A group of young engineers, software developers and visionaries presented a prototype of their new invention last night at the Fully Booked, Bonifacio High Street — an interactive TV set they named Ilumina.
The team, composed of graduates from Ateneo, UP and La Salle, conceptualized then created the prototype in a span of four months — an LCD TV that’s powered by a personal computer produced from spare parts and locally available electronic devices.
The current prototype runs on a stripped-down Ubuntu powered by an old Celeron processor. The team plans to further enhance the UI and hopefully include an Intel Atom processor once it goes into final design and full production. As it is, the iTV should be able to play music, movies, photos and surf the internet.
In a way, you can say that Inovent, the company behind this iTV, wants to redesign your living room and re-invent the regular media center set up — no more Apple TVs, SlingBox or Popcorn Hour. Since the Ilumina will have a built-in hard drive, you can download all the media you want and store it on the TV for playback later.
They didn’t say how much this will be priced but they promise it will be in the 5 digits (below 100k) for a 32-inch Ilumina (32″ LCD TVs right now cost around Php50k).
The final product should look like this once it goes out into the market by 2009.
Since the platform is open source, the team can develop and release an API so third-party developers can contribute and extend the Ilumina’s feature and functionalities.
For now, the team is seeking some venture capitalist to partner and push the development and manufacturing stage as soon as possible.
You can Digg this Story to help promote them.
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grabe! konting promotion lang yan sisikat agad yan.
Twitter: kmendoza
replied on Dec 1st, 2008 at 6:21 am (2)
I just dugg the article and was hoping that their team would reach the point of success.
I’m not an early adopter, but I hope their price point and my resources find a friendly meeting place next year. Let’s encourage our friends to support this group beyond moral support. If they come up with a product we can be proud of, Filipino techies should go all out and support these guys.
It is always great to see that there are some innovation made by fellow Filipino.
I need to blog about this proud to be pinoy.
This is nice to hear. If they’ll be successful, they’ll be able to generate a lot of jobs for their factory. It’s really hard work from here. But I hope they reach it to the top and be competitive with other brands out there.
baka point of no return…goes to the garbage
Twitter: jhayrocas
replied on Dec 1st, 2008 at 10:17 pm (7)
All the best of luck for them. It’s awesome to see Pinoys stepping up to the competition with their own products.
Try tipping other tech blogs.
Do they have patents in this “innovation”?
exiting kikita na naman ang mga industries..
http://cadztech.blogspot.com
The reason companies in the US sell TV boxes instead of whole systems is because consumers prefer it that way.
I’m more inclined to hear of Inovent’s business model rather than their so-called “invention” built from spare parts that were most probably made in China.
No offense to them but this is quite common everywhere else already, unless they figured out a way to let viewers change how tele-novelas turn out.
And Intel Atom? That’s going to blow. It won’t be able to play 1080i or 1080p videos well with the measly GMA 950 that processor is usually equiped with. I suggest they go with an AMD 780G chipset paired with a an AMD Athlon LE-1640 for low power high definition multimedia experience.
Twitter: deuts
replied on Dec 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 am (12)
Just the same, good luck to these guys. Dugg!
cool cool! one of the guys is my professor!!!
My full reaction and analysis to this.
http://iamkevin.tumblr.com/post/63162757/inovent-and-their-ilumina-itv-shedding-real-light
wow..cool
http://humble-pride.blogspot.com/
http://promditarlac.blogspot.com/
i saw the developers of this on Manolo Quezon’s show on ANC. their selling price is too expensive.
they should realize that when Sony and Samsung started, they sold their products at a very competitive price to gain market share.
starting at a very high price point may be a bad business decision.
My fellow Filipinos, thank you for your support. As of the moment, we have successfully launched Inovent Electronics, Inc. to spearhead all Sales,Marketing,Customer Service, & Distribution both locally & abroad. A group of brave Filipino Executives from Global companies recently resigned to jump on board.
We have the full support of PEZA to manufacture and assemble here in the Philippines. Finally, made in the Philippines will happen.
And we have Global partners that will supply chips & motherboards that have not been introduced in the market. The ilumina LCD iTV will be the first TV in the World to have these components.
And for those Filipinos who are skeptics, we hope you will finally believe that we can do it.
Mabuhay Filipino,
Brian Quebengco
Chief Inoventor
Inovent, Inc.
Pretty well done for a prototype and knowing for a period of 4 months only. Amazing.
This is Great! I suggest the group will try Manny Pangilinan as venture capitalist so that mass production can take-off. Perhaps, Manny Pacquiao can also put his money here rather than election campaign.
ok i must admit this is really cool, congrats to the new bloods…
i will have this promis— but i will wait for a cheaper price hehe di ko pa afford
More power sa Inovention Pilipino pride toll
Good day to all of the people behind this great invention! I would like to extend my biggest thanks
to you for our main study in our undergraduate research. I am a graduating student and our study concerns this ilumina television. Thank you for the
in formations I knew about this gadget! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
i wonder how different this is from an all-in-one pc-tv or any old desktop pc + a usb tv tuner set-up. perhaps the market would be more receptive to a 22-inch lcd tv with a built-in media player (not dvd) that can play mp4, avi, wma, divx, etc. and into which you only need to plug your usb flash drive to play your media files.