Smarten Up Your TV As Humax’s Set-Top Boxes To Carry Opera TV Store

To give people more options for enjoying TV-optimized, online content, Humax, the world’s leading set-top-box manufacturer, will launch the Opera TV Store on its new set-top boxes in 2013. Customers are able to enhance their connected TV experience simply by selecting and installing web apps from the Opera TV Store.

The HTML5-powered Opera TV Store is a fully cloud-based app store, offering a comfortable “lean-back” experience without complex interactions requiring typing or searching. Every TV application in the Opera TV Store is a web-based application and optimized to work on TV by adjusting to different screen sizes and resolutions. There are many HTML5 apps for video, music, games and news available now in the Opera TV Store for users to select.

“Your TV can now be smarter, thanks to expanded functionality from apps, just like those for mobile phones,” says Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software. “Apps play a key role in content discovery. With the Opera TV Store on Humax’s new set-top boxes, you can discover lots of interesting and entertaining online content that has already been optimized for TV screens. This brings users a better internet experience on TV.”

“People tend to consume more content on the internet these days. Sometimes, you need a bigger screen to enjoy them,” says Tae Hun Kim, head of the Business Division, Humax. “Humax chose the Opera TV Store to deliver video-rich and graphics-rich online content through our set-top boxes and take the TV viewing experience to a new level.”

To further engage end users with web content, brand and content publishers can deliver a unique experience through the Opera TV Store. Since every TV app is built using web standards, such as CSS and HTML5, developers can easily repurpose their existing HTML5 applications running on desktop computers and mobile phones to work on TVs. Opera also provides HTML5 templates to make the development simpler for the Opera TV Store and help the developers to distribute their apps throughout the world, easily. As of now, there are more than 100 high-quality, HTML5-powered TV apps available on the Opera TV Store. People who purchase new Humax set-top boxes will be able to enjoy various TV optimized web content, featuring Associate Press News, AUPEO!, Facebook, Spotify, Redux TV, Twitter, Viewster, Vimeo and more.
About Humax

Humax Co., Ltd. (Humax), founded in 1989 in South Korea, is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of digital set-top boxes, exporting its products to over 90 countries across the globe. The company has built a solid reputation as a leading supplier of high quality, feature-rich digital TV set-top boxes and digital video recorders (DVRs), for cable, satellite, and terrestrial, IPTV, and IP-Hybrid broadcasting.

Humax is positioned as a leading brand of set-top boxes in retail markets in UK, Germany, and the Middle East. As a leading brand, Humax participated in the digital switchover projects, Freeview HD and Freesat digital TV service, in the UK. Also in 2009, Humax launched the IP-Hybrid platform in Germany. In the Middle East, Humax continues to expand its reputation by leading the HD switchover movement.

The company’s headquarters and R&D facility are based in Korea, with 16 offices worldwide including UK, US, Germany, France, Dubai, Germany, France, Italy, India, Japan, Thailand, and Australia. Humax exceeded KRW 1 trillion in revenue in 2010 and employs more than 800 people worldwide.

About Opera Software ASA

Opera Software was founded in 1994, based on the idea that access to the web should be a universal right. 275 million people (and counting) use the Opera web browsers for computers, mobile phones, TVs and other connected devices. Learn more about Opera at www.opera.com.