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The [itvt] editorial team will be on the road this week and next, so we will be covering most stories in round-up/summary form, and we anticipate that there will be some additional interruptions of our regular news publishing schedule beyond that. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers. Here is a round-up of interactive TV-related news pertaining primarily to the broadband TV/OTT space:

Inwindow Outdoor, a New York City-based company that specializes in digital storefront and mall advertising, has launched an interactive augmented reality display at The Grove mall in Los Angeles, in order to promote the Blu-ray release of the movie, "Avatar." According to the company, the display--a free-standing structure made up of multiple digital screens--uses custom technology, developed in house, in order to morph faces of shoppers into Na'vis (the wide-eyed blue creatures from the movie) as they watch. "This is by far the most technologically ambitious project we've ever done, and the first by our internal digital team," Inwindow Outdoor managing director, Jeff Cohen, said in a prepared statement.

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:

Live Internet broadcast service provider, Ustream (note: the company recently announced the availability of a Ustream Live Broadcaster iPhone app in the iTunes App Store--see the article published on itvt.com, December 10th), contacted [itvt] Monday to let us know that it will be powering live, interactive feeds of today's (Tuesday) Golden Globes nominations and tomorrow's (Wednesday) premiere of the new James Cameron movie, "Avatar."

MTV Networks and Twentieth Century Fox have announced plans for an interactive/social live-streaming event designed to promote the new James Cameron movie, "Avatar" (note: an Adobe AIR-based, clickable, interactive video trailer for "Avatar" was launched last week--see the article published on itvt.com, November 30th). The event, dubbed "Avatar Live" and sponsored by LG Mobile Phones, will stream in HD simultaneously on MTV..com and Facebook on December 3rd at 3:00PM Eastern/12:00PM Pacific, and will be followed by a "Behind the Screen" episode devoted to "Avatar" that will also air in December.

At the NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco last week, Microsoft announced that it will launch Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and "instant-on" HD video from Zune on its Xbox Live service, November 17th. "We're delivering some truly exciting social entertainment experiences to our members," Xbox Live general manager, Marc Whitten, said in a prepared statement. "Xbox Live's differentiator has always been our community, and we've already seen a tremendous response to these features in our public preview. It's the community that drives us forward and allows us to pioneer new ways of connecting people through the entertainment they love."

Following a similar deal with UK pay-TV provider, BSkyB, that was announced earlier this month (see the article posted on itvt.com, June 11th), Microsoft on Monday announced a deal with French pay-TV provider, Canal+, that the companies say will make a range of Canal+'s live and VOD content--including over 3,000 on-demand films, as well as TV shows and soccer games--available to France's approximately 1 million Xbox 360 users via Microsoft's Xbox LIVE content service.