Intel to unveil Internet TV hybrid
VIDEO MAY HAVE killed the radio star, but will Internet kill TV or vice versa? Intel certainly hopes not, announcing it will be ready to show off prototypes of its much-hyped Internet TV in early January.
Chipzilla says it will unveil its widget-running consumer electronics prototypes, which will apparently complement TV viewing with vital information from the Internet, at CES in Las Vegas.
The widgets, which were also mentioned at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco in August, will enable couch potatoes to chat to friends, order pizza and shop online, all without having to haul their backsides off the soft furnishings.
At IDF, Intel announced it had joined forces with flailing Internet portal Yahoo to work on a 'Widget Channel', and entice developers to come up with both hardware and software platforms which would ultimately fuse the Interwibble with the television using a special software toolkit. The toolkit purportedly allows developers to make TV Internet apps using Javascript, XML, HTML and Flash.
But, not wanting to hedge its bets with only Yahoo on the Widget Channel, Intel is widely expected to pull a few more partnerships with content and service providers out of its hat soon.
The INQ's favorite anthropologist, Genevieve Bell (who also happens to be an Intel fellow studying user interaction with technology) noted in an interview with IDG that Televisions were the perfect platform because they had always been somewhat interactive.
According to Bell, because TVs are easy to use, any worthwhile Internet experience would need to have an interface which would slip smoothly into the experience rather than make a clean break with what people are used to.
For example, Bell is not an advocate of bringing a browser or search engine into the TV experience as it might complicate things. Instead, Bell suggests, viewers would prefer features which would personalise their television experience, like social not-working or chat features.
But that doesn't mean Bell thinks Intel should limit itself. "I suspect it's a tip of the iceberg to look at how you can start to have more of a blend of social networking and television content," she said.
Intel certainly wants to bring something more and slightly different to the table than Microsoft's Windows Media Center, for instance, which lets users record TV programmes to their PCs and watch online content on the living room box.
But whether people decide they actually prefer integrating their television and Internet content is a concept which remains to be seen.
Watch this space. µ
L'Inq
PC World
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Back in late 1990s', DirecTV offered interactive features with WebTV. Remember WEBtv is 64 bit. So amoung first with Streaming, Video in, etc.
Watch Patricia Yearwood on FREE Special with interaction, 3 people in total posted. year latter I asked Patricia if theres some coverup, nationwide broadcast with 3 viewers posting?. Said NO, & showed website of Patricias that Most Get Mostly NO Comments At ALL.
So interactive features are FUN, It was merely test for 6 months, Yet there Are NO Viewers to Most of Glut of Entertainment Today. Maybe theINQ is Interactive TalkSmithie? Drashek
The Apple TV launched without a web browser.
The Eee Box promised the 'netbook' experience on TV but they bailed for XP at the last minute.
Right now, the only way to get a full-fledged web browser on the living room screen at all is with a game console ($$$) or media center PC ($$-$$$$). Both of which are too silly or too complicated for the still-vast unserved market of nontechnical users to appreciate.
These people *do* need a browser in the television, just a modest embedded board that boots to full-screen Firefox + Flash with a big 'restore to defaults' switch. Nobody's going to use some goofy WebTV overlay, but the same people in need of simple, appliance-type netbooks are the ones whose eyes can no longer accommodate a 6" screen.
"Making chips out of couch potatoes."
keep 'em coming!
What we need is a cheaper "itunes" standard for TV content, such that it can be delivered to us reliably and very cheaply, and we can effectively replicate cable or satellite subscriptions if we want to.
Unless Intel is making an open standard, and has negotiated long-term contracts with all content sources (something only Intel or Apple could do), its just another hunk of useless junk.
Why not ask user what they want before spend so much tries leadED by executives pressed by loosing their jobs?
Of course TV with Internet or vice-versa. But about interface any try to do samething new seems to delay what users just and only want to see, TV and Internet. Put just two optioSn, one or another and both togheter changable by Pips (Picture in pictures), Just this. The obvious, and let me say: We will see only the internet. The great thing is have internet on living room with easy use everyday. TV broadcast programing are decling on its content message.
Few have been said about the new programing flowing on web, but there exist. Brazil has one of the biggest WebTV Network avaiable already working on WWW.BIGBRASIL.TV see the whole NetWork Map on WWW.BIGBRASIL.TV/REDETVS.
They have more than 40 world wide TVs, they work as producers of new programing and also (great ideia), as Youtube Selectors by themes inserted on the meaning of its domain name. Youtube became the world wide big video deposit and almost impossible to find what we want.
We, and soon, each day many more, will want to see and will produce many more inteligent and intersting new TV content.
MSN: marceloveiga@hotmail.com