AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Variety

How he’s innovating: It has been said that when cable companies feel threatened, they form a joint venture.
And with Google threatening to transition its dominant acumen for targeted advertising into traditional media platforms including cable television, now would be a good time for each of the major cable carriers to get in the same figurative boat and start rowing the same direction.

Enter the appropriately code-named Project Canoe, a joint technology initiative being overseen by Richard Green at the nonprofit cable industry research and development consortium CableLabs, based in Louisville, Colo.

Set to be introduced publicly in greater detail later this year, Canoe would replace the technologically isolated “kayaks” of the top cable MSOs with a single, simplified set of standards for the design of two-way set-top boxes.

The technology — based on the same Java-based code as Blu-ray — would not only enable a whole range of interactive features for cable customers, it would allow for far more advanced audience tabulation and “addressability” for advertisers.

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