DVR

IPTV and cloud-based services will play a bigger role in TiVo's business plans going forward, President and CEO Tom Rogers said during a first quarter earnings call with analysts.

Australian telco Telstra plans to use a T-Box personal video recorder unit as the linchpin and a strengthened relationship with content provider Foxtel to make its IPTV service the lever that pries more revenue from a legacy mobile and fixed line subscriber base.

Recognizing that its customers want more than single-device connectivity, TiVo has entered into the whole-home viewing space with the TiVo Mini, a product described in a press release as "an all-purpose companion device that allows TiVo users to access apps and affordably extend the viewing of live TV, recorded and streaming content, as well as on-demand programming, to rooms throughout their homes without an additional TiVo DVR."

I've always considered myself to be a focused kind of guy. I worked in newspapers in the days when newsrooms were filled with reporters talking on the phone and clattering on keyboards and just generally causing a hum that occasionally rose to a buzz that occasionally revved to a dull roar. So I was a little surprised the other night to find myself surfing the Web while simultaneously watching the sometimes painfully slow "Parade's End" on HBO.