To prepare for the next generation of connected home services and devices the Home Gateway Initiative (HGI) met in Paris to draw up its long term strategy. As the voice for the world’s Broadband Service Providers (BSP), the initiative is the body responsible for translating BSP’s service plans into published technology requirements. Those at the meeting included Samsung, France Telekom and device manufacturers.
Netgem, will outline its "IPTV 2.0" strategy at the upcoming IP&TV World Forum in London and demonstrate its new Home Cloud software platform. Also as part of the IP&TV World Forum's conference programme, Christophe Aulnette, Netgem's CEO, will highlight Netgem's open strategy. He will deliver Netgem's vision for the future of TV in a Leadership Insight session, "Connected TVs - IPTV 2.0: the Home Cloud" on Wednesday 23rd March.
Vodafone has extends its product range to support its customers in regions where there is limited access to the internet, with the development of the Vodafone WebBox. Considered to be the first device of its kind; it was developed specially for customers in emerging markets to make internet access more affordable. With no set-up required, the plug and play keyboard converts any standard domestic television into an internet portal, so that its customers have to everyday internet services.
A Selected range of Samsung’s Blu-ray Home Theater Systems, HDTVs and Blu-ray players are to have the MTV Music Meter as one of their applications. The MTV Music Meter which as launched on selected smartphones (Samsung’s Galaxy series smartphones and Galaxy Tab tablet) and a website is used to track artists trending based on their social media buzz is now ported to the Samsung home entertainment platform as one of its apps.
In a development that will revolutionize the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region's connected home entertainment industry, Techstorm, a UAE-based new media technology company, has partnered with Silicon Valley-based Verismo Networks and their award-winning Internet TV Platform to launch the VuMax service and bring HD quality entertainment directly to TV sets through broadband Internet.
At this month’s CE show Yahoo! Debuts a new connected television platform geared towards both viewers and TV programs creators, to enable them to offer more interactive contents to viewers. So far HSN, ABC, Showtime and CBS are partners with Yahoo! And talks are going on with brand advertisers (like Microsoft, Ford and Mattel) to come on board. Content producers are expected to pilot some of the solutions as early as the first half of this year.
Sony has announced that they will be integrating the Opera browser into their Bravia television and Sony Blu-ray players. Earlier this month, at CES Sony demonstrated a new range of Blu-ray players that they will be rolling throughout this quarter. The integration of Opera on the television will give users a more intuitive user interface from the television and a platform that is more web friendly.
MIPS is back this year At CES to show us how far they have reached with their Android work. The company has unveiled a new SmartCE (Connected Entertainment) platform. SmartCE is designed to provide a connected experience with integrated support for Home Jinni ConnecTV application, Adobe Flash Platform for TV, Android, Skype, social media and other platforms. According to MIPS president Art Swift, SmartCE complements other connected platforms like Yahoo! Connected TV and can be extended to Google TV.
Trident as setup a private suite away from the main show at the Luxurious Wynn Hotel to demonstrate its new class of Internet Connected TV and Set-Top Box (STB) Solutions. Accordng to Trident the demonstration is to highlight its strength in picture quality, 3D TV, connectivity and HD audio.
China’s Television Manufacturer TCL has licenses the Digital Interactive Interface for Video & Audio™ (DiiVA™) consortium, smart TV platform for its next generation of connected TV. Under its recently released technology standard , DiiVA as created a new architecture that allows consumers to access their digital content across all 3 screens (PC, Mobile and TV).