Eight consumer electronics companies have banded together to establish a licensing programme for the development of domestic digital audio-visual entertainment networks. HAVi (Home Audio-Video interoperability) has been designed to address home networking needs and in particular, provide consumers with the convenience of hot plug-and-play connectivity, appliance interoperability, and future proof operation. Grundig, Hitachi, Panasonic, Philips, Sharp, Sony, Thomson and Toshiba have all backed HAVi, which will be made available to the electronics and multimedia industries in spring next year. HAVi will provide a number of new services such as high-speed Internet access, video-on-demand and home AV server applications, according to a joint statement.®