WebTV Networks Inc, the Palo Alto company set up to deliver an internet service to standard television sets equipped with a set- top decoder from Philips Electronics NV or Sony Corp, using low- grade telephone lines, is working with Sun Microsystems Inc on a Java for TV initiative to bring new features of the Internet to television. WebTV helped with development of the PersonalJava application programming interfaces Sun unveiled last week, and says it is the first to license the implementation, which enables devices such as televisions, set-top boxes and screen-equipped phones to run Java. Investors in WebTV include Seagate Technology Inc, Microsoft Corp, Citicorp, Times Mirror Inc, the Washington Post, and Verifone Inc, plus the Asia Pacific Ventures, Brentwood Venture Capital, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Ventures, St Paul Capital, George Soros Capital and Lauder Partners venture capital companies. Java for TV will be television-specific extensions to PersonalJava.
