Belgacom brings the human touch to Digital TV & Entertainment

Belgacom signs two new exclusive strategic partnerships for Belgium and Luxembourg with Jinni and in3Depth Systems for the build-up of its future platform Belgacom Entertainment.

Five years after the launch of Belgacom TV, Belgacom is now taking new steps in the Belgian digital market by developing the platform for the future of TV and entertainment: Belgacom Entertainment. Belgacom intends to bring the latest technologies to everybody’s life in the simplest way. In this context, Belgacom has signed this week two new investments and exclusive strategic partnerships with Jinni and in3Depth Systems Earlier this year, Belgacom also announced an exclusive strategic partnership with OnLive, the world’s first online streaming game platform.

Belgacom TV, the Belgian media industry success story over the last five years, is breaking new ground.

In June 2005, Belgacom was the pioneer in launching digital TV in Belgium and five years later Belgacom has become the second largest player in digital TV in Belgium with about 870,000 subscribers.

With the development of its upcoming Entertainment platform, Belgacom is moving into a new phase where it will bring more content to more devices (PC, TV and mobile), providing a unique user experience tailored to every user’s taste.

Belgacom announces two new investments and exclusive strategic partnerships to bring the human touch to Belgacom Entertainment.

in3Depth Systems, the holding company controlling Softkinetic, Optrima and Softkinetic Studios, is a Belgian company with a unique and internationally recognised expertise in 3D-gesture recognition technologies. With in3Depth Systems, customers are able to manage and control user interfaces, applications and devices through simple human movement. This could be applicable to a broad range of Belgacom Entertainment content from video games to e-learning applications. Belgacom invests EUR 4 million in equity in in3Depth Systems, alongside SRIW Techno, a subsidiary of SRIW (the Walloon regional investment company), who co-invests an additional EUR 4 million.

Jinni is an innovative Israeli company, with an internationally recognised service to search and make personalised recommendations for movies and television. Jinni enables customers to discover content by using simple and intuitive language, based on their moods and their own personal tastes. Jinni’s award winning search and recommendation engine is a key aspect of addressing the increasing choice in content and programs accessible to consumers on Belgacom’s fast Internet, mobile and TV networks. Belgacom will invest USD 2 million in equity in Jinni.

Both transactions are expected to be closed in the coming weeks.

Comments

Didier Bellens, Chief Executive Officer of the Belgacom Group: “These exclusive partnerships with Jinni and in3Depth Systems fit in perfectly with Belgacom’s strategic objectives. Technology is at its best when it is personalised and used intuitively by customers. Belgacom wants to leverage its networks for the benefit of the Belgian customers and provide them with increasing content and applications in all domains and on all screens.. Belgacom wants to be the best partner for new innovative players in Belgium and abroad.”

Yosi Glick, Founder & President of Jinni: “Jinni’s engine is tailored for entertainment and specifically for contexts where consumers have a varied choice of video content on multiple platforms. We’re excited to work with Belgacom to implement Jinni’s solution on 3 screens (PC, TV, mobile) and to bring our discovery features to the multilingual Belgian audience. We’re especially gratified that Belgacom has taken the approach of choosing the discovery engine before beginning work on the user interface, as this shows a genuine commitment to innovation and a user-centric service.”

Michel Tombrof, CEO of Softkinetic and André Miodezky, CEO of Optrima: “Our ambition is to build the world leader in 3D-gesture and motion capture which is a technology disruption comparable to touch interfaces in smart phones. We are delighted that Belgacom has selected in3Depth to bring innovative entertainment products and services to their customers. The investment of Belgacom will allow us to further accelerate our strategy and provide cutting-edge 3D technologies to the consumer electronics market internationally.”

Jinni (www.jinni.com) has developed a unique and cutting edge approach to movie and TV content discovery through the proprietary development of the Entertainment Genome. The Entertainment Genome describes movies and TV shows across parameters like mood, plot, style, audience and more with a selection of thousands of semantic tags. This enables customers to search and browse content intuitively using natural language descriptions. Customers can also get personalised recommendations based on Jinni’s innovative approach to user taste profiling, or “Entertainment Personality.” Jinni has built the next-generation video guide enabling customers to intuitively discover new movies and TV shows. Jinni will also adapt its Genome to other forms of content available on Belgacom Entertainment.

in3Depth Systems (www.in3depth.com) is the holding company Softkinetic, Optrima and Softkinetic Studio. The group is a leader and most advanced player in 3D-gesture recognition solutions. in3Depth is the only provider to offer a complete solution for the creation of 3D-gesture based user interfaces and applications for both consumer and professional usage. in3Depth’s technologies and products will be leveraged by Belgacom Entertainment to offer next generation navigation and control interfaces to enjoy entertainment content and applications on TV and other devices.