Another Blackbird review..............................
newsbytes.com
Motorola Offers Smartest Set-Top Boxes To Date
(09/14/98); 4:27 PM CST
By Steve Gold, Newsbytes
AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS,
Steve Gold, Newsbytes. Motorola [NYSE:MOT] has taken the wraps off a new TV set top box (STB) technology that it says is based on an open architecture system known as Blackbird. The technology leap-frogs ahead of competing systems from the likes of Nokia, Pace, Sony and others, Newsbytes notes, in that it is not proprietary -- the aim of an open architecture is to promote interworking and the creation of common standards for third-party hardware systems to work together.
According to Motorola, the Blackbird technology combines the key functions of a broadband router, a network computer (NC) and a digital home theater platform. Using this approach and level of integration, the company says, creates a highly integrated interactive entertainment environment.
What's interesting about the Blackbird technology, Newsbytes notes, is that it is billed as the first open platform to support interactive 3D graphics, Java, MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) digital video, hi-fi audio, Internet access, e-commerce and broadband networking technologies in a single integrated unit.
This level of flexibility and integration is made possible, Motorola officials say, by the inclusion of the new "David" operating system architecture from Microware Systems Corp.
According to Steve Bashada, Microware's vice president of marketing, the Motorola STB technology will compete head to head with Web TV-like systems from Philips and Sony.
According to Bashada, the Motorola STB features a built-in Web browser and cable modem for retrieving information, ordering products, and exchanging e-mail. These functions, he said, are fully supported by v2.2 of the David operating system.
Newsbytes notes that David is built on Microware's OS/9 real-time operating system (RTOS) and supports Java capabilities, as well as the latest HTML (hyper text markup language) technologies.
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