(Newswire Today) —  Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2008-09-03 - Ekioh today announced that the Inuk Networks Freewire IPTV service, running on STBs using the Ekioh UI Engine, has been rolled out in several locations across the UK.

The Ekioh UI Engine utilises the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) open standard from the W3C, to provide a fast, flexible and customisable user experience.

The nationwide Freewire service available to students across the UK has so far largely concentrated on offering its IPTV service via a PC or Mac client. The service is also now available on STBs using Industria's Zignal 2.0 middleware and the Ekioh UI Engine. It is now in operation at four university campuses across the UK. As Inuk expands its Freewire student IPTV service off-campus over the Cable & Wireless national LLU network, this Ekioh solution will be provided as an integral element of the STB solution for every customer on the platform.

“We have been looking to deliver a true next generation TV experience on a set-top box for over two years and SVG seems to be the missing link when it comes to rendering really fast graphics and a responsive interface,” said Marcus Liassides, Chief Executive Officer at Inuk Networks Ltd. “Using Ekioh’s SVG browser together with Zignal 2.0 has enabled us to take a huge leap forward with a user interface which not only looks fantastic but is also the fastest I have ever seen on a set-top box.”

Piers Wombwell, CEO of Ekioh commented: “The Ekioh UI Engine has been specifically designed for set-top boxes and combines flexibility and performance giving a superior user experience. This is the first live deployment of the Ekioh UI Engine and as the Freewire service expands, we are delighted that our software will be used by every set-top box customer on the Freewire platform.”

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