Verizon FiOS TV Rolls Out Interactive TV Features in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island

Verizon said Tuesday that it has rolled out various new interactive TV features and navigational shortcuts to customers of its FiOS TV service in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as part of an upgrade of its FiOS TV Interactive Media Guide (IMG). The new features, which are offered at no additional charge, have been available on Verizon systems in California and Texas for some time now, and Verizon says that it will roll them out in all its other FiOS TV markets over the next few months. "Because FiOS TV is such a content-rich service, we're always finding new and better ways of making it quick and easy to find the entertainment you're looking for and to discover new shows and features through our IMG," Christopher Creager, Verizon's president/general manager for the Northeast region, said in a prepared statement. "Our latest enhancements put new tools in customers' hands to help them better search and enjoy our 18,000 monthly-title VOD service, evaluate and purchase premium channels and more quickly access useful features like parental controls and in-depth show descriptions. FiOS TV subscribers know that we'll keep taking their home entertainment where cable can't go."

According to Verizon, the new FiOS TV IMG features include:

• The ability for subscribers to sign up to see personalized VOD recommendations that are based on movies they have previously ordered from the FiOS TV VOD library.
• The ability for subscribers to click on a "More Like This" button when previewing a VOD title, in order to see similar titles based on actors and genres.
• The ability for subscribers to use their remotes to purchase a weekly pass or full subscription to ESPN pay-per-view events, such as ESPN College GameDay and NBA Fully Court Pass.
• Quick Guide TV Options, making it easier for subscribers to set global parental controls or block specific channels, see a list of times when a program will be shown again, record a show, see recommendations for shows similar to the one that has been selected, or jump from a menu to live TV.
• Quick Guide DVR Options, providing subscribers with such options as "play program from the beginning," "select delete," "save until I delete," "initiate parental controls," "select closed captions" and "help."
• A full-screen view of in-depth program descriptions, including cast, crew and plot synopses.
• Reversi Widget, a one- or two-player interactive TV game, in which players use the arrow keys on the FiOS TV remote to move around a board to select an empty space to complete a move: the player who fills the Reversi board with the most pieces wins.
• Chinese Checkers Widget, an interactive TV version of traditional Chinese Checkers, in which players use the arrow keys on their remote to select a marble and jump over another marble to an empty space, thereby causing the marble they jump over to disappear. The goal of the game is to leave just one marble on the board: scores are calculated based on the number of marbles left on the board and the total amount of time spent playing the game.