Concurrent interactive television for network connected devices

An apparatus comprising:

• a computer readable storage medium;
• a processor coupled to the computer readable storage medium;
• and
• a communication interface coupled to the processor;
• the computer readable storage medium stores a plurality of files, each of the files includes information associated with playing interactive TV on a particular electronic device, the computer readable storage medium has instructions stored thereon which, when executed on the processor, cause the processor to implement:
• an interactive television platform;
• and
• a virtual machine for processing interactive television signals;
• the interactive television platform receives a request to play a first interactive television signal at an electronic device that is connected to the apparatus via the communication interface, the interactive television platform initializes a first instance of the virtual machine for processing the first interactive television signal;
• and
• the first virtual machine accesses a first file of the plurality of files, the first file includes information associated with playing interactive TV on the first electronic device, the first virtual machine extracts interactive television content from the first interactive television signal, the interactive television content is provided to the first electronic device using the communication interface.

A machine implemented method comprising:

• receiving a request to play a first interactive television signal at a first electronic device;
• instantiating a first Broadcast Markup Language (BML) virtual machine for processing the first interactive television signal, the first BML virtual machine is instantiated at the first electronic device;
• accessing a first file that includes information associated with playing interactive TV on the first electronic device, the first file is stored in non-volatile storage on the first electronic device;
• extracting a first video signal and a first BML document from the first interactive television signal using the first BML virtual machine;
• playing the first video signal and presenting the first BML document on the first electronic device;
• receiving a request to play a second interactive television signal at a second electronic device, the second electronic device is coupled to the first electronic device via a communication link;
• instantiating a second BML virtual machine for processing the second interactive television signal, the second BML virtual machine is instantiated at the first device;
• accessing a second file that includes information associated with playing interactive TV on the second electronic device, the second file is stored in non-volatile storage on the first electronic device;
• extracting a second video signal and a second BML document from the second interactive television signal using the second BML virtual machine;
• and
• providing the second video signal and the second BML document to the second electronic device over the communication link, the providing the second video signal and the second BML document is performed while playing the first video signal and presenting the first BML document on the first electronic device.