Arris, Irdeto, DATV, Enensys, Fluendo, Samba TV, and SmarDTV have all signed up to the HbbTV Association, bringing the initiative’s member base to 75 companies. HbbTV claims more than 300 million applications running on 44 million consumer devices are now using the open specifications to add features such as interactive services, OTT offers and targeted advertising to linear TV channels. Vodafone’s acquisition of German cable operator Unitymedia would significantly reduce competition and result in rising costs for triple play subscribers, warns German housing association GdW. “The EU Commission has rightly expressed massive competition concerns to the parties involved in the merger in areas including fiber-optic network deployment, internet and telephony as well as TV signal delivery to apartment blocks.…