Orange Slovensko the leading telco operator on the market uses the nangu.TV Media Platform for IPTV and OTT delivery. "With the growing demand for interactive television and more viewing possibilities, Orange sought a proven solution to bring to the market," says Product Manager at Orange, Martin Hainzl.

Orange offers their customers TV with value added features, which gives them more options and comfort than classic live TV. The VoD selection stores 50 movie titles, accessible on multiple screens: TV, PC, Smartphone or tablet. The TV Archive allows playback of content up to 7 days in the past. Customers can utilize the time shift feature to browse content already aired and watch it at their leisure with pause, play and star t over commands. They have flexibility in watching television on the go with the newly released applications for both iOS and Android devices. The nangu.TV solution allows operators to stay ahead of competition by giving cutomers the chance to be in control of how they watch TV.

The Open IPTV Forum and the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV Consortium today announced their collaboration on the testing of technologies common to IPTV and enhanced broadcast environments. These include testing the Declarative Application Environment (colloquially referred to as the “OIPF browser”) and the Media Formats specifications that are currently being implemented in retail connected TVs and STBs in those regions where hybrid services based on the HbbTV specification are deployed.

This initiative enhances the cooperation that began a year ago and has now delivered common procedures for the development, review and acceptance of test material by engineers from both OIPF and HbbTV. Test material can be used by any test tool implementing the defined interface specifications which permits its use via IP or broadcast techniques. These procedures and specifications define a tes

ANT announces the latest features to be added to its multiscreen app, ANT Galio Move. Having been first launched at IBC 2011, ANT Galio Move now enables viewers to both watch TV and interact with social media on the same screen. And, by analysing programme metadata it can provide links to additional associated online content.

ANT Galio Move allows consumers to stream live and recorded TV to tablets and smartphones anywhere in the home. Viewers can watch the same programme or another live or recorded programme on their connected devices without interrupting the main TV. The application connects to the TV device using Wi-Fi enabling consumers to manage recordings, access additional programme information and quickly navigate through the touch screen EPG.

Broadcast International and Beenius have partnered to offer a suite of solutions that include the highest quality video processing with BI's CodecSys transcoder platform, and Beenius's open, flexible and feature-rich Interactive TV service platform, Beesmart. The solution is being demonstrated at Broadcast International's booth #819 at Expo Canitec, a trade show and conference targeting the Mexican cable industry being held in Acapulco from May 30 - June 1.

Beesmart's modular architecture and open design enable it to be used in different environments including IPTV, Over-the-Top and Cable Television - all within a single platform. CodecSys' patented multi-codec process delivers higher quality video at lower bandwidth rates featuring seamless integration with core video management systems.

In the next two years, televisions will represent a surprisingly large opportunity for the implementation of advanced user interface (UI) technologies, and a variety of major consumer electronics brands will be aggressively bringing TVs with varying implementations of gesture, motion ,and voice control technologies to market over the next several product generations.

Due to the evolving need for consumers to interact more conveniently and effectively with technology, makers of televisions will increasingly utilize differing mixes of advanced UI technologies. Though smartphones are commonly considered a natural target for these enhancements, given the pre-existing presence of relevant hardware such as cameras and motion sensors, television sets represent a significant growth opportunity over the next few years.

TV watching has evolved from a handful of channels, to channel surfing — and now to interactive apps that let you watch multiple channels at the same time. AT&T U-verse TV offers Multiview apps that let customers choose from multiple channels or camera angles and watch up to four at once, featuring everything from customers’ personalized channel favorites to sporting events. U-verse customers will soon see special Multiviews for the US Open and the Spanish-language programming package, Paquete Español.

Gas Station TV announces the first mass distribution of interactivity-based advertising functionality in the television at-the-pump space.

Launching this spring, GSTV advertisers will begin executing interactivity-based advertising campaigns at over half of GSTV's 1,200 locations. When prompted, consumers will press "Action Buttons" integrated into the GSTV display to receive immediate promotional information via their fuel receipts. They will then be able to use this promotional information to take action at nearby businesses, on their mobile devices, or via the Web. The new interactivity will allow advertisers to deliver customized discounts, special promotions, or other special offers to consumers.

