Backchannelmedia

Business Wire

Zodiac Interactive announces plans to showcase its next generation, ad-supported Interactive Television 2.0TM applications and PowerPlatforms at the National Cable Television Association's (NCTA) The Cable Show '07, to be held in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on May 7-9. In addition, Zodiac's Co-founder & COO Alexander Libkind will speak on a panel at the show to discuss the revenue potential of Advergames for cable operators. The panel discussion, entitled "Casual Attitude: New Opportunities in a Multiplatform Living Room," will be held on Wednesday, May 9 from 3:30-4:15 in the Mandalay Bay Ballroom.

"There's an important shift taking place in interactive television from the delivery of experimental applications that haven't yet been measurable or financially rewarding -- iTV 1.0 -- toward a dynamic, ad supported environment that's highly measurable and capable of crossing multiple media types, such as TV set-tops, mobile devices and PCs. Interactive Television 2.0 means free to consumers, easy-to-use and gives TV viewers what they want, when they want it," said Mike Rivkin, co-founder and CEO at Zodiac Interactive.

Zodiac will feature an iTV widget framework that allows users to enjoy small, unbound interactive applications without interrupting the TV experience. Zodiac will also showcase its next-generation software platform for improving the performance of legacy set-top boxes.

Zodiac's patent pending Zidget FrameworkSM will be prominently displayed in the Zodiac booth. The Zidget Framework gives iTV operators the ability to offer a sidebar TV widget experience. Zodiac's Zidget Framework allows for rapid integration of web and other services into a sidebar that complements the TV experience, but does not interrupt it. These sidebar applications, known as ZidgetsSM, run directly on TV set-tops, requiring little processing power and offering fun and useful mini-applications for consumers. A viewer can click a single button on their standard TV remote and pull up a menu that offers a variety of Zidget applications -- ranging from news, games, sport scores, auction alerts, traffic, weather,and shopping. Zodiac's Zidgets let consumers multitask -- play a game, buy a pizza, check traffic -- all while watching TV. Some of the notable Zidgets that will be demonstrated include:

TVwatchMESM, an amazing new Video-On-Demand driven experience, allows users to instantly scroll among dozens of videos without the need for buffering or session setup on each video. With the rise of micro-networks and short form user-generated content, TVwatchME gives a "faster than channel change" front-end experience to the next-generation of VOD and opens the floodgates of Internet video on Cable.

TVLocalSearchSM allows subscribers to find and call local businesses from their TV using a standard TV remote control without interrupting their viewing experience. Zodiac will profile a Restaurant Search Application as part of TVLocalSearch that allows consumers to pull up a sidebar menu and find their favorite local restaurant. While the search service is free to consumers, businesses will bid for the top position in the search query listing, similar to Google's pay-per-click model. In addition, the Zidget Framework makes it easy to display additional information from a simple data feed that might include reviews, store hours, and menus. The demonstration of TVLocalSearch at the show will be powered by YAHOO! Local Search. However, any local listing service can be connected to TVLocalSearch.

TVPhotoSM lets users view photos from popular sharing sites such as Flickr, enjoy full screen slideshows of favorite photos, and navigate through and select photos based on a given tag, category or keyword. At The Cable Show, Zodiac will utilize the Yahoo! Flickr photo sharing website and web services suite, although any photo feed can be connected to TVPhoto.

Casual Games are family-friendly, nonviolent board, arcade, puzzle and word games that incorporate multi-player capabilities, high-resolution graphics, and high quality sound enhancements. All Zodiac games are designed to support in-game advertising, which allows advertisers and marketers to insert their brand or messages into the games. Demonstrating its cross-media capabilities, Zodiac will also show how cable subscribers can send their favorite TV game to their mobile phone with a click of the TV remote control. Cable Show attendees who stop by Zodiac's booth will receive a free mobile game.

TVcallMESM works much like the popular growing phenomena of Click-to-Call on the Internet and allows TVLocalSearch users to connect to local businesses via VoIP (Voice Over IP). TVcallMe works with any telephony provider and requires no additional equipment to deploy. With TVcallMe, operators can move beyond the traditional advertising CPM model and earn a transactional fee on every call. Additionally, TVcallME can be used to send content, like games and other applications, to mobile phones, adding cross-media functionality for users and new revenue streams for operators.

These demonstrations can be seen in Zodiac's booth #4272 and in the following Zodiac partner booths: Cisco and Scientific Atlanta, A Cisco Company (booth #2044); Alticast (booth #730); Panasonic (booth #3952); and Hillcrest Laboratories (booth #221).

Also on display: PowerRampSM, Zodiac's high-performance, small footprint Java middleware

Zodiac will also be performing private demonstrations of PowerRamp, Zodiac's high-performance, small footprint Java middleware solution for legacy Scientific Atlanta set-tops. It the industry's most advanced implementation of OnRamp to OCAP and the only fully complaint JSR 242 product, offering a nearly order of magnitude performance improvement over currently available OnRamp to OCAP implementations.

Rivkin notes, "The deployment of iTV in the N. American cable market has been hampered by the lack of common, industry-wide middleware. OCAP is clearly the future for advanced set-tops and future two-way plug-and-play CE devices. However, the industry needs some way of enabling the widespread deployment of iTV applications before the deployment of OCAP set-tops hit critical mass. PowerRamp is the clear solution to this problem. Zodiac, throughout its history, has been focused on enhancing the performance of applications on the set-top box. Starting with games, Zodiac has pushed the limits of the set-top, developing powerful components that greatly enhance the performance of applications of legacy set-tops. With PowerRamp, now all legacy Scientific Atlanta set-top boxes can have advanced interactive capabilities, allowing the iTV industry to flourish."

Zodiac has developed an in-depth paper on PowerRamp that includes performance benchmark tests. To request a copy of this paper, visit www.zodiac.tv/powerramp.

To learn more about Zodiac and "The Interactive Television 2.0 Revolution" taking place at The Cable Show '07, visit: www.zodiac.tv/ncta.

About Zodiac Interactive

Zodiac Interactive, the Interactive Television 2.0TM technology and media company, is an Emmy Award winning developer of iTV applications, games and service-oriented middleware for cable, satellite and IPTV. The company has the largest wholly owned library of set-top box ad-supported and subscription games for all major platforms. Zodiac's technology is centered on its flagship product suite, the PowerPlatformTM, which includes embedded set-top box software, advanced application authoring tools and head-end solutions. This complete framework makes it easier for iTV operators and CE manufacturers to design, deploy, manage and monetize cross-media Interactive Television 2.0 applications, faster and with greater overall performance. For more information, visit www.zodiac.tv.