SEATTLE — Toshiba Corporation, NCR Corporation, and others, have agreed to invest $35 million to give them minority stakes in MOD Systems, a digital media delivery systems provider. The investment is part of an initiative to leverage breakthrough portable digital storage technology that offers the potential to revolutionize how consumers download movies, TV shows, music and other digital content at a wide variety of locations, and then replay it on multiple devices. The initiative will combine technologies developed by the companies, and is aimed at meeting the demand for easier access to high-quality digital entertainment and other content.
According to a news release, consumers will download digital content to Secure Digital (SD) cards and portable devices such as mobile phones through kiosks and other self-service devices deployed, integrated and maintained by NCR at retail stores, airports, quick-service restaurants and other outlets. Toshiba will develop dedicated set-top boxes for the service, and develop and market high capacity SD cards for the system, improving the speed of downloads in the future.
The kiosks and other self-service devices will use the MOD Retail Enterprise System for “multichannel” digital media delivery, which enables digital content to be managed and distributed securely using portable devices and portable storage media, including SD memory cards.
“Digital distribution of content to SD cards offers consumers a convenient, faster, more portable way to buy content and access and use their growing entertainment libraries,” said Yoshihide Fujii, corporate senior vice president, president and chief executive of Digital Media Network Company, Toshiba Corporation.
