Taiwanese startup ioeX building blockchain smart TVs with JVC

A Taiwanese startup named ioeX said it is working with software firm QUUBE to build a line of blockchain-based smart TVs with decentralized apps and rewards for users.

QuuMoney TV, which is built on top of the Android TV platform, is promising an array of decentralized, point-to-point communications features and apps including QuuShare, which allows users to use QuuMoney TV as a private cloud for remote data access and backup, and QuuChat, which allows users to chat privately.

Users can use QuuMoney TV to watch certain programs and earn "Quu Coin (QUUBE),” which can be used to purchase QUUBE services, such as movies, or for deductions from their monthly TV bills. Additionally, Quu Coin will be tradeable with other cryptocurrencies listed in exchanges.

“Our partnership with QUUBE will help ioeX to accumulate additional experience, abilities and the energy required for building smart lifestyles,” said ioeX founder and CEO Aryan Hung in a statement. “We expect to truly integrate blockchain technology into daily life in a way undetectable to users so that true value of blockchain can be presented.”

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QUUBE software will be loaded on JVC smart TVs starting in the second half of 2019 for sale in North America, Western Europe, Japan, Korea, mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. QUUBE CEO Richard Houng said his company’s blockchain TV experience will be released in the U.S. in August 2019.

In the U.S., media applications for blockchain are in various stages of experimentation and implementation. Comcast is looking into using blockchain as a means to match data sets for targeted advertising. AlphaNetworks is using the technology to support microtransactions.

The idea of rewarding viewers for watching and interacting with video platforms is also in the early stages of development in the U.S. Last year, AMBI Media Group co-founder and CEO Andrea Iervolino launched TaTuTu, a streaming video service that offers incentives to users through the use of blockchain.

“Social networks and entertainment platforms are making huge profit by gathering data from their users and selling to other corporations without rewarding their users,” Iervolino said in a statement. “TaTaTu will finally give its users the possibility to be rewarded for their social daily entertainment activity. There is a need for a platform to provide higher levels of transparency to their users, brands and rights holders about the revenues generated and monetization of users. Audiences need free, legal and quality content with a simple user experience.”

Last year, NBCU announced a new app called WatchBack which rewards users with sweepstakes entries for watching certain television episodes.