Microsoft Corp and Tele-Communications Inc are due to begin their first interactive television trials with their employees next month, and according to PC Week, as well as the Tiger video server software, will use a distributed microkernel-based operating system from Microsoft code-named Iceberg, and Microsoft will hold an Iceberg developers’ conference in mid-December for 80 interactive television application and content vendors, at which participants will receive sample code for application programming interfaces, specifications for Visual Basic and Visual C development tools, descriptions of hardware-development systems and documentation for building systems; Iceberg is the second version of the interactive television operating system developed by Microsoft’s Advanced Technology division – the first version, code-named Amazon, was developed by Microsoft, General Instrument Corp and Intel Corp and was based on the Microsoft At Work kernel, but Iceberg is all Microsoft’s own work and will therefore be the one that it pushes hardest.
