ReplayTV inventor aims at living rooms

[dArKeR]

PALO ALTO, Calif. — They have no receptionist and only paper name signs taped to their office doors, but the 20 employees working out of a nondescript building on a leafy, quiet street here are ready to challenge tech giants in the digital media market.

Led by the man who helped spark a revolution in television by creating ReplayTV, the first digital video recorder, the startup Roku is developing products to make the living room, and not the PC, the showcase for all digital content, from photos to music.

Roku founder and chief executive Anthony Wood knows big-name companies, such as Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co., are already attempting to do the same with so-called media servers or media receivers — devices that allow users to take content stored on their computers and play it on their televisions or stereos.

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