Interactive Multimedia

Warner Bros. has produced its first interactive game show. Lexus plans a series of interactive commercials. And NBC says it will spice up the summer rerun season with an interactive sweepstakes. The average viewer, however, won't experience any of this new programming. Each of these initiatives requires different pieces of equipment that the vast majority of homes don't have. That, in a nutshell, is the problem for interactive TV today.

Vivendi Universal unit Canal Plus Technologies announced a deal with WINfirst under which the U.S. fiber-optic network company will use Canal's technology to deliver interactive TV services. Canal Plus Technologies did not give financial details of the deal but said in a statement that the agreement will allow Denver-based WINfirst to offer interactive digital TV services to more than 3.7 million cable-connected households.

Two years ago, Infogrames Entertainment's North American operations consisted of about 20 people working out of as many cubicles in San Jose, recycling European video games for the U.S. market. But after a $250-million-plus shopping spree in the U.S., the French company is poised to become the world's second-largest independent video game publisher, having acquired such blockbuster titles as "RollerCoaster Tycoon," "Civilization," "Test Drive" and "Unreal Tournament."

The most noticeable bit of interactivity planned for Super Bowl Sunday could come during halftime, when 75,000 fans will flash Raymond James Stadium with free disposable cameras provided by Kodak. But sports-related Web sites, led by the NFL's SuperBowl.com, also are bolstering interactive elements in a bid to drive traffic, advertising revenue and profitability. Interactive elements on sports-related sites range from substantive to just plain silly.

Thousands of boxing fans tonight will have a chance to prove that they do, in fact, know more about the sweet science than a professional judge. HBO is turning its "Boxing After Dark" show interactive, letting viewers score a middleweight championship fight with their remote controls. No prizes are involved, just bragging rights for those who prognosticate better than HBO's veteran boxing judge, Harold Lederman.

Skeptical investors who have squeezed billions of dollars of value out of Internet companies have turned their doubtful eyes toward the once-invincible stock of Gemstar-TV Guide International. After the Pasadena-based company began touting its technology for interactive television program guides in 1998, its stock steadily climbed from a split-adjusted price of about $10 to an all-time high of $107.44 in March.

Your adversary may be a doe-eyed, button-nosed Japanese anime character with moves slicker than John Travolta--and his hair gel--during his feverish disco days. As cherubic as your rival appears, it will taunt you, challenge you, boo you and cheer you on. We're talking, of course, about Dance Dance Revolution, the popular dance simulation video game. GameWorks introduced the game last year in all 13 of its stores, including at the Irvine Spectrum, the Block of Orange and Ontario Mills Mall.

Microsoft Corp. and its WebTV unit are developing a computer chip to be introduced in the fall that will power the company's new interactive television service. The Solo2 chip, being manufactured by Toshiba Corp., also can be employed in other devices and services that use the Internet, graphics and video.

Telecommunications upstart Global Crossing Ltd. led a group of venture firms that recently invested $15.5 million in NXTV Inc., a Woodland Hills firm hoping to bring interactive entertainment and communications to hotels and new communities. The investment, to be announced today by privately held NXTV, is the latest in a series of small strategic equity deals by Bermuda-based Global Crossing, which Tuesday announced second-quarter results that beat analysts expectations.