Tivo

Apparently Californians are about to be inundated with endless TV ads for this special election. Three words: God bless TiVo. Michael Figueroa Glendale

TiVo, the popular TV recording service, will be making its way onto Apple's mobile devices sometime this summer. The service, which is called TiVo Stream, was announced earlier this week by the company, and it will allow users to stream their shows as well as download them, according to a release from TiVo.

TiVo Inc., the pioneer of digital video recorders, will cut jobs as part of a program to reduce expenses. The company will incur expenses of about $1 million in the fiscal fourth quarter, mostly stemming from the firings, Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo said.

A huge Internet security breach that exposed countless names and email addresses also focused attention on an increasingly popular target for hackers: data firms that store customers' personal information for banks, retailers and other companies. Customers of as many as 50 firms, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Kroger Co., TiVo Inc., Best Buy Co., Walgreen Co. and Capital One Financial Corp., found out over the weekend that their email addresses were exposed to hackers who had broken into the system of Epsilon Data Management, a Dallas company that provides online mail services to 2,500 companies.

TiVo Inc., the pioneer of digital video recorders that let viewers zip through commercials, will offer subscribers the ability to purchase products from Amazon.com through their televisions. The Alviso, Calif., firm's Product Purchase service will allow users to search and buy books, DVDs and CDs from Amazon that are promoted on programs they may watch, TiVo said. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Digital video recorder pioneer TiVo reported Wednesday that its fiscal first-quarter net income more than quadrupled as costs for marketing and research declined. Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo Inc. earned $3.6 million, or 4 cents a share, in the three months ended April 30, up from $835,000, or 1 cent, a year earlier. Revenue for services and technology totaled $54.9 million, down from $58.1 million last year. Analysts, on average, had expected TiVo to post a loss of 1 cent a share on service and technology sales of $55.6 million, according to a poll by Thomson Financial.

TiVo Inc. posted a quarterly profit for only the third time in its 11-year history Wednesday as the pioneer in digital video recorders boosted margins on hardware and reduced marketing costs in its fiscal second quarter. It was also the first time that TiVo had back-to-back quarters of profit. The Alviso, Calif., company reported net income of $2.9 million, or 3 cents a share, contrasted with a loss of $17.7 million, or 18 cents, a year earlier. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected a loss of 2 cents a share in the quarter that ended July 31. However, TiVo shares declined in extended trading after the company said its revenue in the current quarter would fall short of analysts' expectations at $49 million to $51 million.

Dish Network Corp. and EchoStar Corp. said they filed a lawsuit asking for a ruling that their new digital video recorder software doesn't infringe a TiVo Inc. patent. TiVo won an appeals court ruling that older versions of the software violated the patent, and it is seeking a ruling in Texas that Dish is in contempt of an order to stop using the TiVo technology.

I find it fascinating and, dare I say, disappointing that Charlie Flint believes in "Looking for New Ways to Make Viewers Pay" (Jan. 18) that TiVo is "life-altering." This strikes me as an ugly aberration of what that phrase should mean and is an example of the myopia prevalent throughout our country when it comes to television -- and its value. For a truly "life-altering" experience, I humbly suggest that he throw away his TV. Toss it. Instead, to gain a "life-altering" experience, read a novel, go fishing, explore local tide pools and museums or fly a kite at the local park, or even better, a nearby beach.

Warner Music Group Corp. posted an unexpected loss in its fiscal fourth quarter as severance costs weighed on results despite a strong slate of music releases from artists including Jay-Z and Madonna. The loss of $18 million, or 12 cents a share, contrasted with profit of $6 million, or 4 cents, a year earlier. The quarter included $14 million in severance costs as the company shifted resources from promoting CDs to generating revenue from digital music. Revenue rose nearly 1%, to $861 million, the first revenue gain since the fourth quarter of 2008.

Dish Network Corp. and EchoStar Corp. asked a federal appeals court to throw out a judge's order that the companies stop using a digital-video recording service that he said infringed a TiVo Inc. patent. Attorneys for Dish, the second-biggest U.S. satellite-television provider, tried to convince a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington that it had changed its technology enough to no longer infringe TiVo's patent. TiVo said the changes were insufficient.

AUTOMOBILES GM gets OK to buy some Delphi assets General Motors Co. said it has received permission to use $2.8 billion of its government aid to help buy part of troubled auto parts supplier Delphi Corp., the automaker's former parts division. The automaker said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that the Treasury Department granted the release of $1.7 billion to acquire "a membership interest" in the new Delphi that emerged from bankruptcy protection.

A federal judge ordered Dish Network Corp. and sister firm EchoStar Corp. to pay TiVo Inc. about $200 million for violating a permanent injunction on using a modified technology that can rewind and pause live TV. Judge David J. Folsom of the U.S. District Court in Texas awarded TiVo $110 million in damages and $90 million in sanctions, plus attorney fees.