Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: text style from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Polette
Speaker 1: and I am an editor here at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot Com. Sitting across from me, as he always does,
Speaker 1: is senior writer Jonathan I want my, I want my
Speaker 1: I want my Google TV. So do a lot of
Speaker 1: other people. It's a very popular topic right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because at the time that we're recording this podcast, the
Speaker 1: announcement of Google TV is is pretty much fresh. It
Speaker 1: just came out the week before we're sitting down to
Speaker 1: record this. Now, by the time it publishes, obviously it
Speaker 1: will be around a little bit longer than that. But
Speaker 1: we want to talk about what Google TV is and
Speaker 1: whether or not it has a chance of succeeding and
Speaker 1: UH and why other attempts at bringing internet television uh
Speaker 1: to to the consumer market have not really taken off.
Speaker 1: And I guess the best way of doing this is
Speaker 1: to kind of look at where internet TV has been
Speaker 1: over the last several years. Okay, that sounds good to me.
Speaker 1: So internet TV is not anything new as anyone who
Speaker 1: has visited the Consumer Electronics Showcase in the last uh oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, five ten years could tell you. Internet
Speaker 1: TV has been a discussion point among multiple manufacturers for
Speaker 1: several years. And in fact, there are some television's out
Speaker 1: there that already incorporate some sort of of Internet or
Speaker 1: web based um uh content you know that you can
Speaker 1: you can access. Most of them are fairly limited, and
Speaker 1: that might be the big reason why it hasn't really
Speaker 1: taken off. Before the televisions and set top boxes were
Speaker 1: on the scene, really, the only way you were going
Speaker 1: to get anything on the Internet on your television was
Speaker 1: by hooking your computer up to your TV. Oh, I
Speaker 1: mean there's web TV the only good way to get Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: what's turned I just turned Jonathan's face a little green.
Speaker 1: I think No. I actually had a friend who had
Speaker 1: web TV, and I uh, I was never intrigued by
Speaker 1: the product, mainly because I already had, you know, a
Speaker 1: computer that could access the web and uh and when
Speaker 1: I looked at the product and use I I just
Speaker 1: if I could tell it was not for me. Well,
Speaker 1: I will say though, that products like web TV, products
Speaker 1: like DVRs, um they're all sort of factors in the
Speaker 1: hype for Google TV, and then they're all sort of
Speaker 1: in some way, um sort of a predecessor, you know,
Speaker 1: or maybe a part of the concept behind short TV.
Speaker 1: It's a unification of those things. Yeah, yeah, if you
Speaker 1: will convergence, yeah yeah, it's it's definitely been an evolution. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you look back at the early the early solutions
Speaker 1: besides hooking a computer up to your television, the biggest
Speaker 1: problem with that is it's a barrier to the average consumer.
Speaker 1: Because we've talked about this before, there appears to be
Speaker 1: a fundamentally intimidating factor of hooking your computer up to
Speaker 1: your TV for most consumers. Now, for some of you
Speaker 1: guys listening out there, you're probably thinking, Hey, I've had
Speaker 1: a computer hotel to my TV for years. There's nothing
Speaker 1: that's there's no real big deal about it. You just
Speaker 1: get a couple of pieces of software, you get the
Speaker 1: right cable, you hook it up, and you're ready to go.
