Canal+ is looking to shake-up the slow progress of development for its set-top boxes by releasing its complete Java application programming interface (API) technology to the market for free. While Internet STBs have been around for the last six months or so, the fact they have tended to be based on embedded system technologies has slowed the development of Java- based Web browsers for the environment.

Given that a significant portion of the Web supports the Java extensible programming language, this has meant that Internet STB users have not had access to many of the more interactive Web sites. Now Canal+ says it is changing the ground rules by releasing its Java API technologies for use in Internet and digital TV STBs. The most likely immediate outcome of the move is that integrated digital TVs will soon arrive that support full-feature access to the Internet.

According to Canal+ officials, one important feature of the firm’s API is that its specifications are based on the Java programming language already familiar to the software developer community. Henri Joubaud, group senior vice president at the firm, said that, earlier this year, Sun Microsystems invited Canal+ Technologies to be the first company to present several interactive TV applications based on this API and the Java programming language.

That invitation, given at January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, laid the ground rules for this week’s release of the API to the industry at large.

“Our decision to totally open our API specifications to the creative community and software applications developers will give digital TV a major and significant boost all over the world,” said Joubaud. According to Joubaud, the move puts the company at the forefront of the industry with open software “solutions” for the digital broadcasting market, and with customized products based on international standards and languages.

Joubaud said that Canal+ have been promoting open and interoperable standards fostering competition between technology providers for some time. “We were the first to launch interactive television back in 1996, first to implement operational conditional access interoperability solutions (Simulcrypt) in 1997, and now the first digital and interactive television software company to publish its API based on an open language,” he claimed.

http://www.canalplus-technologies.com/