Last week, <A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com">Microsoft</A> and <A HREF="http://www.wink.com/">Wink Communications</A> announced an agreement to promote interactive content and commerce based on the <A HREF="http://www.atvef.com/">Advanced Television Enhancement Forum</A> (ATVEF) specification for interactive television. Wink Communications says it will optimize its Response Network Service (which provides the broadcast and cable-television industries with viewer-response services) to support ATVEF-compliant content for television devices that use the Microsoft television-software platform. In turn, Microsoft claims that it will use Wink's Response Network to handle certain ATVEF-based advertising direct-response services. As part of the agreement, Microsoft invested $30 million in Wink Communications.

If you're among the handful of home theater fans who have purchased JVC&rsquo;s D-Theater videocassette machine, rejoice. On July 25, DreamWorks, Fox Home Entertainment, and Universal Studios announced the impending release of several new titles in the copy-protected ultra-high-resolution D-VHS format.

On April 30, <A HREF="http://www.gi.com">General Instrument Corporation</A> and <A HREF="http://www.divatv.com">DIVA Systems Corporation</A> signed a letter of intent defining an agreement to market DIVA's OnSet video-on-demand (VOD) service on GI's DCT-1000 and DCT-1200 interactive digital-cable set-top boxes. This joint effort will enable cable operators who use the GI system to commercially deploy an OpenCable-compliant implementation of the OnSet VOD service by this fall.

Convergence is more than a buzzword in the minds of the engineers at <A HREF="http://www.hauppauge.com/"> Hauppauge Digital, Inc</A>. The New York electronics manufacturer has announced what it is calling "the first personal video recorder for PCs." In development for eighteen months, the WinTV-PVR is built to occupy a single PCI slot, and allows the recording and playback of television programs via computer. The device is compatible with Microsoft Windows 98 and Windows ME, and comes bundled with a remote control and an FM receiver for the PC.