Speaker 1: And that's true. But for the average consumer who's used
Speaker 1: to having a television and maybe a couple of boxes
Speaker 1: that hook up directly and do all the work for you,
Speaker 1: it seems like it's a pretty intimidating, uh endeavor, especially
Speaker 1: when you start thinking do I want to have to
Speaker 1: sit down and watch my TV with a keyboard on
Speaker 1: my lap in order to to see the things I
Speaker 1: want to see? And a lot of consumers don't, which
Speaker 1: may end up being a problem for Google TV. But
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. So we move beyond the hooking
Speaker 1: your computer up to your television television, which some people
Speaker 1: would say is still the best option, and in fact,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to disagree it's gonna be hooking a
Speaker 1: computer up to your TV is probably going to give
Speaker 1: you the widest array of options out of anything that's
Speaker 1: currently on the market. Um, but again still has that
Speaker 1: intimidation factor. If you move beyond that, then we start
Speaker 1: looking at the products that have slowly begun to integrate
Speaker 1: web based content into their into the system. So things
Speaker 1: even like ti Vo has has this right right, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm TiVo and other digital video recorders in general. Um,
Speaker 1: even when they just got started, they offered you the
Speaker 1: opportunity to record video, of course, but you also had
Speaker 1: things like an electronic program guide. Um, you had the
Speaker 1: ability in in some cases, especially with with ti Vo,
Speaker 1: to set up subscriptions. So what it would have to
Speaker 1: do would be to call in to the Tebow subscription,
Speaker 1: at least in the earliest versions, that would actually make
Speaker 1: a phone call with the modem to get the program
Speaker 1: information to use on the electronic program guide, and you
Speaker 1: could say, you know what, I want to watch every
Speaker 1: new episode of Lost as soon as it comes on,
Speaker 1: so the TVO would go out get the information about
Speaker 1: when it was on. Say ABC changes it from Tuesday
Speaker 1: night to Thursday night. I never watched Laws, so I
Speaker 1: know I probably have gotten the dates wrong. But let's
Speaker 1: just say they changed the show, whatever show it is,
Speaker 1: from one night to the other. The electronic program GUDE
Speaker 1: is going to be instantly updated when I instantly, but
Speaker 1: when it calls in, it's gonna be updated. It's gonna
Speaker 1: know when the show has changed. It's you know, it's changed,
Speaker 1: the date, it's changed the time slot. It can go
Speaker 1: ahead and get that information for you. So it's far
Speaker 1: more interactive than setting your TV for you know, every
Speaker 1: Tuesday night at eight o'clock and then finding out, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, via a paper guide manually and saying, oh man,
Speaker 1: I missed Tuesday night's episode of my show because I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that they had changed nights and time slots
Speaker 1: on me and now I I'm stuck. This is far
Speaker 1: more interactive. It it allows you uh some control over
Speaker 1: these things without having to mess with it, but it's
Speaker 1: still not accessing the Internet proper to get that information. Now,
Speaker 1: later models of TVO and some of the other DVRs
Speaker 1: actually do access the Internet, but if they're only accessing
Speaker 1: it for the electronic program guide in the programming information
Speaker 1: to get your TV shows, that's not really the same
Speaker 1: as what Google TV is offering, right. And then you
Speaker 1: have the devices like Roku or Apple TV, which give
Speaker 1: you an access to a slice of content from the web,
Speaker 1: but it's not it's not unfettered access to what's on
Speaker 1: the web. So, for example, with Roku, you would have
Speaker 1: these various channels that they've set up where you can
Speaker 1: access content from those channels, and it's not channels in
Speaker 1: the sense of a cable operator. It's more like a
Speaker 1: content provider. So, for example, one of the channels, which
Speaker 1: of course is this is something that you can find
Speaker 1: across multiple devices now, is the Netflix Instant streaming channel.
Speaker 1: So if you are a Netflix subscriber and you have
Speaker 1: access to the instant streaming service that they provide. You
Speaker 1: can use a Roku box to access your instance streaming
Speaker 1: que and and stream it to your television. So you
Speaker 1: can watch this stuff that you know, Normally you might
Speaker 1: think you'd have to watch it on a computer screen.
Speaker 1: You can watch it on your big screen TV. Now
Speaker 1: there are actually lots of different ways that you can
Speaker 1: access Netflix streaming, which to me just says that Netflix
Speaker 1: has got like the plan. If you're a content provider,
Speaker 1: look at Netflix, because they are doing it right. They
Speaker 1: you can find them across multiple platforms, including video game
Speaker 1: consoles like the Xbox three sixty, the p S three,
Speaker 1: and the wies, so they are going into more houses
Speaker 1: than than pretty much any other content provider um and
Speaker 1: other platforms as well. They have apps for uh, the
Speaker 1: iPad and I believe the iPod and iPhone as well,
Speaker 1: and you know other mobile devices, so they are they're
Speaker 1: reaching out to those markets as well. So you could
Speaker 1: we'll be waiting for the subway to watch your show
Speaker 1: and still be able to access that. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a Netflix app for Android as well, although the Android
Speaker 1: app is is mainly being able to manage the que.
