Sunflower Broadband announced a "pre-deployment rollout" of AgileTV's Promptu, a voice-enabled remote and navigation device.
Beginning next month, Sunflower will offer Promptu to about 300 of its subscribers in northeast Kansas, with a market-wide launch slated for summer 2006. The operator will market the service with a print campaign featuring Food Network star Rachael Ray entreating subs to "Talk to Your TV."
Sunflower will also demo the device at special kiosks at its payment centers and will send sales reps door-to-door armed with handheld DVD players and other marketing material.
Promptu recognizes more than 100,000 English-language phrases and can search by a number of parameters. For example, if a user wants to find a movie starring a certain jilted comic actress, he would press Promptu's "talk" button and say, "find Jennifer Aniston." The device can also search by network ("find MTV"), sports team ("find the New York Yankees") or genre ("find movies").
Smallish Sunflower, which serves some 300,000 subs in the Lawrence, Kan., area, is not the only operator who's been kicking the tires on the voice-recognition product. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts singled out Promptu for praise on CNBC during the 2004 National Show, and Insight Communications is also said to be interested in the product.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/cabletv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001350826
Beginning next month, Sunflower will offer Promptu to about 300 of its subscribers in northeast Kansas, with a market-wide launch slated for summer 2006. The operator will market the service with a print campaign featuring Food Network star Rachael Ray entreating subs to "Talk to Your TV."
Sunflower will also demo the device at special kiosks at its payment centers and will send sales reps door-to-door armed with handheld DVD players and other marketing material.
Promptu recognizes more than 100,000 English-language phrases and can search by a number of parameters. For example, if a user wants to find a movie starring a certain jilted comic actress, he would press Promptu's "talk" button and say, "find Jennifer Aniston." The device can also search by network ("find MTV"), sports team ("find the New York Yankees") or genre ("find movies").
Smallish Sunflower, which serves some 300,000 subs in the Lawrence, Kan., area, is not the only operator who's been kicking the tires on the voice-recognition product. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts singled out Promptu for praise on CNBC during the 2004 National Show, and Insight Communications is also said to be interested in the product.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/cabletv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001350826
