Entropic, MobileTREC Team Up to Offer Set-Top Box Alerts

Entropic (News - Alert), a provider of semiconductor solutions for the home, and MobileTrec, a provider of mobile safety solutions, have teamed up to offer safety alerts over set-top boxes.

"It is of particular interest to public safety agencies, including San Diego, California, county officials, who are integrating our Mobile R911 technology, to be able to quickly and effectively communicate with their constituents in any potential disaster situation," said Henry Siegel, vice president of Emerging Markets at MobileTREC. "As landlines are disappearing at a rapid pace and many citizens do not watch their local TV broadcast, safety and emergency response personnel need to ensure multiple methods to reach citizens.”

“Our cooperation with Entropic shows the power of their technology and our ability to develop next-generation M2M Mass Alert solutions as a natural extension of our proven Mobile R911 system," he said.

A traditional alerting system depends on broadcasting messages over TV and radio, as well as sending messages over landline phones. The changing media habits of consumers make upgrading the alerting systems necessary.

MobileTREC MobileR911 can send targeted alerts to any subscriber based on location and proximity to the threat. The alerts can be sent to any household in the area with a cable connection.

MobileTREC collaborated with Entropic to develop M2M Mass Alert, which sends messages to set-top boxes. It’s designed with Entropic’s Android (News - Alert)-based system-on-a-chip solutions in mind.

The TSC17x STB uses an ARM Cortex-A9 processor and runs Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich.”

"Using our cable set-top box system-on-chip platform as a means to alert citizens in a specific community is a powerful proposition for ensuring another method to contact potentially affected individuals in a disaster," said Anton Monk, cofounder and vice president of Technology at Entropic. "By using our open standard silicon and software solution, we are empowering public safety agencies with a new set of tools to reach the millions of users of "connected devices," including cable set-top boxes."