BITSannounced today that Cox Communications, the nation’s third largest cable operator, has licensed Bitstream’s FontFusion technology, Bitstream typefaces and the Tiresias screenfont for use in its interactive program guide. This is the first agreement between the two companies.
Bitstream’s Font Fusion is a font subsystem that allows developers to render high-quality characters in any format, at any resolution, on any device. It is designed to support all displays, including high-definition television screens (HDTVs), but also has a wide range of uses, including cell phones and handsets, operating systems, software applications, Web applications, low-resolution screen devices, multimedia servers, high-definition television screens (HDTVs), set-top boxes, continuous tone printers, and other embedded systems and Internet appliances.
The Tiresias screenfont was developed specifically for closed captioning by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB). It was designed to improve the legibility of text used for television subtitling. In designing the font, key factors that affect legibility were studied, including character shapes, relative thickness of the character shapes, inter-character spacing, and aspect ratios that affect the maximum size at which the font can be used.
Anna Chagnon, President and CEO of Bitstream, Inc. commented on the agreement, saying, “We developed Font Fusion to render high-quality characters in any format, at any resolution, on any device. Combine the text rendering technology of Font Fusion with the exceptional readability of the Tiresias screenfont and the result produces the best text display for the interactive programming guides used by Cox Communications. Bitstream is delighted to be working with this industry leader.”
