Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication has selected Narrowstep Inc. to provide the Internet TV component of its curriculum. The college will integrate training on telvOS (Narrowstep's Television Operating System) as a key component of several undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses.

The consumption of rich media over the Internet has exhibited a wild growth rate since 2005. Many applications, especially Web 2.0 based, such as video portals, Internet TV, and user-generated content drive the need for enhanced media streaming platform solutions. Further, an exponential increase in rich media applications for communications, marketing, and advertising by the enterprise market segments continues to milk the benefits of streaming media platforms.

Narrowstep rolled out today the beta of an Internet TV channel, Frontier TV. This channel can be accessed online at http://www.frontier.tv, and heralds a new era in business and consumer ethics.

Frontier TV brings audiences programs on ethics, economics and social responsibility. The channel will focus on business, sustainable living and human potential with inspiring and entertaining shows. The Frontier TV website provides high-quality, free content, 24 hours a day to a global audience.

A new world of communications and entertainment is now available to residents in the Cleveland and Akron area's. AT&T announced the launch of AT&T U-verse, which utilizes AT&T's new fiber-rich network to offer cutting-edge television and high speed Internet services. AT&T is the only national provider to offer a 100 percent IPTV service, making U-verse TV "cooler than cable" and one of the most robust and feature-rich services available today.

Verizon is now taking orders for FiOS TV in parts of Bayville, the Town of North Hempstead, New Hyde Park, Sands Point, the Town of Haverstraw, West Haverstraw, Chestnut Ridge and the Town of North Castle, including the unincorporated hamlets within each of the eight towns.

The company already offers FiOS TV in more than 70 New York communities through cable franchises that have been approved in White Plains, Rye Brook, Irvington, Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Tarrytown, Eastchester, Mount Kisco, Elmsford, Port Chester, Tuckahoe, Orangetown, Piermont, the Town of Greenburgh, Airmont, Clarkstown, Nyack, South Nyack, Upper Nyack, Grandview-on-Hudson, Massapequa Park, Cedarhurst, Laurel Hollow, Lynbrook, Mineola, East Rockaway, Farmingdale, Valley Stream, Freeport, Williston Park, Huntington, Smithtown, Hempstead and Oyster Bay. Verizon also has been granted franchises by Mount Pleasant and Old Field and will launch FiOS TV in these communities soon.

Research and Markets announces the addition of “Can Video On Demand Save IPTV? VoD Economics, Global Forecasts, and the Case for IPTV VoD” to their offering. Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is rapidly emerging as a new TV platform. Delivered over broadband, it promises to re-energize the telco business model and disrupt the traditional TV business. The technology leverages the flexibility and scalability of IP to transform the television experience by providing access to more content—content that is superior in quality and can be more personalized and interactive than traditional broadcast TV. Within this context, video on demand (VoD), by enabling further service differentiation, is becoming a key component of the IPTV proposition.

Sumitomo Electric Industries has selected Intellon’s HomePlug-based INT6000 IC to enable in-home distribution of KDDI’s IPTV services in Japan. Intellon’s ICs are used in Sumitomo’s G02P1 PLC adapters, which provide connectivity from the broadband access modem to the IPTV set-top-box using the existing electrical wiring in the customer’s home.

Based on the HomePlug AV global standard, Intellon’s powerline communications ICs allow KDDI subscribers to easily create an in-home network for their IPTV service. In addition, Sumitomo’s G02P1 PLC adapters include robust network security encryption (128-bit AES) and Quality of Service features as part of the INT6000 ICs that are mandatory for VOD (Video on Demand) and content distribution services.

Slate, the daily online magazine, has launched Slate V, a new online video magazine that will feature video daily including original video, top picks from around the Web and selected user-generated video.

Slate V will cover a wide range of topics, including news and politics, culture and entertainment, and humor and animation, all through the lens of video. The entire library of videos that have appeared on Slate in the past will be archived on Slate V, and every day a new video will be added.

Slate V is powered by Brightcove's Internet TV platform.

Jupitermedia announced that the conference faculty for the upcoming Web Video Summit Spring '07 consists of nearly 100 visionary technologists, creatives, and business experts who will help shape the future of the Internet through Web video.

Debuting at the San Jose Marriott from June 27 – 28, 2007, Web Video Summit Spring ‘07 will feature the latest industry developments, new companies, hot products, video screenings and special events, along with a conference program designed to enable video professionals to re-think the way they approach Web video projects and to adapt to this rapidly-changing medium.

