LG, who has one of the better layouts for TV apps, is set to join forces with European heavyweight Philips in the formation of a ‘Smart TV Alliance.’ The organisation will establish a standard for TV apps.LG and TP Vision, who took over the manufacture of Philips TVs recently, are launching the Smart TV Alliance to create a universal platform for TV apps that can be accessed via a TV screen, smartphone or tablet.
“Before today, the Smart TV industry was a very difficult market for both application developers and TV manufacturers and as TVs from different brands used different platforms and technologies,” says Bong-seok Kwon of LG Electronics and the president of the Smart TV Alliance.
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“Smart TV Alliance creates a larger playing field which encourages developers to create more and better TV applications at the same time giving manufacturers and consumers the richest source of movies-on-demand, music services, games, social networking and more.”
The Smart TV Alliance is planning to make the first version of its software development kit available for free, on the organisation’s website. The SDK is based on open web technologies (such as HTML5) and will run on Smart TV from participating members regardless of the underlying platform.
According to the Alliance, an update is already in the works. Since it won’t be available until the end of the year, we shouldn’t expect to see anything until at least 2013.
