AT&T turns cell phones into TV remotes

AT&T said that starting Tuesday, it will allow customers of its Homezone product, a service that offers video-on-demand and other content from the Internet on TVs, to use their mobile handsets to remotely view listings and schedule or delete recordings from their DVR (digital video recorder) set-top boxes. All that is needed is a WAP 2.0-enabled handset that lets subscribers access the AT&T-Yahoo portal.

This is pretty cool – now, what ever happened to the Verizon/TiVo deal that was going to bring a TiVo application to Verizon cell phones? I caught a glimpse of it at CES2006 (it wasn’t being shown, some folks were talking about it where I could see it though), and it was announced later in the year – but it hasn’t appeared.

Personally I’d like to see TiVo make the TiVo Central Online site mobile-friendly – just like Google has done for their search site, Gmail, etc. You don’t need special apps. Though they could also publish an API for the site and then the community could produce their own apps for the different platforms – PalmOS, WinMob, J2ME, etc.

EDIT: Well, ask and you shall receive. I asked about the Verizon-TiVo status, and later in the evening I found (well, Google found and told me about) a couple of articles which claim that the Verizon software will be out next week. Here’s one and here’s the other one.

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TiVo and EarthLink Align to Offer Bundle of TiVo DVR & EarthLink DSL

TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO), the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), and EarthLink Inc. (Nasdaq: ELNK), today announced an agreement to offer bundled Internet and television services, through the stand-alone TiVo(R) Series2(TM) Dual Tuner (DT) DVR and TiVo(R) service and EarthLink branded dial-up, DSL, or digital voice services.

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TiVo 4th quarter & year end results reported Wednesday, March 7th

TiVo has a few events coming up on their calendar. The main one is the 4th quarter & year end financial con call.

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TIVO RENEWS ADVERTISING AGREEMENT WITH INTERPUBLIC

TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator and a leader in advertising solutions and television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced the renewal of a comprehensive, multi-million dollar advertising agreement with the Interpublic Group of Companies Inc. (NYSE: IPG). The renewal further extends the benefits of making TiVo advertising a regular buy for clients across all Interpublic Group agencies, which include Initiative, MAGNA Global, and Universal McCann.

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Daylight savings time changes – Great news for the Series2/3, not so good for the Series1

There’s a thread about the DST changes over at TiVoCommunity.com.

TiVoJerry has made a few posts with information. From one post:

Series2 and Series3 have been updated to accommodate the changes to DST. There will be a few cosmetic display issues on Series2 systems, but they do not affect functionality (all of your shows should record just fine). The two cosmetic issues we’re aware of are:
**The Series2 guide and the clock displays will “jump” ahead at GMT instead of your local DST, but recordings will still happen at the proper time. (i.e. for Pacific Time the clock will display as 7pm instead of 6pm, Eastern Time would be fine until 9pm, jumping to 10pm).
**Series2 DVD platforms may display the incorrect time on the bezel for a little longer, but will have no effect on your recordings.DIRECTV platforms have software releases going out now that carry a fix, but I am told they require a phone connection to install. I don’t personally know of any issues with them, but all reports or questions should be directed to DIRECTV.

We’re confirming what the behavior will be on Series1 units, but there are no updates currently planned for those systems. From our testing we anticipate any issues on these systems to also be purely cosmetic (your shows will record just fine), but I’m still working to confirm this.

From another post:

S3 will function and display properly. No known exceptions.S2 will function but the displayed time (guide, banner, ToDo List, recording screens, system information) will display the incorrect time. This cosmetic display inconsistency happens between GMT+0 (9pm Eastern, 6pm Pacific for example) and DST for your local time zone. Even though the times may be displayed incorrectly, the recordings will happen on time as expected. This include manual recordings.

And from yet another post:

The cosmetic issue for S2 units is fixed in our next update, so it will not be an issue for the fall time change.Since TiVo CS has not supported the DTV platform since 2001, I am not intimately familiar with all the details around the various DTV platforms and their respective software versions. However, I’m being am told not to worry because our engineering department worked with DTV awhile ago on getting fixes into software, some of which was tested awhile ago but only recently auth’d for distribution.

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