By Seth Schiesel | The New York Times | International Herald Tribune
WHILE Ken Schaffer has been engaged with TV2Me, Satoru Maeda has spent the last six years leading a Sony project called LocationFree TV, offering another approach to unshackling the TV from its living-room habitat.
I want to create a new lifestyle for television,” said Mr. Maeda, 53, a 25-year Sony veteran who leads a team of almost 60 engineers and other technical experts in Tokyo and Brussels. “In all these years, there has been no change in the lifestyle of watching TV. Even though we have flat TV, we have to go to the place in front of the TV to watch. All the other products, like telephone and audio and radio, have changed in their lifestyle.”
Introduced in the United States in October, the LocationFree TV system has two components: a small base station and a liquid-crystal display screen. The version with a 7-inch screen, measured diagonally, has a list price of $1,100. The version with a 12.1-inch screen is $1,500.
