Microsoft may have muted its interactive television ambitions, but with a new program guide it is trying to stay tuned to what viewers want to see on the small screen.
Rival Liberate Technologies, meanwhile, has scored a product placement for its software from a TV programming leader.
With more and more cable channels popping up every day, the listings guide could easily be the most popular channel in some households.
So at a cable industry show in New Orleans, companies are taking the wraps off new products designed to make it easier for viewers to find the shows they want.
Microsoft, for instance, announced a new interactive program guide that works with two types of Motorola digital set-top boxes, the DCT1000 and DCT2000. That announcement came Monday at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association"s Cable 2002 show in New Orleans.
Motorola also announced at the show that it had shipped 20 million set-top boxes.