TVover.net's Curtis Sund and Judson Skoog-Smith will be on the scene so keep an eye out for them and please introduce yourself. Sund will also be moderating the "iPhone and other Video Encoding Challenges" panel early on Thursday.

They're baaaack...Will Ferrell and his 2 year-old co-star Pearl from FunnyorDie.com's award-winning video "The Landlord," will reunite once again in "Good Cop, Baby Cop," an exclusive new video premiering Monday, June 25 at (8:00 PM) on Funny or Die, the funniest place on the web. In the video, Ferrell portrays "Angel," a hard-nosed criminal who refuses to cooperate with the police, leaving them no choice but to call in their toughest lieutenant -- a baby cop, known in the precinct as "The Confession Machine."

"Good Cop, Baby Cop" marks Pearl's farewell performance. The 2 year-old, who rose to stardom following "The Landlord's" debut on Funny or Die this past April, is retiring.

Apple announced yesterday that iPhone users will be able to watch YouTube's content on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. A new Apple-designed application on the iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube's content to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on iPhone's 3.5 inch display.

How appealing is this? Would you watch YouTube videos on your phone? Are users willing to pay the extra fee to have the EDGE service to watch YouTube videos? Does this new feature make the iPhone more attractive, even at a price tag of $499?

Tom Taulli has an interesting write-up at blogging stocks and questions whether this is simply hype. According to Dipanshu Sharma of V-Enable, Apple may be going too far and even "misguiding the consumer" in believing that the YouTube content will stream effortlesly on the EDGE network. It's an interesting viewpoint and worth the read.

The 2007 Eurovision Song Contest, one of the largest musical events in Europe, set new records this year for both the European Broadcasting Union and Octoshape. Millions of users visited the Eurovision website and the online webcast also saw a major rise in popularity.

I have to admit that I was actually one of those users. If you've ever lived in Europe for any amount of time, you've probably been there during the annual Eurovision Song Contest. To say the least, a lot of people go crazy over this event and some cities even put up large screens to watch it with a crowd. While it's not always the best music, the shows, commentating, and voting are very entertaining.

When I saw it was being streamed online this year, I couldn't help but tune in but the experience was not the same. They didn't have any commentating, nor did you see how countries were voting. That took away some of the entertainment.

Online video site Metacafe debuted its new Metacafe Studio. The site's newest section provides video creators with a wide range of resources and advice. Metacafe Studio's lineup includes:

• Production School - Tips including over 50 instructional videos covering all topics of video production from lighting to editing
• Production Resources - Directory with links to hundreds of the best resources available to online video creators, including copyright-free music, editing software, special effects tools, stock video footage and more
• Producer of the Day - Spotlight on highly-ranked Metacafe creators and their most popular videos
• MetacafeUnfiltered - Video series hosted by Will Video for Food's Kevin Nalty and featuring profiles of Metacafe's most interesting video creators
• Producer Rewards Showcase - Access to all submissions to Metacafe's Producer Rewards program, with an interactive leader board displaying top earners from each week, month and all-time

Truveo revealed that its video search engine has reached an audience of almost 40 million monthly unique visitors – according to comScore MediaMetrix*. Since October of 2006, Truveo has also seen a 50% month-over-month increase in usage** across all of the websites powered by Truveo.

While the amount of video on the Internet has continued to grow at a tremendous rate, there have been major shifts recently in where this video can be found. Content owners are forcing video destination sites to remove tens of thousands of copyrighted videos—which often are among the most popular videos. Often, these videos are still legally available elsewhere on the Web, leaving video search engines as the only one-stop-shop where consumers can find video.

Teracue has introduced the new software version 4.0 of the iCue streaming system for recording, distribution, playback and for the management of video streams over standard IP networks. iCue stands for flexible and instant video networking for both PCs and TVs - in DVD-quality. The iCue Server, first version introduced in 2001, is now around 20 percent stronger and has graphically improved operator and user interfaces.

Sophisticated features for archiving and rights management as well as streaming playback of individual video frames for video analysis and high-detail recognition are now possible. Normal Ethernet networks with CAT 5 cabling are able to serve as “virtual video routers” and render additional video cabling and separate signal amplification and switching unnecessary. The iCue software supports the compression standards MPEG-4 AVC H.264 SD/HD and MPEG-2 SD/HD.