DISH
by Matt Burns on June 3, 2009

Deja Vu? Yeah, EchoStar paid TiVo over a $100 million a couple of years ago for infringing on TiVo’s DVR patents. But it seems that EchoStar didn’t follow the court’s orders to disabling all the Dish DVRs that infringed on TiVo’s patent. Now they have to pay.

by Matt Burns on March 2, 2009

Dish Network lost a bunch of subscribers at the end of last year but the company is still in the black even with losing 104,000 subs. Dish’s contract with AT&T is now up and it seems that all those peeps that got roped into deals are now dropping the service after the contract expired. Now, don’t think the company is washed up ’cause at the end of last year, Dish still had 13,678,000 subscribers and reported a 1% revenue increase from the previous year.

Concept: Tiny ultrasonic dishwasher
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by Matt Burns on August 22, 2008

Picture your flat’s sink full of nasty dishes. Ok, maybe not nasty nasty, but you know, dingy. Then all you do is fill up the sink with water and drop this little guy in. Press the indicator light to have your new roommate wash everything submerged with ultrasonic tech. 

Who knows if this concept will ever make it out of CG-world and into my sink. If it helps though, I can provide an extensive list of guys willing to sell a lot of blood to fund such a device. It’s just so hard getting the dishes from the sink into the built-in dishwasher.

Tuvie via Cooking Gadgets

DISH Network losing customers
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by Brian Krepshaw on August 4, 2008

DISH announced today a net loss of 25,000 customers. The company blamed the loss of subscribers on a combination of economic factors and stiffening competition. Wall Street reacted unfavorably, sending the shares down in early trading. The stock price made up lost ground as the day went on.

Craig Moffett, analyst at Bernstein Research, said:

This is not pretty. It’s the first ever loss of subscribers by a major satellite TV company.

In spite of the shrinking customer base, DISH managed to beat Wall Street expectations with higher than expected second quarter profits.

DISH Network rolling out big 1080p update tomorrow
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by Doug Aamoth on July 31, 2008

dishI’ll be honest. I’ve never met anyone in real life who subscribes to DISH Network, but I’m fairly convinced that the company does exist and probably turns a profit. If you happen to be a DISH subscriber and you have one of the HD packages, then you, my friend, are in for what appears to be some sort of treat.

Tomorrow, DISH will start rolling out a big, fat update to all of its MPEG-4 HD DVR boxes. The update will allow the boxes to display high definition content in glorious 1080p resolution. Says DISH, “By early August, all DISH Network customers with MPEG-4 HD DVR receivers will have the only set-top boxes in the nation enabled to display 1080p content, allowing them to maximize the full potential of their 1080p-compatible HDTV sets.” So if you’re really into HD, this might get you a little boner-y.

The update is set to dovetail with DISH’s TurboHD service, which is an “all-HD suite of programming packages” and the recent launch of the company’s Echo XI satellite. DISH currently offers 114 national HD channels and plans to have 150 by year’s end.

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Slingbox ads on the way?
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by Doug Aamoth on November 4, 2007

slingbox If you’re a Slingbox owner who happens to be of the opinion that there just aren’t enough ads on television already, you are weird.

You also might be seeing even more ads if Sling Media puts into play the technology described in a recent patent.

The patent basically entails using various methods of delivering ads including video overlays, pre- and post-roll ads, pop-up windows, and even serving ads to you via “a phone call, a fax, or the postal service.” The ads would be targeted to you based on what you’re watching at the time, so you’d get ads for golfing websites while you’re watching a golf tournament, for instance.

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