Joining an already crowded Internet TV market, the debut of the “LiTV” service in Taiwan was announced yesterday, backed by TiVo Inc and a United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) executive.
The new Internet TV service boasts content such as YouTube, karaoke and movie rentals, as well as partnerships with two local home electronics heavyweights, Tatung Co (大同) and Sampo Corp (聲寶), which plan to launch smart TVs that come with built-in LiTV software.
“LiTV is catering to localized tastes and it is a service for the family audience — minus the adult programs,” Chien Ta-wei (錢大衛), president of TGC Inc (替您錄科技) and a previous vice president of TiVo, told a product launch.
TGC is a Taiwanese venture set up in 2004, with shareholders including TiVo and UMC honorary vice chairman John Hsuan (宣明智).
TGC brought digital video recording services TiVo to Taiwan in 2005, but it failed to take off. However, the company is aiming for a comeback with the online TV service.
Hsuan is equally confident that LiTV will suit Taiwanese consumers.
“Now is the best time for Internet TV because the broadband infrastructure is ready and more people are tuning in to Internet TV,” he said.
Chien cited Netflix Inc, the US flat-rate online video rental service provider, as an example as he said Taiwan’s market has room for exponential growth.
Nexflix, whose service costs only US$7.99 per month, saw its US subscriber base rise with more than 23.6 million in the first quarter, compared to 20 million in the previous three months, proving that more consumers are willing to pay for good Internet TV service, he said.
Despite touting Sampo and Tatung as hardware partners, the service could face some bumps as consumers have to buy smart TVs from these two makers to utilize LiTV, not to mention that each has only one model ready to support the application.
TGC said it is talking with more TV makers to have LiTV built in as a value-added feature, and it has plans to roll out set-top boxes that combine both TiVo and LiTV features.
Bigger rival Chunghwa Telecom Co (CHT, 中華電信) said in February it is gearing up to enhance its online TV — called -multimedia-on-demand (MOD) — by expanding its high-definition channels from 16 to 33.
It is aiming to boost MOD subscribers to 1 million by the end of the year, from 810,000 in December last year. CHT had 667,000 MOD subscribers in December 2009.
Meanwhile, Next TV is set to boost its appeal with the upcoming debut of games and Internet shopping services.
The Internet TV portal, which belongs to Next Media Ltd (壹傳媒), said last month it aims to grab a “large” piece of Taiwan’s market share by year’s end.
Next TV currently boasts more than 1,000 titles in its offerings and started to charge for some programs from April.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure