Sony Corp has licensed SpyGlass Inc’s web software for use in digital set-top boxes and other wireless information devices. The company will use the Spyglass Device Mosaic embedded browser and has licensed the firm’s ThinGUI graphics library. The financial value of the deal has not been revealed.
The market for small footprint or ‘micro’ browsers is likely to grow dramatically over the next few years as wireless devices from smartphones to interactive set-top boxes link to the internet. AOL, Sun Microsystems and Netscape are working on a microbrowser for small information appliances and Microsoft has Pocket Internet Explorer for CE.
