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Julien Couvreur's programming blog and more

Ordering pizza from Tivo

 

Here's a random idea I had while reading about Tivo giving away its Home Media option for free: what if you could order a pizza from your networked Tivo?

You can run interactive networked program on Tivo, like an RSS reader or a Caller ID notifier.
You can also order pizza from the command line.
Ordering pizza from your Tivo is just a matter of combining the two with a little Tivo GUI.

Tivo would remember your ordering options, so that subsequent orders are even faster. It could even analyze your order pattern and suggest/remind you to order a pizza before you watch your favorite sports event.

Update: The same idea could transpose to the X-Box.

I kind of wonder why the Tivo doesn't seem to support any kind of native plugin support (see myHTPC plug-ins or Microsoft's Media Center extensions).

The same idea could also extend to other tasks (like buying movie tickets).
But at the same time you don't want to re-create a browser. A possible solution would be for PizzaHut or MovieFone to not only offer html and wml versions of their websites, but also support a "10-foot interface" style.
The question is how to avoid having the user input personal data using a remote... Maybe the Tivo website could be used as a portal, and maybe also a single sign-in provider. Or the "TivoML" framework would allow the page to access the information cached in your Tivo with script, while being careful to keep the user in control of his private data.

Update (2005/02/19): still no pizza ordering from your Tivo (alhtough it could be possible to implement using the Tivo SDK (HME))... but it just came to Everquest (type the "/pizza" command during the game).

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The TV broadcasting is not working like the Internet does that is content on demand but rather as a carousel of channels being constantly aired and delivered with a certain delay giving the illusion that that it's on demand! But nice Idea anyway!

Posted by: Amy Theron (June 25, 2004 10:51 AM) ______________________________________

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that you don't think ordering pizza from a Tivo or other internet-enabled PVR is possible?

Posted by: Dumky (June 25, 2004 10:55 AM)
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