Comcast’s new “X1″ set top box is now available to customers in Philadelphia, central New Jersey and the Northern Delaware Valley. Comcast has already launched the redesigned platform in Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia, Boston, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. The new widget and app-heavy platform is essentially Comcast playing catch up with a number of interactive advancements we’ve seen satellite and phone companies doing for the last several years. In addition to apps from Pandora and Facebook, [...]

Verizon is the latest to file for a patent that would allow the company to use set top cameras and microphones to monitor your living room, all so they can send you more targeted advertisements. We’ve already seen similar patents from Microsoft and Comcast, with the idea raising eyebrows due to intrusiveness and potential privacy violations. Verizon’s new patent for set top box technology (full patent application here) appears to take things even further, using [...]

A new study by the Internet Innovation Alliance insists that consumers experience a $8,870 annual savings on goods and services simply by having a broadband connection. The study (simple graphical break down, press release) achieves these numbers by estimating the money saved by broadband users through only cost comparison, access to “a deeper inventory” of items, and the gas saved by not having to drive to brick-and-mortar stores. Obviously you could have done all of [...]

Dish is preparing to launch an over the air (OTA) dongle for use with their controversial (at least among broadcasters) Hopper ad-skipping DVR. The company gave the folks over at Satellite Guys a first look at the device, which should sell for around $30 and connect an antenna to the Hopper DVR via USB. The folks over at Satellite Guys say they were able to pick up around 30 digital stations using the device, though [...]

Comcast tells the Philadelphia Business Journal (via Light Reading) that the company’s new X1 set top box should make its debut in the Philadelphia market in just a few weeks. Comcast has already launched the redesigned platform in Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia, Boston, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. The new widget and app-heavy platform is essentially Comcast playing catch up with a number of interactive advancements we’ve seen satellite and phone companies doing for the last several [...]

Comcast tells the Philadelphia Business Journal (via Light Reading) that the company’s new X1 set top box should make its debut in the Philadelphia market in just a few weeks. Comcast has already launched the redesigned platform in Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia, Boston, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. The new widget and app-heavy platform is essentially Comcast playing catch up with a number of interactive advancements we’ve seen satellite and phone companies doing for the last several [...]

Time Warner Cable is sending a mailer out to some users inquiring whether they’d be interested in paying $7 a month to guarantee “reliable service.” The idea, as suggested in the survey e-mail, is that for your $7 a month users would be ensured that they have the latest and greatest DVR, modem and other household equipment as gear gets updated and improved. The company has already come under fire for recently imposing a new [...]

As we’ve been discussing, Dish is now offering users a new DVR ad-skipping technology that has most cable and broadcast executives running for the waaaaambulance. Dish’s Hopper technology simply automates something DVR users are already doing (skipping ads), provided the program they’re viewing is at least one day past its live air date. The result has been an amusing platter of broadcast executive hysteria and several lawsuits, companies like Fox and Time Warner Cable insisting [...]

As we’ve been discussing, Dish is now offering users a new DVR ad-skipping technology that has most cable and broadcast executives running for the waaaaambulance. Dish’s Hopper technology simply automates something DVR users are already doing (skipping ads), provided the program they’re viewing is at least one day past its live air date. The result has been an amusing platter of broadcast executive hysteria and several lawsuits, companies like Fox and Time Warner Cable insisting [...]

Back in March of 2008, Comcast’s Gerard Kunkel proclaimed that Comcast was experimenting with embedding cameras in your DVR or cable box, allowing the company to know exactly who is watching what, at what time. There was significant backlash and that idea never materialized, but there continues to be a flood of patents for similar concepts. Microsoft is the latest, filing a new Kinect-focused patent to “monitor, count and in some cases identify” people watching [...]