Ocean Blue Software to release its advanced TV software suite on Toshiba's TC9040x 'Donau' series of processors. The new Linux-based software will allow for fast development of reduced component count consumer electronics products, such as set top boxes, integrated digital televisions, personal video recorders, and combination hard disk/DVD recorder systems.

Ocean Blue is nearing completion of the development, which takes advantage of Toshiba's powerful, compact, and highly integrated ICs for 'free-to-air' and Pay-TV digital television applications. Codenamed 'Donau', the TC90400XBG and TC90400FG high performance system-on-chip devices simplify the design and dramatically reduce time to market.

The monumental music event Live Earth will bring together more than 2 billion people on July 7, 2007 to combat the climate crisis. Live Earth will stage concerts in New York, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg and Hamburg, and will feature more than 150 of the world’s best music acts – a mix of both legendary music acts like The Police, Genesis, Bon Jovi and Madonna with the latest headliners like Kanye West, Kelly Clarkson, Black Eyed Peas and Jack Johnson.

Live Earth's 24 hours of music across 7 continents will deliver a worldwide call to action and the solutions necessary to answer that call. Live Earth marks the beginning of a multi-year campaign to drive individuals, corporations and governments to take action to solve the climate crisis. Live Earth is partnering with the Alliance for Climate Protection, The Climate Group, Stop Climate Chaos and other international organizations in this ongoing effort. Live Earth was founded by Kevin Wall, CEO of Control Room, the company producing the concerts globally. Former Vice President of the United States Al Gore is the Chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection and a Partner of Live Earth.

Official Live Earth concerts will be streamed live by MSN. If you are looking for other events broadcast live online, jump over to Find Internet TV to check out their guide.

In some news from last week, News Corporation and NBC Universal have appointed Jason Kilar, a former executive at Amazon.com, to CEO of the online video joint venture the companies formed in March, 2007. Mr. Kilar will join the new company on July 9 and will report to its Board of Directors.

The company's site will debut later this year with thousands of hours of full-length programming, movies and clips from myriad networks and two major film studios.

emuse absolutely have been appointed as a preferred supplier of next-generation interactive advertising services for BT Vision, BT's digital TV service. emuse absolutely and BT will jointly develop, promote and operate the service, working with major brands and their advertising agencies to deliver interactive advertising and other interactive applications on BT Vision.

BT Vision's interactive advertising will showcase a compelling experience on the TV, drawing on the power of broadband to offer high-speed, video-rich advertiser locations that include sophisticated data capture, search and a quick and intuitive response mechanism.

PrimeTel is the first private electronic communications provider to offer triple-play services in Cyprus and the only one to bundle the three services - telephony, Internet and television. With emphasis in providing quality service packages in truly exceptional prices, PrimeTel has established a strong presence in the broadband services market. Through PrimeTel's service packages, subscribers can benefit from up to 40% cheaper fixed telephony rates compared to the incumbent, the fastest Internet speeds in the market (1.5 Mb) with ADSL2+ technology, as well as over 100 local and international channels on its PrimeTV Platform.

CNN.com unveiled on Sunday, July 1 the latest evolution in online news: an intuitive, integrated Web site that puts users within a click of the global, international and local news and information they find most relevant to them.

With the site's enhancements and redesign, users can access the news of the day through a story package that provides text, images, video, related stories and user-generated content. Also, the live online video content that was available through the subscription-only CNN Pipeline becomes woven into the fabric of CNN.com and is available to all CNN.com users for free, making the service even more dynamic and user-friendly.

Ocean Blue Software has introduced an arcade games pack for its Freeview set-top box software. The company has integrated Tetris, Snake & Breakout into its system, operated via a normal TV remote control. The arcade games package is available to set-top box manufacturers to add extra value to Freeview boxes, and Ocean Blue is in discussions with a number of CE vendors and manufacturers, with a view to availability in the shops by Christmas.

Motorola introduces a set-top software solution using an open Internet Protocol platform on its VIP 1200 series set-top boxes. The KreaTV application platform uses the Linux Operating system to help support multiple entertainment and video service applications on Motorola's VIP set-top series, allowing service providers and other third parties to easily customize and deploy revenue-generating applications via development kits and custom training on the toolsets. Interactive features such as programming guides, viewer voting tools, and advanced gaming can be seamlessly integrated by the service provider using the open-platform system in conjunction with third-party middleware and software providers.

As for some old, but significant news from last week MySpace will launch its new video platform, MySpaceTV. The announcement comes on the heels of explosive video growth driven by dozens of industry content partnerships and user interface changes. According to comScore Media Metrix, MySpace’s total number of video streams has leapt by 100% and the site has added 15 million unique streamers since January.

MySpaceTV will be an integrated component of the company’s worldwide community and content platform, continues the evolution of the company’s video offering by aggregating the best elements of video and empowers MySpace users to view, create, and share videos in new ways throughout the community. MySpaceTV will serve as the community’s primary video channel and as a stand-alone user destination at www.myspacetv.com.

AOL launched an update to its AOL Video portal with enhancements designed to make it even easier for consumers to find, watch and share more than 20 million videos from across the Web without having to visit multiple websites. New features of the updated AOL Video portal include:

• A redesigned main page that makes it easier for consumers to discover, search for and find millions of videos from across the Web;
• A redesigned video search experience that leverages industry-leading Truveo video search technology and features better presentation of Web search results to help users more easily find what they are looking for and;
• A new embedded playback experience where consumers can find and watch videos from other popular video sites on the AOL Video site.

The Middle East and Africa are the fastest growing broadband markets in the world set to host their first ever major IPTV event in November, when the IPTV World Forum Middle East and Africa is staged at the Jumeriah Beach Hotel in Dubai, UAE.

The two developing regions, alongside Europe, already accommodate 48 per cent of the world’s IPTV market and significant growth is already planned as competition to introduce new services intensifies.

The IPTV World Series of conferences and exhibition, now recognised as the leading platform for IPTV news, developments and discussion, has already organised a wide range of speakers in a programme covering content suppliers and broadcasters, operators, content providers and systems integrators. The associated industry exhibition already has around 40 companies taking part

In the wake of last week's iPhone frenzy, consumers are clamoring for fresh, engaging video content to view on the new devices. Anticipating this demand, ON Networks, a new media company which develops original short-form, weekly shows for a variety of lifestyle interests, is offering 10 newly-launched programs on iTunes for free download.

In an effort to further engage these users, ON Networks remastered its content to run at the optimal resolution for the iPhone's screen, which has a 16:9 aspect ratio when held horizontally, and a higher resolution than the video iPod. In making these adjustments, ON hopes to attract early technology adopters hungry for fresh, episodic programming.

Motorola has completed its acquisition of Modulus Video, Inc., a privately-held company. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Modulus Video is a leader and innovator in MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding compression systems designed for delivery of high value video content in the IPTV, cable, broadcast and satellite marketplace. Modulus Video has partnered with Motorola for over two years bringing high-quality encoding solutions to key customers around the world.