Phoenix Technologies and TeleCruz Take iTV out of the Box

In the early days of cable TV, you needed to put a box on top of the tube to get connected. Nowadays, those cable jacks on the back of TVs are so prevalent that television manufacturers just assume that you'll be subscribing to cable and usually don't even provide an antennae for those who don't subscribe. Making it easy for folks to plug in without purchasing extra equipment seems like a pretty good idea, so why not put a Cat-5 jack on the back of the tube so that everyone is ready for Internet TV? Well, Phoenix Technologies just let us know about an agreement with TeleCruz to deliver its FirstView Connect Internet access software to the top four television manufacturers in China. TeleCruz packages Phoenix's software with its semiconductor chip sets to give television manufacturers a complete package for building interactive televisions that have Internet browsing capability built-in. So far, Hi-Sense, TCL, Changhong, and Konka are all set to use the package. The hardware/software package includes optimization for low resolution TV screens, language handling for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters, and support for interactive services, including email, streaming media, and Java. The idea is that, when TVs that support iTV come around, all you'll have to do is subscribe.