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Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we will be covering most stories in summary/round-up form over the next few weeks. Here is a round-up of interactive TV technology/operator news for the past few days.

itaas, an Atlanta-based company that provides a range of software development, integration and testing services for interactive TV (including ETV/EBIF, tru2way and IPTV solutions), announced Wednesday that it has secured an agreement with Cisco that designates it as the source for ongoing enhancements to and support for the existing Scientific-Atlanta Resident Application (SARA) viewing guide for Cisco's Explorer set-top box platform.

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) last week announced the launch of a new mobile phone application that will initially be available for iPhone/iPod touch, BlackBerry and Android handheld devices, and that the company says will subsequently support "dozens" of additional handhelds. "The TCM mobile device application is the ultimate mobile experience for classic film fans and is an important part of our strategy to solidify TCM's position as a lifestyle brand," Dennis Adamovich, TCM's SVP of brand and digital activation, said in a prepared statement.

Savannah, Georgia-based Ligos said Wednesday that it has closed a deal with "one of the nation's largest cable operators"--which it did not identify--for a set of its EBIF-based ETV Mosaic systems, and that the operator will deploy the technology later this year (note: for more on Ligos's EBIF version of its flagship Mosaic EPG technology, see the article published on itvt.com, July 7th). According to the company, ETV Mosaic enables the creation and delivery of interactive presentations "for program guides and much more" on EBIF-enabled systems.

Rovi (formerly Macrovision--for more on the company's name change and the repositioning it heralds, see the interview with Rovi chief evangelist, Richard Bullwinkle, that was published on itvt.com, July 16th) announced last week that it plans to add OTT content from Showtime Networks and ZillionTV to its new TotalGuide consumer electronics EPG (formerly code-named "Liquid"), and also said that it is collaborating with 15 European content providers to bring content to the guide.

A number of items of broadband video news came across [itvt]'s desk Tuesday. Here is a brief round-up:

Rovi (formerly Macrovision--for more on the company's name change and the repositioning it heralds, see the interview with Rovi chief evangelist, Richard Bullwinkle, that was published on itvt.com, July 16th) said last week that it has signed a multi-year EPG patent license agreement with Australia's Hills Industries via the latter's DGTEC business.

A UK company called 3View unveiled a hard drive-equipped, broadband-connected HD set-top box, Tuesday, that combines the ability to receive standard- and high-definition linear-TV programming from the UK's free-to-air digital terrestrial platform, Freeview, with various Internet/OTT capabilities. The company says that the box--which is slated to be available in retail in March--will allow users to receive a range of over-the-top video services, as well as browse the Web and use Facebook and Twitter. It bills it as "the world's first Internet-connected HD free-to-air set-top box."

In a posting on its corporate blog last week, Clicker Media--the company that 1) recently launched Clicker.com, a service which it bills as "the first complete programming guide to Internet television" and as "the first truly comprehensive, structured and unbiased resource for navigating all broadcast- and broadcast-quality programming online" (see the article published on itvt.com, November 16th), and 2) also recently announced that Sling Media co-founder, Blake Krikorian, had invested in it and joined its board (

As [itvt] reported earlier this week, an EPG-related patent-infringement lawsuit, filed by the then-Gemstar-TV Guide (which was subsequently acquired by Macrovision, which subsequently changed its name to Rovi) and its subsidiaries, StarSight Telecast and United Video Properties, against UK cable operator, Virgin Media, and its subsidiary, Virgin Media Payments, back in January, 2008, was last week decided in Virgin Media's favor by the English High Court.

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

Rovi (formerly Macrovision--for more on the company's name change and the repositioning it heralds, see the interview with Rovi chief evangelist, Richard Bullwinkle, that was published on itvt.com, July 16th) said Monday that its TV Guide widget--which is billed as providing viewers with a snapshot of what programs are available on 28 of the most popular TV channels--has gone live on Samsung's implementation of the Yahoo!

frog design--a 40-year-old San Francisco-based company which describes itself as "a global innovation firm" that "works with the world's leading companies, helping them to create and bring to market meaningful products, services, and experiences" and which says it maintains a staff of "more than 400 designers, technologists, strategists, and analysts (its clients include Disney, GE, HP, Logitech, Microsoft, MTV and Yahoo!)--contacted [itvt] last week to let us know about a new, Twitter-powered two-screen social/interactive TV application that it recently launched for the Apple iPhone/iPod touch.

Mirada, the Anglo-Spanish interactive TV company that was formed via the merger of YooMedia and Fresh IT (note: for extensive background on the merger, see [itvt] Issue 7.87 Part 3), announced last week that it has partnered with SmarDTV to port Nagravision's Nagra Media Guide, an HD EPG that offers various personalization and recommendation features, onto a SmarDTV CI+ module.

In a posting on its corporate blog, Wednesday, visual navigation specialist, Cooliris (note: the company's technologies were featured at [itvt]'s TV of Tomorrow Show in San Francisco earlier this year), announced that CBS-owned broadband video/community site, TV.com (offers full episodes, clips, entertainment news, show summaries, polls, forums and more), is using its flagship Cooliris Embed Wall as the interface for its Shows page (http://www.tv.com/shows).