets them keep some control over copyrighted content. Here's a sneak peek of the Soapbox mobile, from their blog...

Through the wonders of ad placement now you can be reminded that you need to pick up Creator 9 at your local Sam's Club gas pump. So now instead of just burning oil, head into Sam's and start burning DVDs, or copy some video to your iPod so you can watch video instead of that boring highway.*


*Er, passengers only.

Reviews are coming in for Creator 9 and the verdict is unanimous - it's a hit! Our teams worked very very hard on this release, so it's great to see the positive results. When Creator 8 was released Roxio had only been with Sonic for 6 months and our teams were not really integrated well yet. Now, a year later, things are much smoother and it shows. The product managers and engineering teams really focused on going beyond features and improving the performance and experience of Creator - from major workflow issues to "those little things" that make a product exceptional.

PocketLint
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/reviews/review.phtml/1841/2865/roxio-easy-media-creator-9.phtml

PC Pro
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/96026/roxio-easy-media-creator-9.html

Computer Buyer
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/buyer/reviews/96299/roxio-easy-media-creator-9-suite.html

Personal Computer World
http://www.vnunet.com/personal-computer-world/software/2165753/roxio-creator-suite

TrustedReviews
http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=3501

SoftwareEditorial
http://www.softwareeditorial.com/roxioemc9.html

PlaysForSure was Microsoft's digital media rights management brand name and certification process to help ensure that Windows Media music from a wide range of music stores would work on "PlaysForSure" players. Apparently that doesn't include Zune. I sense a backlash forming.

The NY Times offers some mixed commentary on the new device.

This is why I still buy CDs. Once you spend a few hundred bucks with a particular store, you're locked in and at risk if you ever change devices or stores. It also makes the case for subscription music rather than purchase. At least then you KNOW you won't be able to keep the music once you drop your subscription.

If Microsoft gets behind the Zune the way they did with XBox, though, then it's worth sticking it out. I haven't been able to find out if it will support Windows Media Lossless playback but for me that alone would make the case for purchase. With 30GB, why compress to 192kbps if you own the CD?

[Sorry we've been away for a couple weeks. Our team was away on business then of course a short week last week.]

Be mesmerized as our own Adam Fingerman convinces you that Easy Media Creator 9 will actually enhance your health and well-being HERE on buy.com.



Creator 9 for everyone on my holiday shopping list!

So, we already have Gen-Xers, GenY, GenZ, and Generation D(igital). I'm still not sure if any of them apply to my 3-year old but I think his generation is yet to be coined - correct me if wrong. One thing is for sure: His will be the most digitally fluent and wired yet.

Case in point...we have a Windows Media Center machine at home as our media server. All our music and photos are accessible through the Media Center interface.

Like many 3-year olds he can click around a web browser on NickJr.com and a couple other places, but it's easy to get lost or stuck if he clicks the wrong thing. In other words, computers usually present an interface built for more advanced navigation.

Media Center, however, uses a kiosk-like interface. Big buttons, full-screen, and no flashing ads or pages of text to confuse the eye. The result is, after watching me a few times he can easily find and play most of his favorite songs (and he's very specific about what songs he wants to hear) even though he can't read. Album covers are instantly recognizable patterns for a 3-year old, and individual songs are located by their position in the list and length of the name. He can find the play and back buttons and that's all he needs.

The implications for design here are not insignificant. Microsoft has ostensibly created a user interface that is so easy "a three-year old could use it." TiVo shares many of the same attributes. One might argue that if your target audience is "everyone," then the mark of a successful software product design should be just that - successful operation by a three-year old.

Fundamentally, you can only make something so easy before you have to start removing features, but my point is this: The use of minimum age as a metric for determining software complexity might hold value for the design process. Perhaps software companies should even go so far as to start focus testing products with children. If the products fail, then refine the software until it is operable by a target age group. That age could then be considered the "complexity level" for the product or web site.

Kids products and toys are usually kid-tested, but I think there may be great benefit in kid-testing almost any consumer product to improve ease-of-use (uh, toasters and powersaws excepted). The consumer electronics industry, for example, could use some serious help here. The iMac remote is probably the only one a 3-year old could truly use.

Welcome, Generation DMIG (Digital Media Instant Gratification), our focus group for Generation X!

You can feel it in the air: there’s an imminent rise in demand for video distributed over the web. At the same time, some are foretelling that existing content delivery networks can’t handle the bandwidth requirements. Enter companies like BitTorrent, RedSwoosh, and the yet-to-be-unveiled “The Venice Project”, which is founded by the same folks who founded Kazaa and Skype. All of these are P2P technologies that are targeting video for download. RedSwoosh recently received a round of VC funding and BitTorrent is rumored to be close to a $15 to $25 million dollar round of funding (http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-partners-with-tv-and-movie-companies), which is more than a casual amount.

Personally, I won’t be doing much video watching on my computer. Maybe I’m just too old. However, I can imagine a younger generation that will opt for no TV in the room in lieu of a computer, as long as the right premium content is available for download. In any case, there’s still the living room viewing experience, which isn’t going away for a long, long time. That’s where I think this P2P technology gets really interesting. If it were to end up in set top boxes like Tivo and Xbox then it’s a wining situation for everyone: consumers can download high resolution video faster and content owners save money in distribution. Additionally, the nastiness that comes with P2P (spyware-like clients, hard drive space taken, and general sense of ‘personal’ taken out of the computer) would be hidden inside a black box.

In the more immediate time frame, keep an eye out for the release of The Venice Project, which I believe is due any time now. Given the founders’ track record, I’m expecting it to be an interesting product.

So, finally... Microsoft launches Vista to businesses today:

http://www.microsoft.com/business/launch2007/default.mspx

Along with all the goodies that Vista brings, it also ships with DirectX 10, which has gamers going all wobbly at the knees. Read about DX10 here.