TVBLOB with Fastweb ChiliTV now on sale

Italian over-the-top TV company TVBLOB’s BLOBbox, offering ISP Fastweb’s ChiliTV OTT service, is now on sale in retail outlets in Italy.

Swisscom-owned Fastweb’s offer was launched in October, initially on LG connected TVs. In the first phase, ChiliTV is offering free-to-air content, with plans to expand into pay TV services later. The TeleSystems-built Linux-based BLOBbox, a hybrid DTT/IP device, went on sale last week, priced at €199. The DLNA-enabled device includes Flash and Microsoft Smooth Streaming capability, as well as BitTorrent downloads. TVBLOB was founded by Easy CD creator Fabrizio Caffarelli.

Separately, TVBLOB has chosen US-based technology company Nuance Communications’ new XT9 predictive touch input for remote controls and TV-centric keboards to enable search and access to content and interactive services on its BLOBbox platform.

The Nuance platform features a segmented version of the QWERTY keypad that reduces the pad’s standard 26 keys to six input buttons with segmented zones representing a subset of the alphabet, according to the company.