Speaker 1: Manage the que exactly it's not to watch the content,
Speaker 1: it's to manage the Q which is probably a good
Speaker 1: thing because I think trying to stream that content to
Speaker 1: your mobile device, especially if you're on the move, would
Speaker 1: be a pretty unsatisfying experience. You would either get a
Speaker 1: really poor quality video and audio or it would take
Speaker 1: forever for it to stream. Well, yeah, that and it's
Speaker 1: going to tax the wireless network exactly. And if you yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the other problem. And I'm sure the network providers
Speaker 1: don't want to see that. So at any rate, I'm
Speaker 1: sorry you were going to say, I was going to
Speaker 1: mention Apple TV, since you please. That's a little different
Speaker 1: model because Apple TV um is a box that actually
Speaker 1: has been on the market for quite some time. People
Speaker 1: have I've been talking about the possibility that Apple may
Speaker 1: kill the device because it doesn't seem like it's very popular.
Speaker 1: Uh uh, you know, it's just one of those things
Speaker 1: that it's a hey, wait, that's still for sale sort
Speaker 1: of thing. But um, it's sort of an in between
Speaker 1: two as far as the way it works, because you
Speaker 1: might buy a show or subscribe to a show on
Speaker 1: the iTunes store, have it downloaded to your Apple TV,
Speaker 1: and then you connect that to your TV and watch
Speaker 1: the content from there. But you're going show by show
Speaker 1: and you know you're buying this and whatever is on iTunes, exactly,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't use it to access all the
Speaker 1: video content that you can find across the web, which
Speaker 1: is also true if the Netflix, right. Yeah, the Roku
Speaker 1: box is the same way. The Roku Box you only
Speaker 1: have access to the channels that Roku has made partnerships with,
Speaker 1: so like major League Baseball would be another great example.
Speaker 1: You'll be able to watch all these Baseball games that
Speaker 1: are not in your local area U through the Roku Box.
Speaker 1: Other boxes also have deals with Major League Baseball. So
Speaker 1: on the set top side, we have this kind limited
Speaker 1: access to web content. On television's Meanwhile, there were some
Speaker 1: televisions that had a little limited access to web content.
Speaker 1: Some of them only went with widgets, so you would
Speaker 1: have a channel essentially on your TV where you could
Speaker 1: go and access widgets to find things like the latest
Speaker 1: news headlines, weather reports, stock tips, with that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Things that we're useful, but again it was a very
Speaker 1: narrow slice of all the content that's on the web.
Speaker 1: Now this leads us to Google TV, which is a
Speaker 1: much broader approach to getting content from the web onto
Speaker 1: your television set. Google TV is built upon Android, the
Speaker 1: Android operating system Android two point one to be specific. Uh.
Speaker 1: The web browser that it's using is the Chrome web browser,
Speaker 1: So we're sticking with Google products here. That's not a
Speaker 1: big surprise. And it's using the Intel Adom microprocessor to
Speaker 1: generate the power it needs to both be able to
Speaker 1: display video and to act as web content. So that's
Speaker 1: that's where your your backbone is. That's your Android operating system,
Speaker 1: Chrome web browser, Intel microprocessor. Uh. The idea behind Google
Speaker 1: TV is that you would be able to access pretty
Speaker 1: much all of the Web through your television in a
Speaker 1: very in a simplified user interface, so that it looks
Speaker 1: very familiar to anyone who's ever used the Chrome web browser,
Speaker 1: and it integrates not just the web content, but your
Speaker 1: television content as well, depending on how you're getting that
Speaker 1: TV content. So let's say you're getting it via satellite
Speaker 1: or cable and you want to search for a specific program,
Speaker 1: you could go into Google TV on your television. You've
Speaker 1: got a keyboard. This is one of the parts where
Speaker 1: I'm saying that this might be a problem because again
Speaker 1: consumers don't generally want to have to have a keyboard
Speaker 1: in order to access their their television programming. This might
Speaker 1: be the tipping point for that. It could, it could.
Speaker 1: This is this has been pretty intriguing, I think to
Speaker 1: a lot of people in that regard. So things, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they could search for a program on in a browser,
Speaker 1: something that looks like the Chrome browser, and by searching
Speaker 1: for that program, Google will search not just the the web,
Speaker 1: it will search your DVR, and it might search the
Speaker 1: actual live broadcasts that are coming in through whatever content
Speaker 1: provider you're using, whether it's satellite or cable or whatever,
Speaker 1: so that it will when the results that will come
Speaker 1: up will include various options. So let's say that you
Speaker 1: are three episodes behind on House and you want to
Speaker 1: search for House. You can search for that, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna bring up the next uh any any episodes that
Speaker 1: you might have on your DVR. That will bring up
Speaker 1: the result for whenever it's gonna show next live on TV,
Speaker 1: and it may bring up something like Hulu where you
Speaker 1: can watch the last few episodes on Hulu and m
Speaker 1: and again, it's giving you access to essentially the entire web.
