The Hindu : Front Page : 2007’s ‘hottest’ product

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Sunday, Dec 02, 2007
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2007’s ‘hottest’ product — made in Bangalore

Special Correspondent

— Photo: Anand Parthasarathy

PLACE-SHIFTING TV: SlingMedia general manager Manish Singhal shows how TV coverage of a cricket match can be sent via the Internet to a distant laptop — even a mobile phone — using the slingbox (arrow).

Bangalore: “One of the most striking computing-and-communicating devices.” “The hottest product of 2007.” These were headlines from Internet product rating sites last week. BusinessWeek magazine’s current issue in the U.S. says: “With the iPod and the Wii, [this is] the biggest winner in consumer electronics for 2007.” On Friday, The New York Times said: “Many executives have come to rely on it, to let them catch their local news, sports and programmes while travelling on business....The first generation [version] was cute. The newest seems irresistible.”

They were all talking about the Slingbox, a palm-sized gadget which, attached to your TV, grabs the content flowing from the cable, digitises it and sends it through the Internet to anywhere in the world for you to catch it — with a laptop or PC.

Even as the U.S. media raved about it, the latest avatar of the Slingbox was on display — at the annual developer conference of Texas Instruments (TI), which ended here on Friday.

Its ticking heart is a special digital signal processing chip from TI. The Slingbox was designed and developed just one km away from the conference venue by a small team of Indian engineers.

Manish Singhal, general manager, SlingMedia, told The Hindu, that the newest model, costing $110 (Rs. 4.000), worked with all popular smart phone operating systems — which means you can catch a Bollywood movie or cricket coverage from your home TV, virtually anywhere in the world, even on a mobile phone or pocket PC. He said features to be introduced in 2008 included “Clip and Sling”: the ability to record and share portions of the content, with friends, using a few clicks; and “Slingcatcher”: the ability to download content directly from the Internet without having to use a PC.

The company is exploring the launch of the product in India next year.

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