itvt

Visiware, a French interactive TV games company whose offerings have been widely deployed around the world, has launched its Minikids TV service on the networks of French cable operator, UPC-NOOS, as part of the latter’s "Sensations" programming package (note: 1) the service has been available on TPS since June, 2005; 2) as of June 30th, 2005, UPC-NOOS, a subsidiary of Liberty Global, had 546,000 digital TV subscribers). The service, which is designed for two- to six-year-olds, offers five "edutainment" games at any one time, which Visiware says are designed to develop children’s creativity and visual and auditory observation skills, and to take advantage of the fact that it is easier for children to use a remote control than a PC mouse. The games are introduced by a character, Tom the Rabbit, who explains how they work, what their rules are, and how to use the remote to play them. Once children begin playing the games, they are guided by an intermittent audio commentary.

In order to make the games more appealing to children, each game is also associated with an animal character:

• "Visual Memory with Clara the Elephant" provides children with a themed image and 10 stickers. Children must place the stickers on the right spot on the image, and, once they do so, the stickers move and make sounds.
• "Coloring with Marco the Dog" provides several dozen designs that children can color as they like.
• "Puzzles with Lucie the Turtle" offers, as its name suggests, a series of puzzles.
• "Matching with Leon the Chameleon" challenges children to find matches in images.
• "Sound Memory with Coco the Parakeet" presents sequences of animal sounds, accompanied by associated images. Children are asked to repeat the sequences.
• "Grouping with Bob the Monkey" features the eponymous character asking children to give him groups of various objects: for example, "Give me four goats and two sheep." Children must then use the remote to select the correct number of objects.
• "Words with Harry the Pig," features the eponymous character asking children to place letters in the correct position.

Visiware says that it plans to roll out a number of other games on Minikids, including "Learn to Count with Pat the Lion," "Learn the Alphabet with Sissi the Mouse," "Discover Shapes with John the Crocodile," "Aiming with Marie the Giraffe," and "Go on a Photo Safari with Mike the Leopard."

Minikids TV also features user-generated content: every 15 days, a child’s drawing is featured on the service, and the child whose drawing was submitted wins a prize; in addition, viewer-submitted children’s photos are displayed while the service is loading.

Click http://www.itvt.com to subscribe to our free email newsletter, which contains all the news stories you see on this Web site, and additional breaking news and scoops, in-depth features, interviews, screenshots, videos, and other exclusive content you will not find anywhere else.