The
Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a cross-industry consortium
aiming to build the equivalent of an ATM network for digital
entertainment content, expects its UltraViolet-branded system will be
ready to support commercial services and devices by mid-2011.
UltraViolet
is supposed to let someone buy a piece of digital media once and then
download or stream it to different devices -- such as PCs, connected
TVs, game consoles, smartphones and tablets -- after logging into an
account, similar to the way cash machines authorize bank transactions.
DECE
now has more than 60 members including Comcast, Cox Communications,
CableLabs, Sony, NBC Universal, Best Buy and Netflix. The group
announced that several additional companies have joined in recent
months, including Akamai Technologies, Arris, Arxan Technologies, BSkyB,
Dell, and Fanhattan.
"As a founding member of DECE, we're proud
of the tremendous progress that's been made to expand the ability for
households to view their collections of content across so many current
devices and to provide the platform for future devices yet to come,"
Comcast senior vice president of strategic planning Mark Coblitz said in
a statement.
