ITV Portal is a stand-alone, usually channel or service provider bound application that allows the provider or channel to offer its viewers different kinds of content from one common access point: the Portal.

The different categories (in the example: News, Sport, Stock, Games, Weather) in which the offered content is grouped can be customized and expanded to match the TV channel's image and proposition. The idea is close to the well known internet portal concept. It is also a lucrative application when used to trigger the activation of e.g. SMS based value added services (such as news alert, download of ringtones and backgrounds, etc.).

Moreover, advertising space can be sold as well as the opportunity to sponsor some sections of the Portal (e.g. the game). This concept targets different kinds of audience, based on the wide range of content provided through the application. Icareus' ITV Portal uses a distributed architecture, in which each of the categories are downloaded and managed separately. This means that editors can work simultaneously on both content and look & feel. With Icareus' technology the size and bandwidth requirements are much lower compared to the portal applications made by hand coding.

Furthermore Icareus' iTV Suite technology with pre-caching mechanism, compressed binary format pages makes the browsing of the Portal pages extremely usable and fast. With the iTV Suite Integerator solution the content for portal is updated and created automatically from CMS (Content Management System). Icareus is integrated with e.g. Sysmedia Plasma Gold CMS system.

Icareus has developed and offered chat clients and back-end solutions since 2003. iTV Chat application opens opportunity to create, build and maintain interactive TV communities.

With iTV Chat there are no restrictions for the number of themes and chat rooms. Usually when the audience shares a common interest, communities around them grows stronger, this results in a more lively discussion and stronger communities. Chat rooms can be themed e.g. around sports, culture, business, music or any other topic. Strong communities and chat rooms also open opportunities for advertisers in the form of banners. Chat room -specific ad banners mean targeted advertising that in turn generate more revenues for the service providers.

Icareus Weather application is an advanced weather application utilizing up-to-date weather information from a selected weather data provider.

It offers broadcasters and operators an easy solution to provide weather forecasts and observations to their users and viewers. The service can be localized and customized to meet the demands of the end users. The forecasts are generated from meteorological data and the provided data can be easily formatted and handled. The data provided can cover a wide range of information and is dynamically handled by the application, updated e.g. every 2 minutes (for today´s forecasts) or 2 hours (for the other 2 days).

Icareus NEWS APPLICATION is an interactive TV news portal. It enables operators and broadcasters easily offer latest news around the world. For end-users it can be the fastest and most convenient point for news topics.

The news application consists of two components:
• Client application
• Management web interface

Client is broadcasted, downloaded or embedded into a set-top box. The application is automatically updated each time new headlines are added to the system. Management of the application is done through a web interface, giving easy access to all editors.

Client application is tailored to meet the broadcasters' or operators' appearance and feeling in order to provide best user experience and exciting sponsoring environment for advertisers. Banners and other marketing efforts can be embedded into the user interface and can be easily changed. The management of the news is done via a web based management interface.

News headlines can also be presented in News Roller application. The headlines are rolled in a bar on top of the screen. The technology and solution behind the News Roller applications is the same News Portal.

Icareus has developed few T-Government type of iTV applications to Italy. The general idea of T-Government services is to provide information to local citizens. The information provided can vary e.g. from the history of regional institutions to the profiles of local politicians, news and to services offered by the regional administration.

T-Government services are especially popular in countries with bad Internet connections. Based on the nature of the services it can be regional and thus broadcasted in local TV network or national.

Naturally, the T-Government applications must be designed on case-by-case bases based on the customer's needs.

The idea of Horoscope is familiar to almost all the people around the world. Now the horoscope is able get through Interactive TV. Either you are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius or Pisces – iTV Horoscope will tell astrologer's interpretation based on the astrological situation of Sun, Moon, planets, astrological aspects and sensitive angles.

Likewise the games, iTV Horoscope is an application that can include billing and revenue from end-users. However, the content for the horoscope iTV application is required from 3rd party content provider.

