One of the remarkable things about technology evolution is that the TV and the PC have remained separate products despite many attempts to merge them. So what hope has the latest attempt from Google, Intel, Logitech and Sony to make them interchangeable?
In the 1980s there used to be discussions at industry events on: 'Which will Become the Dominant Device In The Home- The PC or the TV?' Sor far, the answer is 'Neither'.
In the 1990s several
In the last decade, Microsoft gave a plethora of presentations on the 'connected home' about linking up the TV to the PC, to the DVD, to the telephone, to the door bell, ad infinitum. None of that caught on.
In the mid-2000s, one of the applications touted for UWB was the transmission of content between PC and TV. UWB died the death.
You'd think a TV/PC merger was inevitable when the products look the same, and the innards of a digital TV and a PC are much the same.
But they remain separate. Why?
Well Jan Timmer, CEO of Philips from 1990-6, had a take on it which I thought perceptive. You sit up to a PC with your fingers on a keyboard; you lie back at a distance from a TV with your fingers wrapped round a beer.
And I think that's probably the last word on the subject.
But companies will keep on trying to merge the two.
According to Bloomberg, a project called Google TV, using Intel chips, and working with Logitech and Sony is working on bringing Web software to TVs.
According to USA Today, Intel is promoting a technology called WiDi (Wireless Display) which sends wireless signals from a specially adapted laptop to a TV.
IMHO one reason it won't catch on is because TV makers are too shrewd to put PC-compatible interfaces on TVs.
And without the sockets to connect the two products, they will remain forever separate.
Interesting - Jan Timmer was indeed perceptive, and even the 10' user interfaces on windows media centre and OSX front row don't get around the problem of needing a more rich user interface than an infrared remote to do anything other than browse a file structure (music, video, photos, web 1.0).
Hands are for beer not keyboards, and mice are terrible on chair arms.
There was a hint of some TVs and computers starting to have to play nicely together when internet TV catchup came along. I believe this will be stalled by technologies such as the BBC iplayer being available through your Freesat box, Wii or playstation 3. I've tried the freesat version and, whilst very definitely beta quality at the mo, you can see where it is going and it has certainly persuade me that I don't need a traditional computer attached to my telly any more.
A victory for appropriate processor power. The wintel upgrade treadmill loads so many software abstraction layers to perform any function that a massive general purpose processor, GB of memory, and lots of Watts is needed to edit a text file. The satellite box apparently uses a MIPS based broadcom device with some DSP add ons. Lets hope there are more similar victories to come.
I believe that most digital TV's have 'LINUX INSIDE' !
Well mine does anyway.
But there are new human-machine interfaces that would work great for TV! Just look at new camera-based game controllers from Sony. I can see you in front of the telly, something sporty on, hand holding beer, and interacting directly with the video stream by making calls just as an umpire does. (In US baseball a sweeping "safe", or a leave-the-gladitorium "out!") The TV / game box keeps a tally of your success record versus the real calls made by the paid umpire versus the calls made by the pool of other connected refs.
Much fun ensues.
Game on!
well my TV actually has several PC compatible interfaces (HDMI, VGA and DMI) but I have no urge to connect them simply because I want to watch TV and use the computer at the same time and even on the largest monitors having TV in a window often means you either lose sight of it or it covers up other windows you wish to view.
I believe the two devices will merge still further, while individual usage may remain "keyboard" vs "beer". TV displays have finally gone to progressive scan, so their screens are fully interchangeable (theoretically) with PC monitors, and have the resolution needed to read small text.
But the two devices remain completely separate, partially because of manufacturers' fear of cannibalizing total sales, and partially due to government restrictions. When we in the U.S. had to switch to digital, I saw no reason to scrap a perfectly good analog TV, and I sought to buy a set-top QAM-enabled converter box that would allow me to merge with my existing cable service. To my surprise, U.S. law forbade the sale of such boxes, so the alternative was to either rent a QAM box from my cable service or buy a new TV.
Conversely, I use a 20" iMac computer. I wonder how much it would cost Apple to add a TV tuner and a means to coherently stream real-time video, much like I already do with radio.
Part of the problem is bandwidth. TV still largely uses analog coaxial cable to deliver service, while PCs use digital IP protocols over copper or fiber-optic phone lines. It is likely a matter of time before cable service also uses IP protocols, but we're not there yet. And in the U.S., cable is regulated at the local level, and so is inherently parochial.
But ask yourself why you cannot simply buy your choice of dumb LCD monitor that would attach either to a "PC box" (a la Mac Mini) or a "TV box" (???)!
The TV-PC convergence debate will soon claim a "classic status" probably akin to the battle of the sexes.
