Stockholm, Sweden and Oslo, Norway — (press release excerpt) — i3 micro technology and Opera Software have announced that Opera's embedded web browser technology will be included in i3's new set-top box, called the 'Mood Box'. The i3 set-top box will use parts of the Linux version of Opera's embedded browser to render multimedia content as well as to create custom user interfaces in digital TV and video-on-demand 'infotainment' applications.

The Mood Box is a next-generation set-top box, designed to fit into any residential home, hotel room or commercial setting — providing users with IP-based real-time TV, video-on-demand, pay-per-view, music-on-demand, Internet browsing, email and more. The Mood Box is part of i3's Mood product family which consists of set-top boxes, various streaming servers, and a management system.

Using its cross-platform modular architecture, Opera's modules can be detached and used as stand-alone components within other applications. The Mood Box uses the Opera embedded browser engine to render Web content and display custom user interfaces created in HTML. This solution makes it possible to easily customize the set of infotainment applications by simply downloading the appropriate user interface for a given application and/or user profile.

Here is a brief overview of the Mood Box's technical specifications . . .

• CPU: 266 MHz National Semiconductor Geode (x86-based) system-on-chip processor
  
• Streaming Media: MPEG-1 & MPEG-2, [email protected], PAL or NTSC; IETF RTSP for VoD services
  
• Connectors: dual RJ45 for 100Base-T Ethernet; SCART (with composite and RGB) or RF; S-Video; SVGA; S/PDIF digital audio; stereo audio; dual USB; power
  
• Operating system: Embedded Linux
  
• Web browser capabilities: HTML 4.01, HTTP 1.1, XHTML; XML 1.0, CSS 1 & CSS 2; JavaScript 1.3; TLS 1.0, SSL 2 & SSL 3; Unicode; GIF, JPEG, PNG; Popular plug-ins
  
• Security: Macrovision copy protection available; content encryption with PKI based key distribution
  
• Configuration: DHCP,TFTP
  
• Management: SNMP, HTTP
  
• Dimensions: 11.25 x 5.4 x 1.33 in. (286 x 138 x 34 mm)

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.