Intel continued its quest to build what it calls the
“Digital Home” with another round of major capital investments.
The chipmaking giant announced Monday that it has parceled out some of its
$200 million in venture funding between five companies to support technology
that lets people edit, manage and access content between PCs and other
consumer electronics devices, including TVs, video recorders, stereos, and handheld over a wireless home network.
Intel did not disclose specific breakdowns of the payout, which is part
of its Intel Digital Home Fund. Since its inception in January 2004, the
division has handed out checks to companies in their series B and C rounds of
funding that make products that align with Intel’s vision.
This round of recipients includes: CableMatrix, Mediabolic, Pure
Networks, BridgeCo and Envivio.
“Barriers, such as interoperability and ease of use, must be overcome to
accelerate digital home technology adoption,” Scott Darling, Intel Capital
vice president, said in a statement. “We’re investing in these five companies
to help solve these technical issues, making it simpler and more enjoyable
for people to connect their consumer electronics and computing devices and
share content around their homes.”
Intel said its investment in CableMatrix, based in Atlanta and Jerusalem,
will help develop that company’s On Demand Service Platform (ODSP) software
based on the CableLabs PacketCable Multimedia standard.
San Francisco-based Mediabolic has a software platform that allows
traditional categories of consumer electronics products, such as DVD players
and PCs, as well as digital media servers, recorders and adaptors, to share
music, photos and other media types.
Pure Networks, out of Seattle, makes consumer software and services to tie
together a wide range of routers, gateways, networked devices and PCs with
multiple operating systems
BridgeCo, based in Zurich, Switzerland, designs integrated chips and
software that wirelessly link PCs to consumer electronics devices, so
consumers can enjoy digital content anywhere in the home. Intel Capital
first invested in BridgeCo in 2002.
Finally, Intel is investing in Envivio for the second time since 2002.
Based in San Francisco, the company develops Moving Picture Experts Group
Layer 4 (MPEG-4) and Advanced Video Coding H.264 software compression
products.
The top chipmaker has been devoting time and money to beef up its
presence in the consumer device space. Last month, Intel announced its
collaboration with the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) on a spec to
connect entertainment PCs via Digital Transmission Content Protection over
Internet Protocols (or DTCP/IP for short). The technology allows customers
to distribute content over a number of devices. Intel said it is expecting
the first products with DTCP/IP support to ship in the second half of 2004.
In the last six months, Intel has unveiled platform designs for
“Florence,” the new category of entertainment PCs expected to be available
from OEM suppliers sometime soon. In April, Intel and Movielink announced
plans to bring first-run movies to home computers and mobile PCs. Intel also
teamed up with Dolby Laboratories with plans to bring consumer
electronics-quality audio based on Intel High Definition Audio to PCs.
In a related announcement, Intel today introduced its Intel E7221 chipset
(codenamed Copper River), which includes PCI Express interconnect technology
and faster DDR2-533 memory, to single-processor servers.
Based on the previously introduced Intel Pentium 4 processor with HT
Technology, the 3.60 GHz chip adds Intel Hyper-Threading technology, Intel
Extended Memory 64 technology and SSE3 technology. The chipset includes PCI
Express to deliver up to 4 GB/second throughput on an x8 interface. The
company said the dual-channel DDR2-533 memory delivers up to 8.5 GB/second
bandwidth, providing up to a 60 percent increase over DDR333 with reduced
power consumption. The chipset is available today and costs $52 in bulk
purchase quantities of 1,000.
