With the launch of the ibox from Vantage
last Wednesday, FOXXUM, international expert in Smart TV portal
solutions, content aggregation and TV-Apps development, has launched the
first Smart TV portal solution for Android and has set a new standard
for Android-based TV-devices. Vantage and FOXXUM are responsible
for
setting the trend: classic TV-devices will increasingly be developed as
Android-based.
“The implementation of Android-based Smart TV solutions is an important basis for achieving increased accessibility and coverage. While other providers are still busy announcing these types of products, FOXXUM, in close cooperation with Vantage, has already delivered this innovation and has proved being ahead of competition when it comes to technological excellence. Over the coming weeks, more of our clients will be launching a Smart TV portal solution on their Android-devices, developed in close connection with us,” said Ronny Lutzi, FOXXUM CEO.
The Vantage ibox integrated FOXXUM Smart TV portal provides an extensive selection of on-demand video content. Customers can watch missed episodes of TV programmes from public broadcasters ARD and ZDF. The Vantage ibox caters to all tastes with further online offers like a huge range of music from Tunein or news coverage from NOS or France 24. And to top it all off, over 40,000 videos from online video-store maxdome are also available.
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ushing the boundaries of multiplatform TV content development is
central to the cross platform ethos of the Apps World event, and they
are delighted to have joined teams with the TV HackFest to host the
first Apps World TV hackathon in San Fran this Feb at the Moscone Centre
West.
Ian Johnson, Founder, Apps World says:
"We are thrilled to be bringing the TV HackFest to Apps World. TV is an exciting new area for developers and our aim is to provide a platform at our events for these guys to really get creative with their coding and design… and TV HackFest does just that."
Richard Kastelein, Founder TV HackFest says:
“Teaming up with Apps World in San Francisco and London in 2013 is a perfect fit for HackFest and with hundreds of APIs and SDKs relative to hacking new TV experiences – we expect the participants will really take TV to another level. The intersection of TV and the Internet is here – and there’s half a trillion dollars globally at stake in the traditional TV value chain. The Internet massively disrupted both print and music and TV is not immune.”
Presently, the global Games industry is worth around $70 billion for 2012. That's twice the size of the Music industry, twice the size of the book industry, and three times the size of the movie industry. We have Generation G (gamers) who are now in their forties who have grown up engaging with content. Over 100,000 people play along with The Million Pound Drop live on Friday nights in the UK, and over 600,000 downloaded The Voice of Holland out of a population of 16.5 million (in USA terms that would be 11,528,900 second screen engagement downloads for one show).
One should not underestimate how quickly and drastically consumer behaviour can change. Remember when we used to use mobile phones for just calling people? Look what we do with them now? TV will change from what we have known for decades - it's ripe for it - there's too much visual ritalin, too many commercials, and, as narrative developments show in the Transmedia world, stories are going to get more complex on TV... as they should in the future. We have been on a long journey from - people screaming at a screening of an oncoming train during the first ever publically shown film - to extremely rich, complex narratives withTransmedia properties such as The Matrix and Avatar today.
Taking place on the first day of the event, the TV HackFest http://www.hackfest.tv/northamerica/ will bring together Silicon Valley’s finest for a coding marathon workshop of creativity and hands on developer collaboration.
The aim of TV HackFest is to provide a range of TV technologies, SDKs and APIs as well as briefs and competitions - to developers, designers, agencies, creatives and entrepreneurs to build design and show how future video entertainment could be delivered within an interactive multi-screen environment.
The HackFests will feature at both Apps World San Fran and Europe in 2013, with the brand expanding into niches to create targeted coding workshops throughout 2013.
Apps World will feature nine workshop tracks over the duration of the show including three FREE developer workshops and a one day agenda purely focused to TV Apps and Multi screen, featuring discussion and advice about the industry's topic issues and detail how to get involved in developing this new technology.
Find out more about the TV HackFest North America and register to take part for free here http://www.hackfest.tv/northamerica/
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In the latest update to its award-winning app – now available in the Apple App Store and Google Play – zeebox adds new remote control capabilities, Spanish-language channel support, more TV providers and other improvements.
These new features come just two months after the award-winning TV companion app launched in the US to critical acclaim and announced partnerships with content providers NBCUniversal, Viacom and HBO, who are already providing enhanced zeebox experiences for hundreds of shows across dozens of channels.
By upgrading to the latest version of zeebox, XFINITY TV subscribers have another option to change TV channels directly from their iPad, iPhone or Android smartphone. The user experience is seamless: fire up zeebox to see instantly what’s on TV, what’s buzzing, what the celebrities and your friends are watching.
Tap on a channel logo in zeebox’s guide view to tune instantly to that channel. Or, pick a show in zeebox and tune to that channel while
zeebox automatically displays that show’s page. With one click, you’re watching the show and at the heart of the related social buzz, accessing a wealth of additional information, interactivity and commerce.
With zeebox you can jump to a TV show to watch alongside your friends or favorite stars with just one click – no matter who their provider is. There is no need to know the channel numbers or search for the show.
“We believe seamless remote control is one of those killer features – integrated with our content and embedded with the consumer experience. Consumers absolutely love zeebox’s remote control feature. In addition to launching with XFINITY TV, we’re working on adding remote control support for additional cable and satellite providers in the near future,” said Anthony Rose, co-founder and CTO of zeebox.
In the UK, zeebox can already remote control Sky+ and Virgin TiVo set top boxes and a range of smart TVs from Samsung, Sony and Panasonic.
Since launching in 2011, zeebox has become the market-leading TV companion app, uniquely enabling consumers to discover TV content through their extended social network, to follow their favorite celebrities’ viewing, and to automatically get more information about shows. zeebox knows what consumers are watching, and engages them with relevant content and ecommerce opportunities in synch with live TV.
