app store

Less than two months after announcing that its Samsung Apps connected-TV app store had surpassed its one millionth application download (see the article published on itvt.com, December 9th), Samsung said Monday that the store has now seen two million downloads. Samsung Apps, which launched around a year ago, allows users of Samsung connected-TV devices to purchase and download directly to those devices apps from a range of content and service providers. The store, which is available in 120 countries, currently features around 380 apps, of which 259 are free.

Here is a round-up of some other recent interactive TV-related stories that we didn't have room for in this issue:

Portugal Telecom last week launched Meo Interactivo, an app store for its Microsoft Mediaroom-powered IPTV service, Meo. According to the company, the app store will aggregate the various interactive TV applications/widgets that are already available for the Meo service, as well as offering various new applications, including apps for Facebook, Picasa, Flickr and Oceanlook (note: the latter is a Portuguese site that bills itself as a portal for Ocean lovers). Applications will be organized into categories, the company says.

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week, Tyler Slocum, senior director of advanced services at DirecTV, discusses the satellite TV operator's app store and its line-up of widgets.

The BBC has unveiled its multiplatform/interactive TV coverage plans for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. According to the corporation:

Due to the volume of news generated by last week's Consumer Electronics Show, and because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco), we are covering a number of stories in this issue in summary form:

A number of items of augmented reality news have come across [itvt]'s desk over the past few days. Here is a brief round-up:

Paris-based video-sharing site operator, Dailymotion, on Monday announced the launch in the Apple App Store of an iPhone/iPod touch app that incorporates both content channels and capabilities for creating and uploading videos. According to the company, the app allows users to search a library of over 12 million videos and to surf 14 themed channels, including Music, Film & TV, Funny, and Sports & Extreme, as well as lists of viral videos. It also lets users share videos with their friends, Dailymotion says, and access and manage their Dailymotion accounts. In addition, it allows iPhone 3GS users to record and upload videos straight from their handset to their accounts.

A number of items of broadband-video and live-streaming news have come across [itvt]'s desk over the past few days. Here is a brief round-up:

Verizon announced Wednesday that it has launched two new interactive TV casual games in its FiOS TV Widget Bazaar applications marketplace: Reversi and Chinese Checkers. According to the company, the games, which are offered free of charge, have been rolled out in California and Texas, and will be available in other FiOS TV areas soon. Other free casual games available through the FiOS TV Widget Bazaar (note: they can also be accessed under the Games menu of the FiOS TV Interactive Media Guide) include Chess, Solitaire, Sudoku and Word Builder.

SPRXmobile announced Wednesday that the long-awaited iPhone version its Layar augmented reality browser is now available in the Apple App Store, free-of-charge (note: for background on the Layar platform--which leverages smartphones' integrated GPS and compass capabilities to display layers of interactive digital information on top of real-time video on those phones' camera screens, thus effectively transforming reality into a giant, clickable interactive video--see the articles published on itvt.com, June 17th, July 9th, August 18th and September 27th, and the interview with SPRXmobile co-founder, Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald, published July 16t

Accedo Broadband--a Stockholm-based aggregator and distributor of interactive TV applications and content for IPTV and broadband-connected consumer electronics devices (note: the company, which was founded by telecom and media entrepreneurs, Michael Lantz and Fredrik Andersson, offers a range of applications, but is best known for its games)--announced last week the launch of the Accedo App Store for IPTV. According to the company, the new App Store functionality allows viewers to access IPTV applications directly in the living room via the remote control. The store's user interface and branding can be completely customized, the company says, in order to reflect operator and broadcaster user interfaces.

Revision3, a company which bills itself as "an actual TV network for the Web" and which develops and produces original broadband TV shows, contacted [itvt] earlier this week to let us know about a new show it has just launched that may be of interest to our readers. Entitled "AppJudgment" and hosted by a rotating roster of Revision3 personalities, including Patrick Norton ("Tekzilla"), Revision3 co-founder David Prager and Ron Richards ("iFanboy"), the show reviews new applications for the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Palm Pre platforms.

During a conference call with financial analysts last week, following the company's release of its second-quarter earnings, DirecTV's interim CEO, Larry D. Hunter, confirmed that the satellite-TV provider will later this month launch a new, App Store-type service, called "TV Apps," that will allow subscribers to download interactive TV widget applications, and apparently also upload their own apps (presumably after some kind of review process): "Later this month, we'll launch a new service called TV Apps, which is analogous to Yahoo! Widgets or Google Gadgets," Hunter stated.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, Friday, Apple recently told Acrossair, the developer of the Nearest Tube subway-finding application profiled on itvt.com, July 9th (note: Acrossair has since launched New York and San Francisco Bay Area versions of the app), that it will officially support augmented reality applications with the next release (version 3.1) of its iPhone OS software, and that such applications will launch in the Apple App Store in September.