Interactive TV products headline European tech show

800 technology exhibitors joined in MILIA, 2001, in Cannes, France

In this story: Snagging the impulse buyers Motoring and morphing Fun with mobile phones RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Marsha Walton
CNN Science & Technology Correspondent

CANNES, France (CNN) -- Go ahead, admit it. You've screamed at your TV set when your favorite sports team has made a boneheaded move. And you've mocked politicians on talk shows when their comments clashed with your sensibilities.

If the MILIA 2001 technology show in Cannes, France, is any indication, your passions about sports or politics won't always be confined to your living room.

You'll soon be able to "vote with your remote" via interactive TV.

Interactive television products and possibilities headlined the conference, a showcase for 800 exhibitors February 11-14.

"Interactive TV is very strong in Europe. All the digital TV networks that are launching in Europe are interactive," says Regis Saint Girons, sales managing director of Open TV. His company's set-top boxes are installed in 13.9 million homes.

Advertisers see almost endless possibilities for TV viewers to multi-task while they're watching the tube. They can call up statistics about sports players, or watch a game from different camera angles.

Snagging the impulse buyers

In Britain, viewers don't even need to stretch out to grab the telephone to get a pizza to go along with the evening's soccer match. Just a few zaps with the remote sends their order via the Web to the nearest Domino's pizza.

But it's not just a matter of sticking a computer inside a TV monitor, says Open TV's CFO James Ackerman.

Click on "yes" if you would like to order a puppy care kit

"TV is much more of a laid-back environment. The PC is much more of a research tool. I think they are becoming cousins of one another, but I believe interactive television and using the Internet are very different experiences."

Just like grabbing that candy bar or trashy tabloid as you stand in the grocery checkout line, one key to successful interactive TV is impulse buying.

RespondTV's Kevin Morrison says the key is keeping it simple, and focused. Watching a concert? Click your remote to order the performer's CD. Is your new puppy chewing up your slippers? Just click on a box during that puppy chow commercial and order a puppy starter kit.

While TV's brave new world is in the spotlight, game companies and software developers still attract throngs of venture capitalists, analysts, and the global press to the Palais des Festivals in Cannes. The spectacular surroundings of this seaside resort in the south of France don't hurt, either.

Motoring and morphing

There's some heavy testosterone in the PlayStation 2 exhibit area. Visitors (including several of the conference's security guards on their break) were blazing around the tracks of "Gran Turismo 3."

The driving simulator features 150 cars. Designers say it takes advantage of Playstation2's advanced physics computing capabilities.

Sony's Georges Fornay says it also helps that the target audience of young men just can't say no to controlling something very powerful that goes really, really fast.

SONY's "Gran Turismo 3" attracts many visitors' attention

There was a little slapstick comedy and a potential for a wide range of e-commerce partnerships at another popular exhibitor, Digimask. Take anyone's mug shot, and a profile shot, and after about two minutes of facial recognition processing, the result is a 3-D avatar. Most visitors to this U.K. company especially enjoyed fashioning their own faces into cartoon-like characters, complete with wiggling ears and wacky sound effects.

The Digimask was originally conceived so hard core players could star as their own characters in online games.

"But rather than being just a good concept for games, it's broadened out into the Internet," says CEO Gary Bracey.

"For instance, you can try on spectacles at an opticians site, rotate your head every which way, so you can see it at different angles. And there's makeovers, hair styles, three dimensional chat," he said.

Consumers pay nothing to e-mail their digital pictures and get their Digimask. The company makes money by licensing its technology to game and e-commerce Web sites who accept Digimask visitors.

Fun with mobile phones

Your mobile phone could be the key to ending what one executive calls, "those periods of micro-boredom in everyday life."

Motorola and others are launching a range of games for mobile phones.

"Whether you are waiting for a bus, or for a friend, we are thinking of those short periods of time," said Juan Montes, vice president and director of technology for Motorola.

You can play Trivial Pursuit on the go with your mobile devices

Starting in April, you can play Trivial Pursuit on mobile devices, in cycles of ten questions.

French-based In-Fusio bills itself as "the mobile fun connection." Development manager Jean-Louis Charmillon says the games are as compelling as playing on a console or a PC ... the only learning curve is adapting to navigating with your dialing fingers.

With games now launching on platforms ranging from PC's and Macs to PlayStation and PlayStation 2, Game Boy Color and mobile devices, one longtime game developer said the challenge is never-ending.

"Give us a screen, we'll put a game on it," said Christophe Comparin of Infogrames Interactive.

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Milia conference
Open TV
RespondTV's
Sony
Digimask
Motorola
In-Fusio
Infogrames Interactive

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