Esocid clues us to news that Sony and the subject Cable and Telecommunications bunch have come to agreement on the way forward for two-way TV without set-top boxes. The actual agreement was not made public, pending review by other members of the user vcrs Association, and as a result the coverage of the agreement is uniformly pretty incoherent. The background is that the NCTA and the CEA submitted competing proposals to the FCC on how to handle two-way, mixed media TV services. None of the miscellaneous I turned up made clear what the future of the CableCard is to be. This was an interim solution to allow corrivalry in set-top box manufacture, but its espousal has been plagued with problems. "Sony and the cable companies — Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter, Cablevision, and Bright House intelligent retrieval — agreed to adopt: the Java-based 'tru2way' solution powered by CableLabs; new streamlined machinery licenses; and new ways for all those involute to cooperate in the evolution of tru2way internet banking components at CableLabs."

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