Hong Kong’s largest quad-play service PCCW has selected France’s Thomson to provide a wi-fi enabled wireless device called “eye 2” that can be used at home to watch TV, listen to online and in-home stored music, look at digital pictures and access news, weather and other content – all wirelessly. It has an 8-inch touch-screen, built-in stereo speakers, microphone and a camera.
Other services that PCCW offers via the eye 2 are language learning through interactive content that’s delivered over the device, news and weather bulletins, stock prices and multilingual cooking recipes – even lottery updates and horse race results.
Users can maintain video contact with others via video calls using the built-in camera or traditional voice calls in conjunction with the use of an indoor cordless DECT phone.
With eye 2 users can switch between PCCW’s IPTV channels, in-home and online music and photos, video telephony, plus all of the online information and media services which PCCW allows in its walled garden.
Usable only in the home, eye 2 accesses PCCW services via a PCCW-supplied gateway that has Wi-Fi built in. An integrated stand allows it to be placed on any surface. It can also be held in the hand, or used while moving around the home.
Tom Chan, managing director of the consumer group at PCCW Hong Kong said eye 2 “embodies telephone, TV, multimedia player, infotainment and interactive functionalities and is supported by PCCW’s quadruple-play services.”
Eye2 services include:
– Most of the 170-plus “now TV” channels which PCCW offers, are made available through an embedded TV decoder.
– 130,000-plus music titles on moov, covering plugged songs, latest albums, concerts, moov Live and music videos. Users may play back, for example, Cantonese operas without the need to operate a complicated hi-fi system.
– Living Encyclopedia instantly checks up-to-date information, including news and weather bulletins, stock quotes, as well as horse-racing, football and Mark Six lottery updates.
– Whiz Kids is a “fun-filled” interactive learning feature for children to improve their language skills, including Disney Story Telling, Disney Greetings, Disney Song, English and Cartoon Song, IQ forum and Longman Interactive Learning.
– Audio cooking recipes are available in Cantonese, English, Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesian. TV artiste Gigi Wong’s recipes are also available.
– PCCW services include EasyWatch service, useful telephone numbers, billing inquiry, snaap! digital photo sharing service, and PPS service.
– Users can buy movie tickets and select cinema seats and access the PCCW Yellow Pages directories.
– Multimedia player shows digital photos, plays movies and music by inserting a memory device into the USB port.
– Users can make video calls or traditional voice calls through indoor cordless DECT phones. Video calls can currently connect only to PCCW’s eye Multimedia Service and its 3G network. There are currently no inter-connection agreements with other cellcos to use their service for video calls.
– Built-in settings include language selection, brightness control, theme design, menu and title display, backlight and volume control and ringtone selection, allowing users to personalize their devices.
Andrew Levido, head of business operations and Thomson Connect, said the company had developed the device “for just such an application such as this one.” It will help operators “enhance the breadth of home networking and entertainment services that they can offer to the users wirelessly around the home.”
Eye 2 and the service cost $26.25 (HK $188) a month for free-to-air TV channels. Subscribers can order pay-TV channels plus get a free trial for the moov digital music service and unlimited local video and voice calls.
PCCW owns HKT, Hong Kong’s incumbent and largest telecommunications provider. PCCW will be the first to offer the Thomson-developed digital media device for the home and will be available starting June 9 to PCCW’s wireline voice, broadband and IPTV subscribers. Battery life and recharging possibilities were not announced.