Filipino tech team unveils "Intelligent TV"

MANILA, Dec. 2 (PNA) -- A new Filipino tech company unveiled the prototype of an LCD interactive television (iTV) set, claiming to be the first of its kind to be produced in the Philippines.

The Inovent Inc. said that the LCD iTV, dubbed as "Ilumina", was described by its creators as "a television set with the brain of a personal computer."

According to Inovent Inc., chief Inoventor Brian Quebengco that the Ilumina contains a flat-screen LCD display, a hard drive and a multimedia center that allows owners to see movies, listen to music, watch and record TV shows, and even surf the web.

“It also revealed that the Ilumina was produced from easily available electronic parts. To prove a point, we want to show that the Filipinos can do it, that we stand a chance in the electronic industry and we can even excel in it," said Quebengco during the launch at Fully Booked in Bonifacio High Street in Taguig City last Sunday.

“To our knowledge, this has never been done before in the Philippines. The team is actually making history," Quebengco added

Ilumina is being positioned as a showcase of Filipino ingenuity, particularly on engineering and design. It signals the changing habits of younger generations who grew up on the iPod, MP3s, and TV-show and movie downloads. In April of this year, iTunes took the title of top music store, besting even top-selling offline stores like Best Buy and Walmart.

"Ilumina is at the crux of a major change in our lifestyles. With Ilumina, you can play music and watch movies from Ilumina itself. No more need for separate players. It will provide that convenience to everyone," added Mark Ruiz, Chief Marketing Inoventor.

To provide the intelligence for Ilumina, Quebengco and Ruiz tapped Dig It All Solutions, a software development company specializing on open source software. Val Gonzales, Dig It All Solutions CEO, said "We had a very tight schedule. Creating software from scratch would have been a disaster. Open source software allowed us to build an interface for Ilumina very quickly."

Quebengco said the idea for having Ilumina story starts with his dream for Inovent Inc. to champion Philippine ideas. After reading ‘Built to Last’ in 2001, he always felt that "we could do what Sony did and make ‘Made in the Philippines’ means something."

"Come January of 2008, my first task was to work with the Senior Inovent Design team composed of Peter Can, Jaed Del Moral & Jonas Peralta to see if we could design a new LCD TV. After the team spent hours in electronic shops and many attempts in design, I finally had a thought. “What if you could cover the sides of the LCD iTV when it was mounted?” And after advising Jonas Peralta on curving the sides to reach the wall, he was able to perfectly execute and design the look of the LCD iTV. What also stood out was the utility design function of allowing the LCD iTV to stand on its own without a stand. I immediately patented it," Quebengco said.