9x9 announces the beta launch of Smart Guide, the first personalized Interactive Program Guide for discovering and viewing Web video content on Smart TVs using the same intuitive way people choose and watch TV programs. Smart Guide is organized in a 9x9 grid with 81 channels that users can populate with continuous feeds of video episodes based on their personal interests. Users can share their Smart Guides with their social community via Facebook.

According to research firm Display Search, 21 percent of all TVs shipped worldwide in 2010 were Internet-enabled, and the market is expected to grow to 144 million units sold in 2014. Watching Web videos on a larger screen will lead people to expect a more TV-like discovery and viewing experience, and offerings that combine the Web and TV such as Google TV. Searching for individual videos among the hundreds of thousands of Web videos uploaded daily to the Internet misplaces the burden of finding content on the user and does not provide the means to view videos in a continuous stream.

The winners of the Interactive TV Award 2011 have been declared.

On the 11th of February in Bonn a renowned jury comprising of technology and media experts chose the best ideas for “TV of the future” in two categories. A sports bet application won the “Developer” award and a TV community concept received the creative “Freestyle” trophy. Winners and runners-up received a total cash prize of 70,000 Euro.

“BetWorld” by IpAppMedia, a media consulting company based in Zurich, was the best concept based on Microsoft’s technical development platform “Mediaroom Presentation Framework”. The application brings sports betting to the television.

Opera Software announces a collaboration with IMAQLIQ to provide the latest technology to consumers using IPTV. IMAQLIQ, a Russian developer of telecommunications equipment with a broad international footprint, will integrate Opera on its line of devices for interactive TV.

Technology, coupled with strong industry partnerships, makes the Opera Devices Software Development Kit the ideal solution for IPTV deployments. It is easy to integrate with streaming media players, conditional access systems, and personal video recorders/applications and can be used to create and render middleware portals.

On 8 November a Deutsche Telekom jury named the winners of the first round of the Interactive TV Award 2011. The competition is for innovative applications for Entertain, the Deutsche Telekom TV channel. In total, prizes amounting to Euro 65,000 were shared out at this stage.

The Interactive TV award team decided to extend the entry deadline for ideas and concepts by two weeks to October 15, 2010. This applies to both of our professional categories "Developer" and "Freestyle". Within this timeframe you are free to elaborate your ideas further or freshly jump on the 135,000 Euro train.

Advice for optimizing your contribution

The new deadline also applies for all those who already have submitted an idea. You can continue working on your concept until the deadline expires. Moreover, all potential participants will be given the opportunity to have their concepts checked in advance. Just ask us - and we will be pleased to give you tips how to improve your concept formally or by further elaboration.

Vision IPTV’s fully featured internet TV platform will be launched at MIPCOM 2010 (4th to 8th October 2010, Cannes, France). The platform provides the most comprehensive service available to deliver broadcast quality television channels over the internet.

Vision IPTV’s platform enables broadcasters to create fully interactive television channels online where viewers can view programmes ahead of schedule as well as catch up on previous programmes, skipping items, but still being guided by a scheduled TV channel.

Broadcasters can customise the programme schedule to enable personalised programming and advertising. It also allows them to deliver this to all the viewing devices and platforms of the connected age – PC’s mobiles, set top boxes, connected TV’s and right into social network platforms like Facebook and MySpace.

The winners of the Deutsche Telekom Interactive TV Award 2009 have been elected. Last Friday the 26th of February 2009, the Jury consisting of renowned technology and media experts came together in Bonn (Germany) to select the winners of the innovative competition for the best ideas for the "future TV". The winners were broad|Support with the customizable Bundesliga application “Meine Konferenz“ and the interactive docu soap “The Cell“ presented by a team of Isrealis from a Tel Aviv based company Gum Films.

Zodiac Interactive's CEO Brandon Brown will speak at the industry leading TV of Tomorrow event, hosted by Interactive TV Today - the most widely read and trusted news source on the rapidly emerging medium of multiplatform interactive television.

Brown and other prominent leaders from the interactive TV technology and programming spaces, including top technology officers from CableLabs and Canoe Ventures, will explore the current status--and attempt to predict the future--of the cable industry-backed ETV/EBIF and tru2way standards.