Invasion of the Set-Top Boxes

We keep hearing that it's coming - the set-top box, instrument of the TV/Internet crossover - but here in California, I haven't seen a whole lot of them. Maybe it's because I don't get out much, or maybe it's because all of my friends spend more time staring at computers than television sets. Well, apparently someone's buying the things because OpenTV just let us know that its middleware has been installed in 18.2 million digital set-top boxes worldwide as of June 30, 2001. Deployments in the quarter ended June 30, 2001 totaled 2.2 million units, a 47 percent increase from the more than 1.5 million deployments reported by the company for Q2 2000. Investment tip for a weak economy? Maybe, but I'm not sure whether "deployed" means installed on set-top boxes or installed on set-top boxes that have actually been sold through to consumers. I really just don't know.