Opera participates in the Networked Digital Television Consortium

Making the Web sing on Net TV

OSLO, Norway and TOKYO, Japan — Opera Software today announced that the Opera 9 browser for devices supports the NetTV Specifications created by Networked Digital Television Consortium based in Japan. Opera has participated in the Networked Television Consortium for approximately one year and has completed the browser portion of the NetTV Specifications. As a result, Opera now meets all the requirements for deployment in Japan’s digital TV market.

The Networked Digital Television Consortium is a group established to create and publish digital TV industry specifications. As of January 2007, this consortium consisted of 71 companies, including founding companies Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi and Matsushita. Opera Software will aid the effort of the NetTV Consortium by offering attractive network services that are easy-to-use and beneficial on digital TVs.

“The requirements set by the NetTV Consortium are becoming the industry standard in Japan and are based on open Web standards that Opera is a leader in supporting. By combining standards support with high performance, unique rendering and navigation technologies, Opera is powering the Web revolution on TV.” says Scott Hedrick, Executive Vice President for Devices at Opera Software. “Opera looks forward to working with Japanese manufacturers, operators and the Networked Digital Television Consortium to bring the best Web experience to millions of Japanese consumers. We are also eager to collaborate with other browser companies and system integrators to continue to solidify the browser standards set by the Digital Networked Television Consortium.”

Opera for digital TV enables users to access all their favorite Web sites, TV portals, Web applications, widgets and new services for TV. Opera already supports “Actvila”, a popular portal site for digital TV that is compatible with the Net TV Consortium’s specifications. Two of the innovative NetTVs from major manufacturers shown at CES were Opera Powered.