Messaging is an iTV application that can be used for sending short textual messages while watching TV. Messaging application can be used e.g. during a sports program for sending comments to the commentators in the sports studio or just to chat with other TV viewers.

The messages can be delivered to the email, Internet pages, to database or back to the TV screen. The application includes features like choosing the recipient from list, writing the message with virtual text pad and sending message.

One of the most popular form of iTV services is Interactive Advertising services. iTV Advertising services can be independent applications or they can be integrated to a TV commercial in a way that the application can be started while the commercial is shown on TV.

With iTV Advertising applications the TV advertiser can change the passive TV commercial viewer to the active receiver of commercial information and keep the viewer longer time with the brand.

With Icareus iAdvert iTV application the TV viewer can e.g.:
• Search further information regarding the product
• Search the nearest shops location
• Get the special code for e.g. discount
• Ask the advertiser to contact him to get e.g. test drive of a new car.

Summa summarum, Icareus has developed iAdvertising iTV application to give new means for TV advertiser to contact the target customers, to generate more sales and to get people to spend longer time with the brand.

With the T-Postcard application, the end-user can choose the e-card from TV, add the greetings text and send the card to the person having an email address.

The application environment is based on client-server model where the client (set-top box and optionally mobile phone) is used for the activities described above and Icareus iTV Suite Manager server receives end-user's T-Postcard and sends the cards to recipients as emails.

Remote channels, if the network households are individual homes have connected the set-top box to internet or otherwise the SMS (text) message is used as a return channel.

For end-users the T-Postcard service can be free of charge or a small charge may be applied by the operator. Payment can be done as a micro payment with CA or operator's billing system or as premium text message.

Mobile content has been a huge business world wide. TV is the main marketing media for mobile content including ringtones. Icareus Ringtone iTV application takes TV to next level in mobile ringtone marketing and gives once again TV service provider a great opportunity monetize the TV viewers.

Icareus Ringtone application is a complete iTV solution and it is designed to be highly dynamic with a database based server side and a custom administrator application for managing the content available for viewers. The Ringtone iTV system is independent of any ringtone ordering and billing systems.

Icareus Ringtone application features an intuitive user interface, and is configurable for any language. In the Ringtone application will be visible:
• List of categories,
• List of ringtones in the currently selected category.
• Viewers can browse the categories and
• Viewers can listen to samples of the ringtones, with ordering information being displayed at the same time.

The category and ringtone lists are downloaded from server (Icareus iTV Suite Manager) when the application is started. Optionally, the client can work stand-alone with static content.

Icareus EPG application is targeted for broadcasters and operators looking for a common interface for their viewers to access TV program information. It is always customized to meet customer's design guidelines and can easily act as the launcher for other interactive applications in the program stream.

The development, customization and UI localization time can also be decreased considerably utilizing existing components. On the other hand plug&play components do not restrict the navigation or look and feel of the application. Icareus iTV Suite also enable people with no programming skills to customize the look-and-feel of the EPG.

Icareus EPG runs on Java based set-top box environments.

Icareus EyeCode solves the problem of implementing micro payments in digital TV services, if there is no built-in return channel in the set-top box. The solution is based on open standards, such as SMS. It can be embedded into any digital TV application that requires billing or identification of person in low level security. The billing is achieved by setting the correct price for the SMS message.

EyeCode provides a way to do micro payments in digital TV using SMS messages. It consists of two components: EyeCode server and EyeCode bean. EyeCode server is the server solution for 1) calculating encrypted codes and 2) a two–way SMS gateway. EyeCode bean is the MHP application for set-top boxes. EyeCode has two different versions for two security levels: low and high.

The EyeCode server works as a part of a SMS gateway. The key features of EyeCode server are:
• Easy service configuration and deployment
• Service usage monitoring
• Implemented by using J2EE Java technology and MySQL database
• Offers scalable and robust architecture
• HTTP –interface for external services

The charged content can be generated by any available MHP–tool, for example by MHP editors or browsers or it even independent Java Xlets.