The New Wave of Surfing Machines

Jennifer Coombes

Very soon, surfing the web with your TV will be as easy as flicking on the news each night. Who's going to make this possible? Well, we are. OEMs are lining up for QNX technology to build set-top boxes and Internet-enabled TVs of all kinds.

And it's not difficult to figure out why. For example, most existing internet TVs and set-top boxes have limited browsers that can visit only dedicated web sites. By contrast, OEMs are capitalizing on QNX's Voyager web browser, which can surf virtually any site with its full support for HTML 3.2 , frames, animated GIFs, international character sets, JavaScript, and more. The browser technology, a QNX-enhanced version of the Spyglass Mosaic browser offers another bonus - it can be broken apart, easily embedded, and configured to suit just about any consumer device.

No wonder we're fast becoming the solution of choice for makers of set-tops and other web appliances.

Loewe delivers the big picture

Serious technophiles take note. Loewe Opta GmbH, one of the largest television manufacturers in Germany, has just announced TV-Online (TVO), one of a family of high-end TVs dubbed Xelos@media. With a customized version of QNX's Voyager Browser, viewers can surf the web, and shop and bank at home. But that"s only the beginning.

TVO offers a complete home multimedia solution. It integrates television viewing with all sorts of capabilities like email, appointment organizers, and games. It even lets you leave onscreen "post-it note" messages for family members. TVO supports picture-in-picture technology so you can view television programs and multimedia sessions simultaneously. The product can be expanded with DVD features for receiving digital TV.

Users can connect to the web either with an ISDN card or a modem and there's a dialing wizard to help with connecting to the Internet. TVO also includes an electronic lock to prevent kiddies from tapping into the web without their parents' say-so. Future models will include a news reader and will support extensions for videoconferencing.

The television itself, designed by Stuttgart-based Phoenix Product Design, is a wide-screen design offering flicker-free picture quality that uses the latest 100MHz technology. Inside the TV there's a diskless embedded board powered by an AMD ƒlanSC400 microcontroller with 4M of flash, 8M of RAM, and an onboard Chips and Technologies 65545 graphics chip. Most of the TV's functionality is controlled via a handheld remote equipped with a miniature joystick. Users can enter text on a scratchpad using either a virtual onscreen keyboard or an optional infrared keyboard.

TVO will be introduced around the end of the year.

HomePilot project

Looming large on the horizon is HomePilot, a TV set-top box/home-control appliance from Norway's PCTVnet ASA. HomePilot not only lets you surf the web from the comfort of your living room sofa, it will also support many home automation and security features as well.

PCTVnet conservatively estimates they'll ship 350,000 units over the next 16 months. This would by far exceed the installed base for any set-top box currently on the market. The company sees a potential market for the product in the millions, and plans marketing the system directly in Europe and North America. But don't be surprised if your local utility companies get into the act. Already, HomePilot is partnering with European banks, cable TV companies, and other service providers to deliver enhanced services to their customers. Power utilities in Norway, for example, will soon offer the unit to their consumers to provide automated meter reading and power management.

HomePilot is a diskless set-top box powered by an AMD ƒlanSC400 processor with 4M of flash, 8M of RAM, a 33.4 kbaud modem, a 640 x 480 graphics controller, a Sound Blaster audio card, and 4 PC Card slots for a variety of peripherals and communication solutions. Standard features include a wireless infrared keyboard and picture-in-picture technology that allows viewers to switch between Mr. Bean reruns and services like email, news, home shopping and banking, and, of course, surfing.

SurfTV...mais oui!

Got a TV, an electrical outlet, and a phone outlet? Great, that"s all you need to connect up SurfTV, a product that makes all kinds of communications - hands-free phone, fax, Internet, and email-available from any television set. A new OEM agreement between QSSL and Atlantic Network Systems, an affiliate of COM 1 Video & Data Communication, means the next release of SurfTV will include Voyager Internet Technology. "QSSL was the first company we've seen demonstrate a full-featured, embedded web browser running on the x86 platform" says Jean Marc Bernex, SurfTV Project Manager at COM 1.

The same size as a cable decoder, the unit consists of a network computer, an onboard 33.6Kbps modem, a smart-card reader for making electronic purchases, and an infrared keypad for selecting services. The unit can also serve as an answering machine and a personal phone directory. Future options for SurfTV include a videotex terminal capability for video conferencing/monitoring and a digital video disk (DVD) player that can be used to view DVD format films. The Bordeaux, France-based COM1 plans to sell SurfTV initially in France.

Neon illuminates North American TVs

A leading-edge Internet appliance vendor has designs on the North American set-top market. California-based Neon Technology Inc. offers an Internet set-top box OEM kit based on QNX's Voyager technology. Rather than marketing the product directly, Neon is looking to partner with OEMs who will license the kit and customize it for various markets. A Toronto - based OEM has already lit on this opportunity, and is releasing a set-top product, based on Neon's technology, to the Canadian market this fall.

Neon's technology provides the requisite net on a TV set, but offers much more. The box offers voicemail, fax capability, internet telephony, and multiple email accounts. Unlike some set-tops currently on the market that offer less-than-stellar picture quality, Neon's box offers intelligent filtering to ensure crystal-clear resolution on a standard TV.

Running on a 100MHz Intel DX4 processor, Neon's box has a built-in 33.6Kbps data modem, a 14.4Kbps fax modem, RCA jacks, an S-Video jack for TV, hardware ports for a printer, a ZIP drive, and a VGA monitor. It also comes standard with an infrared keyboard, mouse, and a remote-control handset. The set-top box is compatible with both NTSC and PAL video formats. All software runs in 4M of flash and 4M of DRAM.

Philips signs up

At press time QSSL has just signed an agreement with Philips Consumer Electronics for MyWeb, a set-top box intended for distribution in the Asia-Pacific region.