Josh Dilworth

As I mentioned earlier this month, Roku officially stepped up to the plate against Apple TV by launching their new line of streaming video products.  The price and functionality of the product compare favorably to our competitors, but the timing of this release was particularly fun.

Why?

Don’t overlook the fact that building these kinds of boxes is non-trivial (resulting in frequent delays from some). The new Roku is fully baked and ready to ship. Chris over at Financial Times provides a great overview.

Roku is a feisty and fleet-footed Silicon Valley company that has been running ahead of a flood of internet-connected devices threatening to engulf its tiny set-top box. With its new lineup just launched, Roku stays out in front on price and content and gets in just ahead of its biggest challenger to date -  Apple TV, which is due to go on sale by the end of the month.

Disclosure:  Roku is a client

I’m really bullish on Nova and Sanjay’s new project:

When we first looked at the service ahead of its private beta earlier this year, we described it as “the live web’s first programming guide” and as far as we can see, it is still the only service of its kind.

Why? Because I agree that the Scheduled Web is what makes the Real-Time Web actionable. You can read more about the idea of the Scheduled Web here.

Our obsession with the present is a sign of the times, but it is also a form of collective myopia — the Real-Time Web really doesn’t include the past or the future -– it exists in a kind of perpetual now.

To put the “time” into Real-Time, we need to  provide a way to see the past, present and the future Real-Time Web at once.  

For example, we need a way to search and browse the past, present, and the future of a stream – what happened, what is happening, and what is scheduled to happen in the future. And this is where what I am calling The Scheduled Web comes in. It’s the next step for the Real-Time Web.

Disclosure: Live Matrix is a client.

‘Nuff said. Matt couldn’t be more right. And…trust me, this Fall is going to be fun.

Disclosure: Roku is a client.

Norm hits the nail on the head over on RWW:

Assistants will leverage the best of the Web, not just to help you with the tasks you already have on your plate, but also to fundamentally extend your ability to get things done. They are digital prostheses that know what the Web can do for you (and who is good at doing what) and bring distributed intelligence to bear at the local level.

The vision of the assistant - indeed, many assistants - is possible today, an intricate orchestration of an array of sites and services on the fly, resulting in ultimate companionship for mobile lifestyles.

And:

The age of assistants will see a pendulum swing back to back-end engineering and serious R&D and long-term entrepreneurship. Every decade or so we see this kind of shift, a move to fundamentally upgrade the Web with focused, infrastructure-level innovation.

And with a strong set of venture exits and a demonstrable thirst for innovation that goes beyond so many opportunistic, trivial apps, the conditions are ripe.

Siri has proven that real VPAs are not only possible, they fill a need in the market (the company had 250,000 users within a month of launching).

Siri is a beginning, one that will spur further investment of time, money and brainpower. Be assured that developing virtual personal assistants is a capital-intensive undertaking. The potential reward is great - “10 Microsofts”, as it were. That’s a promise that will help further catalyze interest in AI from companies large and small.

Disclosure: SRI is a client.