Last week, TiVo and Britain's Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB) announced an alliance that the companies claim marks the introduction of personal television to the United Kingdom. According to TiVo, "state-of-the-art personal video recorders similar in size and shape to VCRs and digital set-top boxes will deliver the personal television service, which will be co-branded by TiVo and Sky." The companies say that products and services are expected to be available in retail outlets this fall, with pricing and distribution to be announced shortly.

Last week, Sage (a supplier of digital display processors) and Faroudja (a developer of video processing technologies) announced that they have signed a definitive agreement for Faroudja to merge into a wholly owned subsidiary of Sage in a stock-for-stock transaction. The stockholders of Faroudja will receive approximately 3.9 million shares of Sage common stock, valued at approximately $155 million. The transaction, which will be accounted for as a purchase by Sage, has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies and is expected to close in the quarter ending June 30, 2000, subject to approval by each company's shareholders.

Late last week, Intel and Sony announced that they intend to collaborate in an effort to give consumers the ability to share electronic content between PCs and various consumer electronic devices, including home entertainment systems (digital televisions, set-top boxes), digital cameras, digital camcorders, and portable music players. Intel says that the effort is part of the companies' vision of the "e-Home" of the future, in which the Internet will be available throughout a range of devices.

Last week, before its appeal had been denied by the FCC (see related story), the Sinclair Broadcast Group announced that it had demonstrated live, over-the-air digital television (DTV) reception last week in Washington, DC, "in response to numerous Congressional inquiries." These demonstrations were "intended to demonstrate to members of Congress the flaw in the DTV standard."