There's a battle going on out there for the TV user interface.
On one side are the incumbents, the satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcasters.
In the other are the newbies, the biggest of which is Microsoft with its Media Centre Edition (MCE), which will be an integral part of the new Vista OS when it launches in 2007.
Sony have invested in TvTv, and AMD have teamed up with MediaMall. Yahoo have launched their media aggregator and there's even the shareware open source Democracy Player.
In Holland, PC Zapper produce an MCE-like interface for other opperating systems and there are a plethora of other aggregators such as TVext, whose offer personalized feeds.
Then there are simple aggregators such as Greengrass, Akimbo and Dave TV. There are hundreds more with similar aspirations.
Then there are the search engines such as Blinkx, who offer a search and indexing interface into the services out there.
Everyone's lined up; what all these companies want to achieve is to be the Microsoft for the TV, or even the Google for TV. Let battle commence and may the best technology win.
On one side are the incumbents, the satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcasters.
In the other are the newbies, the biggest of which is Microsoft with its Media Centre Edition (MCE), which will be an integral part of the new Vista OS when it launches in 2007.
Sony have invested in TvTv, and AMD have teamed up with MediaMall. Yahoo have launched their media aggregator and there's even the shareware open source Democracy Player.
In Holland, PC Zapper produce an MCE-like interface for other opperating systems and there are a plethora of other aggregators such as TVext, whose offer personalized feeds.
Then there are simple aggregators such as Greengrass, Akimbo and Dave TV. There are hundreds more with similar aspirations.
Then there are the search engines such as Blinkx, who offer a search and indexing interface into the services out there.
Everyone's lined up; what all these companies want to achieve is to be the Microsoft for the TV, or even the Google for TV. Let battle commence and may the best technology win.
Comments