A $20m research project, designed to set new standards in interactive TV, has been agreed between Spyglass Inc and leading set-top box maker General Instrument Corp. The two companies will set up a jointly-owned digital software integration center for the development of new cable services and applications. Third party companies, as well as General Instrument’s partners and customers, will be encouraged to use the center to build services and applications for General Instrument’s digital cable platform. As part of the deal, General Instrument will pay $7.4m for a 5% shareholding in browser developer Spyglass with an option to buy a further 5%. While set-top boxes are now pouring from production lines on both sides of the Atlantic, the first generation devices have barely scratched the surface of digital TV’s potential for interactivity. Program makers and advertisers want a greater degree of interactivity so that viewers can, for example, download from the internet further information about what they have seen on the TV. One problem is the proliferation of standards in digital TV but Spyglass and General Instrument hope to come up with software that can run without whichever system becomes dominant.
