Interactive TV News Round-Up (IV): Miniweb, Digital Telemedia, mSpot, Google TV, NBC

Due to the large volume of news coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show, which kicked off Wednesday in Las Vegas, we are covering stories in this issue in summary/round-up form. We anticipate that it will take us several days to catch up with all the news generated by the show: so if your company has sent us a press release or briefed us on an announcement, and you don't yet see your news covered in this issue, please bear with us. Our regular news coverage will return shortly.

• Miniweb, a London-based company which offers technology designed to enable converged broadcast and broadband entertainment on the TV (note: last fall, the company launched its "woomi" connected-TV services platform, which it bills as delivering multiple online video sources to connected-TV devices within one application--see the article published on itvt.com, September 12th), has announced a joint solution with Chinese set-top box company, Digital Telemedia (DTM). The solution brings together the woomi platform with DTM's range of HD DiON set-tops, and, according to the companies, "will allow DTM customers throughout Europe, Middle East and South East Asia to choose from adopting either Miniweb's own branded, connected-TV application, woomi, or to create their own branded solution." Said Miniweb CEO, Jerome de Vitry: "The flexibility of the Miniweb solution enables operators and other providers of advanced television solutions to either capitalize upon our woomi brand or to extend their own across a new and exciting connected-TV experience. Either way, the service will enable viewers of connected DiON devices to utilize advanced functionality and features such as global search and content discovery, recommendations, related content, community, micropayments and personalization."
• A start-up called mSpot, which describes itself as a "cloud entertainment provider," has launched its music and movies services on Google TV. "The mSpot Movies service instantly streams full-length movie rentals across connected devices, enabling movie fans to switch seamlessly between devices as they pick up and leave off watching a movie," mSpot states in its press materials. "mSpot Music allows users to store their personal music collections on the Internet and then instantly access music from the cloud via any connected device." According to mSpot, its services offer a "seamless experience across platforms--including PC, Mac, tablets, iPad, mobile devices and now Google TV--enabling customers to access their entire music collections and movies on any device via a single user account."
• NBC has announced that it is teaming with DC Comics to offer a sneak preview of the pilot (airs January 9th) of the new NBC series, "The Cape," on the Apple iPad. "In a special promotion, DC Comics will offer viewers the chance to view the one-hour pilot episode of 'The Cape' via their free comic book iPad application during the week preceding the show's premiere on NBC--January 5 through January 8," NBC states in its press materials. "This is the first time DC Comics has offered long-form video through their iPad application."