itvt

–CableLabs Chief Encourages Telcos to Adopt tru2way

US cable-industry research, development and standards body,
CableLabs, says that LG Electronics and Funai Electric (sells products
in the US under the Philips, Magnavox, Sylvania and Emerson brand
names) have signed the multi-industry tru2way/OCAP Memorandum
of Understanding (note: for more on the specific content of the MOU,
which came to light in a recent regulatory filing by Comcast, see [itvt]
Issue 7.87). To date, the MOU has been signed by three other consumer
electronics manufacturers–Sony, Samsung and Panasonic; by set-top
box makers, Digeo and ADB; by chipmaker, Intel; and by the US’s
six-largest cable operators–Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox,
Cablevision, Charter and Bright House Networks. “We really are
pleased with the public support of the tru2way platform by so many
major companies in the consumer electronics, information technology,
content, and cable industries,” CableLabs president and CEO, Richard
Green, said in a prepared statement. “It is really all coming together.”

In related news: In a keynote address at the telecom industry’s
NXTcomm tradeshow in Las Vegas, CableLabs’ Richard Green called
on telcos to consider adopting the tru2way standard: “The bottom line
here is that tru2way is open,” he said. “It is not exclusive to cable but is
available to any multichannel provider that chooses to implement it on
their network and in devices…Our purpose in developing this
technology was to provide a universal interface for interactive services
that could be used by anyone. It took years to coordinate this
internationally and to work out the details so that the Java-based
platform could serve a wide variety of service providers. Our thought
during the development was to provide a common set of application
program interfaces that content developers could write to. If we were
able to agree between our industries to use this standard set of Java
API’s, we would greatly simplify the content provider’s job and spur
investment in applications. We would make it easier to transport
applications among platforms. Our combined platforms would certainly
attract creative, interactive applications and they would run on any
system that supports the tru2way middleware interface. We know that
this technology will be included in new two-way TV sets and other
terminal devices. Therefore, there is an opportunity to work together to
extend the reach of this middleware solution.”