Our love for debate often gets the better of us and in the TV-PC convergence debate, we focus on (IMHO), the wrong aspects.
No, the TV will not converge with the PC. And that's not (only) because of the beer-vs-keyboard debate. It's simply because there is no need.
However, the TV will (and is) converging with something else - the internet. And that's not a PC. The internet is the world's largest store of entertainment, and it's getting bigger every second. The TV is the device we use for entertainment most often. Piping entertainment to the TV makes sense. Doing documents on the TV doesn't.
Using the Roku box you can play movies from the net as easily as surfing channels. Of course this is no nirvana, but points to the possibilities. The yahoo widgets are the new teletext. Get your update on stock, sport or traffic with no more exercise to your brain than you did decades ago with Teletext. If you are the kind that doesn't mind combing your hair for a call, use skype from the TV. If you are blessed with texting abilities, go ahead and tweet from your TV.
But pray, don't even try to build a website from your TV even if your TV makers are smart enough to load your TV with all the necessary stuff. Don't manage your content from a TV, whether the content is in the cloud or on a plethora of devices. Don't install GCC on your TV, heck, don't even install a text editor.
The TV and the PC both have their places in our lives. By PC, I imply laptops, net-books, tablets and potentially e-book readers too. The TV will stay put in front of the couch. Because, you wouldn't want to put anything else there.
Java was initially developed by Sun and Thomson as a solution to the "interactive TV" problem of heterogeneous CPUs back in the early 1990s ?
It was called Oak back then (check out the History bit in Wikipedia Java section).
Java made it big time when IBM realised that they had a similar problem and adopted Java for their heterogeneous mainframes.
Then curiously the DVB Multimedia Home Platform came full circle and put Java Xlets back into TVs in the early 2000s.
Another interesting factoid is that OpenTV was the company set up to drive Java into the TV market. In fact OpenTV byte codes were called o-codes for a long time (Oak codes). And yes, the initial idea was for the APIs to be open, but then back in Comdex '96 timeframe, certain APIs started to become hidden .. and hard commercial reality got us to where we are today.
I think Mike has it absolutely correct, it is the TV and the Internet that will converge - simply, as mike says, because that is where a lot of entertainment content is stored.
How to control entertainment content from the internet on a TV?
the 10' interface is not great - How about an App on the iPad?
Looks like a good solution to me.
"How to control entertainment content from the internet on a TV?
the 10' interface is not great - How about an App on the iPad?
Looks like a good solution to me."
Yes, that's the logical progression of internet-tablet's.
But $500 for a remote-control ?
It may be some time before we get there . . .
Maybe
But iPlayer gets 1.4 million visitors a day.
That sounds like a lot of people who have already merged TV and PC
Indeed so, El Rupester, thoiugh not all of those 1.4m use their PC to watch iPlayer - some will get iPlayer via Virgin cable on their TV - so no PC/TV merger there - but possibly a TV/Internet merger.
Sounds like Project Canvas.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2010/mar/23/project-canvas-michael-comish
"Canvas promises to create an open, standardised platform where consumers will be able to view programming from a vast number of video providers across a broad range of devices. "
As many people have said, what is happening is that the TV is merging with the internet, not merging with the PC. Applications like BBC iPlayer are driving the whole need to connect the TV to the internet. Also, when we think of the TV in our lounge, we should think TV / Home Entertainment System rather than just TV. This means all types of media on the TV / Home Entertainment System, starting with the home/family photos, music and video, onto content with built in 5.1 surround sound like AVCHD files, and then leading to internet media and applications, “Over the Top TV” which are all coming along. Linking Home Consumer Electronics products with the service provider’s network is the way the consumer will benefit the most, so the TV needs to get connected to the Home Network and to the internet. Standards like G.hn http://www.homegridforum.org/home/ and DLNA http://www.dlna.org/home will be more increasingly talked about. This is really the thinking behind my business http://www.personalmediasolutions.co.uk/
because most UK homes still have their TV and Home Network unconnected.
I agree with Dave and Jan Timmer. But I'd add another obvious dimension to the beer/keyboard perspective. Personal/Family. PC's are PERSONAL computers, TVs are shared viewing devices. How could you have a room full of people each on their own viewing device interact in the way we have become use to during such sporting events such as the Olympics, World Cup football etc.
However, that does not mean PERSONAL Viewing won't catch on in addition to the TV experience. Its not an either or. Our young generation is becoming tuned to personalised online experiences, eventually as buyers of the future they will adopt the product that fills that need in their future home. So unlike Dave, I am not quite ready to shoot down google TV, or the Intel/Sony initiatives. I suspect they are exploring the personalised viewing potential market.