The latest version of the zeebox app also adds:
To find out how to get zeebox on the Web, on iPad, iPhone and Android smartphones visit http://zeebox.com.
Add a comment Add a commentzeebox today announces that its award-winning app is now available to download from BlackBerry App World™. UK TV viewers will now be able to get all the TV buzz, extra content and interactivity directly from their BlackBerry® smartphone.
zeebox's cloud-based app synchronizes the user's mobile device with whatever they are watching on TV; it recognizes the context of what viewers are watching and enhances it with relevant content and experiences from the Web. The app gives consumers an effortless way to discover, interact and socialize across a range of programs while watching their favorite television programs.
The brainchild of former EMI executive Ernesto Schmitt and BBC iPlayer CTO Anthony Rose, zeebox has led global innovation in the market of TV companion apps since launching in the UK in 2011. zeebox uniquely enables consumers to discover what's hot on TV right now – among their friends, top celebrities, or the Twitterverse. Zeeboxers can follow their favourite stars' TV viewing, get access to exclusive content related to top shows and even buy the products they see on screen.
Zeebox is backed by BSkyB, Comcast, NBCUniversal and Viacom and its app is currently taking the market by storm in the U.K., U.S., Australia and the Republic of Ireland.
Zeebox for BlackBerry® smartphones is now available to UK customers using a device running BlackBerry 6 OS or higher and can be downloaded directly from BlackBerry App World: (http://appworld.blackberry.
- A comprehensive TV guide across all major TV channels - Integration with Facebook and Twitter to enable social discovery of TV content, and engagement with friends and celebrities around live TV - In-depth information about shows, talent, topic and products mentioned on TV – fully synchronized with the broadcast - E-commerce links to relevant digital and physical products related to shows and the content of shows, with direct links to VOD content to come in future
To use zeebox online or get the app for your device, simply go to http://zeebox.com.
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With ownership of tablets more than doubled over the last year, more children than ever are engaging with touch screen devices. Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street,
today released a paper that offers key findings from touch screen
studies and tips for designing and developing apps and ebooks for
preschoolers. Best Practices: Designing Touch Tablet Experiences for Preschoolers
is based on more than 50 studies and shares Sesame Workshop's approach
and discoveries in creating effective educational content for these
mobile platforms.
Best Practices outlines interactive design points that research has shown to best support child engagement and learning on digital touch platforms. It also categorizes the most and least intuitive gestures for touch screens, tips for visual design and layout. Findings and tips include:
"These best practices are a result of our research with preschoolers and their parents. We've developed highly effective methods and ways we can make apps and ebooks more engaging to help children learn," said Rosemarie Truglio, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Education and Research. "We design with parents and caregivers in mind and know that through joint media engagement children learn more and our content has a greater educational impact. In addition, we develop parent tips and have begun to integrate progress trackers as a helpful resource for parents."
The paper also outlines key features for book apps and ebooks such as including reading options with and without narration in ebooks and the ability for parents to turn off potentially distracting hotspots.
From the NYTs:
According to new research commissioned by Sesame Workshop, producer of PBS’s “Sesame Street,” mobile device ownership is booming as TV set ownership declines. Eighty-eight percent of the parents surveyed said they owned a television, down from 95 percent in 2010.
Twenty-one percent said their children first interacted with “Sesame Street” someplace other than television, with YouTube and PBS.org the top alternative sources. (PBS said separately that its free PBS Kids Video app, which has been downloaded 2.4 million times, reached 120 million streams of PBS Kids shows in November, surpassing 100 million for the first time.)
...Since releasing its first app three years ago, Sesame Workshop has added more than three dozen, including Elmo Loves 123s, which was introduced Dec. 10 and draws on new research for developers and parents that Sesame plans to release this week. App users, Mr. Chambers said, tend to come back regularly, a loyalty that executives have noted as they consider future expansion in the category.
The rush to apps is changing the development process for PBS, which will no longer develop television-only shows, Ms. Rotenberg said. PBS’s newest property, “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” came out as an app — already the company’s third best-selling — the day of the television premiere in September.
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Gracenote today announced that its eyeQ Interactive Program Guide (IPG) will be available in Smart TVs from Vestel, providing the consumer electronics leader a one-stop, global solution for TV program listings. In addition, Vestel is developing iPad and Android Apps that will allow TV viewers to interact with and control their Vestel-developed Smart TVs with a Gracenote eyeQ program guide. Demonstrations of Vestel¹s products will be showcased next month during CES 2013.
"We are excited to count Vestel as a key company to roll out our next generation Smart TV technologies in Europe," said Stephen White, President of Gracenote. "Vestel understands the role of the Smart TV and mobile device in the connected living room, and we look forward to collaborating with them to create an experience that integrates devices, data and services in a way that is more intuitive and entertaining for audiences."
"With so many broadcast and on-demand TV and video sources being integrated into the Smart TV, viewers need a way to easily navigate through the endless programming choices. Gracenote provides the program metadata for Vestel to create Smart TV and second screen solutions that simplify how consumers search for content, share experiences across social networks and find related programs," said Hakan Kutlu, Deputy General Manager at Vestel. "Through this relationship with Gracenote, Vestel is redefining the TV experience for viewers around the globe making it more personal, engaging and easier to use."
Gracenote and Vestel Personalize the TV Viewing Experience
With Gracenote eyeQ in its Smart TV platform, Vestel will provide a streamlined way of finding and accessing content from both broadcast and on-demand/streaming sources.
Mobile Apps Integrate with Vestel-developed Smart TVs
Vestel is developing iPad and Android Apps that will allow TV viewers to interact with their TV set using TV listings and schedules powered by Gracenote eyeQ.
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