Zappware Launches New User Interface, Social Networking Features, iPhone Extension for iView Core

Belgian interactive TV technology provider, Zappware, said Monday that, at the IBC show in Amsterdam later this week, it will launch a new TV user interface, new social networking features, and an iPhone extension for its iView Core product (previously called iView for Operators).

The new TV user interface, dubbed Matrix, is billed by Zappware as being easy to operate and as providing viewers with "consistent and intuitive" access to media content, whether provided by a pay-TV operator, stored on a home network, or sourced from the Internet. According to the company, it is operated using only six buttons on the remote control: the four arrow keys, and the "OK" and "Menu" keys). It uses a "fixed representation" for media items such as TV programs, VOD assets, recorded programming, home videos, family pictures and broadband videos, the company says, which allows those items to be browsed and played using a single, consistent interface. It also features fluid animations and moving backgrounds.

Matrix will be part of Zappware's iView Core product, which is targeted at cable, satellite, terrestrial IPTV and broadband operators and bundles such services as EPG, VOD and PVR, and which the company says will work with Matrix to provide backend support for personalization, localization and recommendations. Matrix will be offered alongside iView Core's existing interface--which has now been branded as Flux--giving operators two different interface designs to choose from. "We are very proud to introduce our new Matrix TV user interface here at IBC," Zappware managing partner and CTO, Koen Swings, said in a prepared statement. "We have been working on this product for over a year and have bundled a lot of Zappware's TV experience in its design. With Matrix we show that it is still possible to innovate the field of TV user interfaces. Matrix offers viewers fast and intuitive access to a very large collection of media items. This is exactly what service providers need to offer to their viewers nowadays. In a world in which TV viewers are confronted with an increasing number of media choices, it becomes more and more important to properly guide viewers in their choices and to make access to TV content as easy as possible. This has been Matrix's design goal from the beginning and we firmly believe that it will become an indispensable instrument for TV viewers."

Zappware's new iView Core social networking features, meanwhile, are billed by the company as allowing viewers to see what their friends and family are watching on TV, exchange favorites lists of TV programs and VOD movies with one another, recommend TV programs and VOD movies to one another, send VOD movie gifts to their friends, and lock their TV screens onto one another so that they can watch the same content. "Social networking has been a buzz word in the past few years, in particular on the Internet," Zappware CTO Swings said in a prepared statement. "With these extensions to our EPG, VOD and PVR products, we now extend social networking from the PC domain to the TV domain, because we are convinced that there is no better environment for sharing TV experiences than the TV itself. In a world in which people are continuously seeking to connect and in which consumers are willing to embrace new technologies that allow them to connect better and more often, these social networking features on TV will be highly appreciated by viewers. Operators that include these features in their iDTV offering will be able to offer their subscribers a cross-platform social networking experience, hence adding value to their triple- or quadruple-play offer and resulting in increased subscriber loyalty."

Finally, the iView Core iPhone extension will, Zappware says, allow viewers to use their handset to program their DVR, build lists of favorite programs or VOD assets, access the EPG, schedule reminders, access the VOD catalog and order VOD assets. The company touts the extension as enabling users to access these DTV functions without interrupting their family's TV viewing, because it allows the functions to be controlled on a separate screen. "Zappware has always been pioneering the field of interactive digital TV on multiple TV platforms," Zappware's Swings said in a prepared statement. "With the introduction of a mobile platform, namely the iPhone, to access interactive digital TV services, we allow the operator to offer their subscribers a consistent media experience across multiple devices. We are convinced that such a multiplatform experience will result in increased subscriber loyalty and will offer more value to the operator's triple- or quadruple-play offer."