June 2009

CloverLeaf Digital, a Brooklyn-based interactive TV applications developer that specializes in building and managing localized "walled-garden" services, and IPTV middleware provider, Minerva Networks, announced Monday that two independent telcos--Pineland Telephone Cooperative in Georgia and WT Services in Texas--have launched CloverLeaf's interactive TV services on IPTV systems powered by Minerva's iTVManager middleware.

The US Supreme Court said Monday that it would not revisit a US appeals court's decision last August to overturn a March, 2007 lower court ruling in favor of the plaintiffs in the Cablevision Remote Storage (RS)-DVR case. The decision is in accordance with a recent recommendation (see article published on itvt.com, May 31st) by US solicitor general, Elena Kagan, that the court not hear the case: Kagan was asked by the court to submit an advisory brief on the case back in January.

UK set-top box/digital TV technology provider, Pace, has named Scott Sheldon to the newly created position of chief strategy officer, tasking him with driving development of its "future strategy in the global market for digital TV technology." Sheldon joins Pace from N M Rothschild & Sons, where he was a director and the global head of technology investment banking, covering, the company says, hardware, software, services and semi-conductor clients on a global basis. Prior to that, he founded and served as CEO of eMed, a US-based provider of network-based electronic medical image management software and Internet services.

Social TV company, ffwd (the company offers what it calls "an audience-powered platform for video content navigation and discovery"), and multimedia business technology trade publication, InformationWeek, will today announce that videos from InformationWeek's TechWebTV service are available on Facebook through ffwd's ffwdPlayer application. According to the companies, the application, which is based on the ffwd and Facebook platforms, will publish new video to the news feed on InformationWeek's Facebook fan page, using the TechWebTV Brightcove feed, and will also maintain an "always up-to-date" videos tab on the page.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation, the Television Academy's charitable arm, has selected Mochila--a company which provides a content syndication technology platform and network and whose clients include the AP, Reuters, AFP, Getty, Gannett, Tribune Company, Media General, MSNBC and CNET, among others--to redesig

DVR, broadband video and audience measurement company, TiVo, announced Friday the election of Heidi Roizen to its board of directors. According to the company, Roizen's election means that the TiVo board now has 10 members, of whom nine are independent, outside directors. "The breadth and depth of experience within the technology industry and entrepreneurial community that Heidi brings to our board is invaluable and will have an immediate impact on TiVo's strategic plans to further define the way television is consumed," TiVo CEO, Tom Rogers, said in a prepared statement.