ti

And it only took eight months. TiVo announced in September 2010 it would be adding Hulu Plus to its Premiere DVRs and here it is. Hulu Plus joins Blockbuster, Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, and YouTube on TiVo's roster of streaming video services.

Having had a chance to test it out, I found the interface looks the same as it does on other devices and is easy enough to navigate. It takes about 30 seconds to load up and start searching through content. Speaking of search, TiVo's search doesn't seem to be connected to Hulu just yet. By … Read more

Comcast and TiVo's long-running negotiations (think five years, people) to bring TiVo software to Comcast's set-top boxes is now officially dead. As are TiVo's hopes, as far as we're concerned. Also, CNET may have tipped off Sony to yet another planned attack this weekend, and good news! They stopped it! Bad news: PSN and Qriocity may not be fully operational until May 31. Also, a civil war seems to be brewing over at Anonymous, and you can't pay attention because you have too much brain. --Molly

One of the major hang-ups for people switching from a cable provider's DVR to TiVo is that the retail TiVo doesn't offer the cable provider's video-on-demand (VOD) channels. So, while you can get plenty of options from TiVo's built-in video service providers--Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon, and (soon) Hulu Plus--you can't order, say, a prize fight or even the bevy of "free" VOD options available on most cable systems, thanks to the technical restrictions of TiVo's CableCard technology.

Well it looks like that sticking point may soon be unstuck as Comcast and TiVo have … Read more

After several years of litigation, the patent-infringement case that TiVo launched against Dish Network and EchoStar has come to an end.

Dish Network and EchoStar have agreed to pay TiVo $500 million to settle the case, including an upfront payment of $290 million from Dish and $10 million from EchoStar. Between 2012 and 2017, the companies will pay TiVo the remaining $200 million in equal installments. The parties also agreed to eliminate all pending litigation between them.

The battle between the companies started in 2004 when TiVo claimed EchoStar, which was Dish Network's parent company before the satellite provider … Read more

TiVo has scored an important victory in its patent battle with EchoStar.

In a 7-5 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled (PDF) yesterday that EchoStar did, in fact, violate TiVo's "multimedia time warping system" patent that allows consumers to record one show, while watching another. The decision paves the way for TiVo to finally force EchoStar to disable any infringing devices in consumers' homes.

TiVo's battle with EchoStar started in 2004, when the DVR company first brought to light its belief that its patent was infringed. In 2006, a Texas … Read more

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

Texas Instruments announces plans to acquire National Semiconductor for $6.5 billion

Google may have an antitrust investigation on its hands soon

AT&T will now charge an extra $50 if you want to upgrade your iPhone before your two-year contract is up

Sprint is looking into mobile phone payments using NFC

Google updates Maps for Android with enhanced check-in and location-based features

Sony is reportedly launching Honeycomb tablets later this year

The Commodore 64 is back

Texas Instruments plans to purchase fellow analog chipmaker National Semiconductor for $6.5 billion, the companies announced today.

TI is paying cash for National Semi. Stockholders will get $25 per share, an $11 per share premium over the $14.07 National Semi shares closed at today. Both boards have already approved the deal. There is a "break-up fee" of $200 million.

TI says the companies' sales force together will be "10 times larger" after the acquisition. Combined, the two could capture a 17 to 18 percent market share, company executives said on a conference call this … Read more

It's almost like a "Wizard of Oz" moment for Texas Instruments, which is opening the door to color displays on its popular calculators.

Next month, the semiconductor and educational technology giant is launching the $165 TI-Nspire CX handheld, its thinnest and lightest graphing calculator ever. The specs completely blow away the TI-84 that I used in college.

Thankfully, TI has moved away from the monochromatic screen of yesteryear and boasts that the CX has a 3.2-inch 16-bit color LCD (320x240) with a respectable 125 DPI. TI also bumped up the memory in the CX series compared to previous TI-Nspire models with 100MB of onboard storage and 64MB of RAM. I can imagine hackers are already salivating to get Doom and Game Boy Color emulators running on this thing as soon as possible.

Of course, the real strength of a TI calculator is its ability to handle higher-level mathematic concepts. The TI-Nspire CX is designed for pre-algebra, algebra 1 and 2, trigonometry, geometry, pre-calculus, statistics, business and finance, biology, physics, chemistry, and calculus classes.

An alternate Computer Algebra System (CAS) model is also available and is approved for standardized testing, such as the SAT, PSAT/NMSQT, ACT, AP, IB, and Praxis exams. I wonder if it can calculate how many commas were in my last two sentences. … Read more

Motorola has filed a patent-infringement suit against TiVo over digital video recorders, according to a report.

The suit claims TiVo willfully infringed patents that were filed in the mid 1990s on behalf of a company later acquired by Motorola, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal.

The Journal reports that the suit also mentions a DVR patent claim filed by TiVo against Verizon--which offers a service that uses set-top boxes made by Motorola--and that the Motorola suit seeks "all available remedies" for TiVo's alleged infringements, as well as a declaration that Motorola set tops … Read more