CableLabs boosts tru2way potential even as retail market evaporates

If it's true history repeats itself (and the belief here is that it does) the chasm between consumer electronics devices and the cable industry is still as wide as the days when the cable industry made sure that cable-ready TVs weren't cable-ready at all.

tru2way, cable's interactive proposal, is reportedly dying in retail space, and yet CableLabs continues to boost its potential as a consumer wonder. Showing interesting timing amid increasing reports that tru2way is about as popular and successful in retail as new Coke, CableLabs released glowing results from a July 19-23 interoperability event among "multiple tru2way set-top boxes and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) certified devices such as connected TVs, game consoles, PCs and mobile devices over a home network in a secure manner."

CableLabs' news release said that 37 participants from 11 companies collaborated at the event, including Panasonic, which last week said it was through with putting tru2way into its TVs, offering up the statement that the CE manufacturer has "no tru2way products at retail and there are no announced release dates for Panasonic tru2way retail products at this time."

That didn't seem to deter Steve Reynolds, Comcast's (Nasdaq: CMCSA) senior vice president of premises technology, who hailed the interoperability event as "a major step in the maturation of the tru2way home networking platform (and) a key part of Comcast's road map as we deploy this capability to our subscribers."

For more:
- see this news release
- and this story

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