Filipino start-up develops the Ilumina iTV

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.

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