remote controls

Rockville, Maryland-based Hillcrest Labs (note: last year, the company announced that it had secured $25 million in a fourth round of funding--see [itvt] Issue 7.58 Part 1; it has raised a total of approximately $50 million to date) announced Monday that it is now selling its Loop remote control (or "pointer," as Hillcrest prefers to call it) directly to consumers as an "in-air mouse for TV," targeting what the company says is the growing number of people who are connecting their PC or Mac to a television set in order to access over-the-top video (n

Consumer electronics giants, Philips, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic,
announced last week that they are collaborating on the development of
a standardized specification for radio frequency-based remote controls
for audio-visual consumer electronics devices. Together with Freescale
Semiconductors, OKI and Texas Instruments, the companies have
formed an RF4CE (stands for "Radio Frequency for Consumer
Electronics") Consortium that will attempt to create a new protocol to

enable the development of radio frequency remote controls that offer
richer communication, increased reliability and more flexible use.

In this recorded episode of [itvt]'s talk radio show, "The TV of
Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow," a panel of interactive TV
experts--Steve Borelli, VP of marketing and business development at
Integra5; industry analyst, Leslie Ellis (author of the popular
Multichannel News column, "Translation Please"); Will Kreth, director

of product management for interactive TV at Time Warner Cable; Alex