TiVo, Brother & Aspyr Announce Rendezvous Networked Products

Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ The rapid adoption of Rendezvous continues with TiVo, Brother and Aspyr today announcing new products incorporating Rendezvous networking. Rendezvous is Apple's innovative networking technology for automatic discovery and connection of devices over industry-standard IP networks such as Ethernet and 802.11 wireless networks. Using Rendezvous, consumer devices such as stereos and digital video recorders can automatically find and ‘talk’ to any Macs on their local wired or wireless network, making it possible for users to stream audio from iTunes to their home stereo and display iPhotos on their TVs.

"Rendezvous is enabling groundbreaking new products from companies like TiVo, Brother and Aspyr," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "These Rendezvous enabled products give consumers the ability to stream audio from iTunes to their home stereo, display iPhotos on their TVs, connect a printer in seconds and eliminate the complexity barriers of playing networked games."

Rendezvous uses industry standard networking protocols and zero configuration technology to automatically discover and connect devices over any IP network, including Ethernet and 802.11 wireless networks. Apple has submitted Rendezvous as an open standard as part of the ongoing IETF standardization process. By making the source code freely available, Apple has made it easy for developers to use Rendezvous technology in their network-enabled devices or software applications.

"TiVo's upcoming premium service package will use Rendezvous technology to automatically discover Macs within the home network and determine which services they provide, allowing customers to listen to their shared music or view their shared photos on their TV," said Jim Barton, co-founder and CTO for TiVo. "We are excited about working with Apple on other ways Rendezvous can help TiVo Series2 DVRs connect to a Mac to deliver future services."

"Brother is proud to ship the first Rendezvous enabled printer perfect for workgroups; the new HL-5070N Laser Printer is completely configured by just turning it on," said Don Cummins, vice president, Brother International Corporation. "It's absolutely great that Apple has created an open standard that gives us a competitive edge in home and small office environments."

"The hottest game on the Mac this past Christmas was Aspyr's Rendezvous enabled NASCAR Racing 2002 Season," said Michael Rogers, Aspyr's president. "Rendezvous vastly improves the multiplayer network gaming experience by making it easy for players to find and join games on the network. All of our future networked games are going to take advantage of Rendezvous."

More information on companies supporting Rendezvous can be found at www.apple.com/macosx/rendezvous.

Source: Apple Computer, Inc.