TiVo Launches Java-Based Software Development Kit

DVR vendor/service provider, TiVo, has launched a Java-based early-access software development kit (SDK), with the goal of enabling 3rd parties to develop rich media broadband entertainment and information services for its platform.

The launch is part of the "Tahiti" strategy which TiVo announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, and whose broad goal is to expand its platform into an "open," Internet-enabled home entertainment hub--and thus to differentiate it from the DVR-only platforms (such as Scientific-Atlanta's Explorer 8000 series boxes) that are being rapidly and widely deployed by US cable and satellite operators and that pose a very significant competitive threat to TiVo.

TiVo says that it expects the SDK will be used to create a wide variety of applications for its platform, including rich music and photo services, advanced program and movie guides, sports services, local weather information services, and multiplayer social games. The apps will be hosted on TiVo servers or on networked PC's in the end-user's home.

To drive interest in the SDK, TiVo is holding a developers' contest, whose entries will be judged by a panel of industry experts, including James Gosling, CTO of Sun Microsystems' developer products group, and Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine (note: more information on the contest is available on TiVo's Web site at www.tivo.com/challenge). Winners of the contest will be announced at the JavaOne conference this summer in San Francisco.

The SDK, which is subject to the Common Public License, is being offered on the Open Source software development Web site, Sourceforge.net. It can be downloaded at www.tivohme.sourceforge.net.