The 70-year-old martial artist-made famous by tough-guy roles in 1980s films such as “Forced Vengeance” and “Missing in Action”–is starring in a series of TV commercials here for T-Mobile and its satellite-TV service.

The ads, featuring Mr. Norris in humorous encounters with Czech Christmas customs, have turned into a pop-culture phenomenon, which is starting to spread outside of the Czech Republic into Central Europe.

One of the spots–all produced by the Prague office of Saatchi & Saatchi–shows Mr. Norris in the kitchen of a Czech family preparing a traditional Christmas Eve dinner of fresh carp. His hostess asks Mr. Norris to kill the still flapping fish with a wooden mallet. “You’re the master,” she says.

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The box provides a single access point for content from TV providers and the Web, along with a variety of applications. The Revue works with any HDMI-ready TV. The box uses the CE 4100 Intel (INTC) Atom processor. To install the box, you connected an included HDMI cable to you TV, and another cable to your cable or satellite TV box.

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News Corp. is offering £7.8 billion, or about $11.5 billion, for the 61% stake of the U.K. satellite-television company that it doesn’t already own. A committee of independent directors, which has the power to reject or approve an offer, said the proposed price significantly undervalues the company. It added that after taking advice from Morgan Stanley (MS) and UBS AG (UBS), it would support an offer of over 800 pence a share.

News Corp.’s 700 pence-a-share offer, which isn’t formal, had been raised from a 675 pence-a-share proposal it made last week.

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Dish, long a runner-up to larger rival DirecTV Group Inc. (DTV), posted its fourth consecutive quarter of subscriber growth, thanks to aggressive pricing and improved customer service. The improvement illustrates the company’s ability to weather intensifying competition from telecommunications and cable providers, who are able to offer bundles that also include Internet and phone services.

“The strong results demonstrate further fundamental improvement,” said Mike McCormack, an analyst at J.P. Morgan.

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The proposed service by the maker of iPhones and iPod music players could, in at least some scenarios, offer access to some TV shows from a selection of major U.S. television networks for a monthly fee, according to people familiar with the discussions. Apple is pushing to complete licensing deals and hopes to introduce the service in 2010, some of those people said. It is unclear whether any networks have signed on yet.

Spokespeople for Apple, CBS and Disney declined to comment.

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The prototype, developed by digital content security company Nagravision SA, based in Cheseaux, Switzerland, and 3D company 3ality Digital LLC, Burbank, Calif., will be shown at the 3D Entertainment Summit this week in Los Angeles. It’s called the Nagra Media Guide for 3D.

Although no cable company has yet committed to the set-top technology, the prototype offers a window into the evolution of 3D home technology, which is getting much closer to what is available in movie theaters. Consumers will be able to access 3D programming using today’s set-top boxes, but the Nagra Media version will show the information using 3D graphics.

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“I think the whole category is still a hobby right now. I don’t think anybody has succeeded at it. And actually the experimentation has slowed down. A lot of the early companies that were trying things have faded away. So I would have to say that given the economic conditions, given the venture capital outlooks and stuff, I continue to believe it will be a hobby in 2009.”

– Apple CEO Steve Jobs, October 2008

“We still consider this a hobby. It is clear that the movie rental business has really helped Apple TV and there are more and more customers that want to try it. And we’re going to continue to invest in it, because we fundamentally believe there is something there for us in the future.”

– Apple COO Tim Cook, January 2009

There’s not much of a business yet in Apple TV, as Apple’s leadership often notes. But there may be soon, with the market for connected TVs evolving as it has been.

In a research note issued this morning, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster says the time is right for Apple to release the next iteration of Apple TV–one that offers DVR capabilities and supports iTunes TV show subscriptions.

“Apple could leverage its deep library of content with many network and cable channel content owners to provide unlimited access to a sub-library of its TV shows for a standard monthly fee ($30 or $40 per month),” Munster writes. “Such a product would effectively replace a consumer’s monthly cable bill (~$85/month) and offer access to current and older episodes of select shows on select channels.”

Further, Munster notes, “The selection would dictate the value, and several tiers could be offered, but we see this as one way for Apple to leverage its large iTunes content library as well as its unique Apple TV hardware in order to get digital video to the TV for a price significantly less than the average cable or satellite TV bill.”

Makes great sense. And if Apple (AAPL) were to launch these services in concert with App Store support, as Munster has suggested in the past, it would be a pretty compelling proposition. And it would set the stage for the next evolution of the platform, the Apple Television, an Internet-connected TV with onboard DVR and media center functionality.

Says Munster:

“Beyond new hardware with DVR or iTunes video subscription features, we believe the 2-5 year roadmap for the Apple TV product lineup is robust. To begin with, Internet-connected TVs with interactive features will likely gain popularity in the next several years. Apple could differentiate itself in this market as a seasoned software developer competing largely with television hardware manufacturers that do not excel in the software arena. The device could also bring iPhone games, a relatively new segment for Apple, to the television.

“While this is unlikely in the near term,” Munster continues, “we believe the iPhone will succeed as a portable gaming platform and Apple may consider bringing higher quality games developed on a similar platform to the TV. The iPhone app developer community is already robust, and Apple could leverage those developers to enter the gaming arena on the TV. In fact, the iPhone or iPod touch could itself operate as a touchscreen gaming control for a game-centric Apple TV.”

Again, this makes great sense, though TV hardware is not an easy business–just ask Sony (SNE). But, as Munster aptly notes, it might be quite a bit less difficult if Apple were to “change the rules of the game,” something it’s done in a number of markets already.

That said, as Media Memo’s Peter Kafka just reminded me, the cable companies are working very closely with Hollywood to make sure it’s difficult for people to replace their cable service. They’d almost certainly attempt to sack an initiative like one Munster describes above.

For the quarter, the company posted revenue of $2.91 billion, right in line with expectations, and profits of 75 cents a share, nicely above the Street consensus at 60 cents.

But the company also noted that it lost 25,000 net subscribers in the quarter. In a 10-Q filing with the SEC this morning, the company blamed the surprise drop in subscribers on “weak economic conditions, aggressive promotional offerings by our competition, the heavy marketing of HD service by our competition, the growth of fiber-based pay TV providers, signal theft and other forms of fraud, and operational inefficiencies at DISH Network.”

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