Speaker 1: You're no longer looking at Little Pie slices. UM. Now,
Speaker 1: that's truly revolutionary when it comes to web based content
Speaker 1: on the Internet. If you don't, if you haven't taken
Speaker 1: the step of connecting a computer to the TV. Because again,
Speaker 1: if you have already done that, then you you pretty
Speaker 1: much have access to all of this. It's just just
Speaker 1: do it yourself project as opposed to it's all coming
Speaker 1: in a package with a Google And Google is working
Speaker 1: with some pretty big names to to bring some products
Speaker 1: to market UM, possibly as early as faul. Yes, they've
Speaker 1: already been talking with people like Sony and Logitech on
Speaker 1: products and and uh, there's a probability to that. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't even say it's a probability. It's uh, you won't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to connect a box to your TV. They're
Speaker 1: working on TVs. They'll have the necessary equipment inside so
Speaker 1: that you will be able to do this without having
Speaker 1: to hook up a second piece of equipment. Right, So
Speaker 1: you would just hook the your your you know, however,
Speaker 1: you're getting your your UM broadband service, so uh and
Speaker 1: and some of the TVs may even have a WiFi
Speaker 1: UH card in them so that you you know, they
Speaker 1: wirelessly hook up to your home network, which is that's
Speaker 1: always a good thing because you're thinking, well, good thing
Speaker 1: in the sense that it's one less cable to have
Speaker 1: to worry about. Of course, if you don't have a
Speaker 1: very fast home network connection, then that's a problem. Or
Speaker 1: if lots and lots of people are trying to access
Speaker 1: a wireless network as you're running the demo for a
Speaker 1: Google TV, apparently that is also a problem. Yeah, I watched,
Speaker 1: so I guess you watched the key note where they
Speaker 1: had multiple issues. Yeah, that's that's one of the problems
Speaker 1: of any high tech keynote speech now is that everyone
Speaker 1: who's in the audience is also trying to access the
Speaker 1: same network you are using to give your demo. So
Speaker 1: either you need a private network that no one else
Speaker 1: has access to, or you need to have everything, uh
Speaker 1: just run as a presentation as opposed to a live demo,
Speaker 1: because it's just really hard to get through otherwise. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a tech company around that has
Speaker 1: had a live that has never had a problem with
Speaker 1: a live demonstration of some kind. I guess. I guess
Speaker 1: they can be thankful that they didn't have any instances
Speaker 1: of showing a website with a big box with a
Speaker 1: question mark on it saying that it's lacking the proper
Speaker 1: plug in order to display it. Apple. Yeah, and uh
Speaker 1: so the going back to to the Google TV's plan here,
Speaker 1: So I think what Google TV has really managed to do.
Speaker 1: I think what Google has managed to do is look
Speaker 1: at how consumers have been getting used to accessing more
Speaker 1: and more entertainment content via the web. Back when internet
Speaker 1: TVs first started hitting the market, that was pretty much
Speaker 1: a very niche audience. There are very few people comparatively speaking,
Speaker 1: who were accessing entertainment online. For one thing, there weren't
Speaker 1: a whole lot of official channels where you could access
Speaker 1: entertainment online. So if you were accessing entertainment online, there
Speaker 1: was a fair percentage that you were pirating it or
Speaker 1: that you were going through some proxy site to view
Speaker 1: UM television programs that were not authorized to be shown online.
Speaker 1: Uh And then you started to see partnerships with companies
Speaker 1: like Hulu and various content providers where you had official
Speaker 1: channels where you could watch real network programming or cable
Speaker 1: programming that was authorized by the content provider UM. And
Speaker 1: that's when people started to say, hey, you know what
Speaker 1: I missed last night's episode, I didn't set the dvr,
Speaker 1: um or there's this new show that I didn't even
Speaker 1: know about, so I didn't even know to set the DVR.
Speaker 1: But I can go to Hulu and I can watch it.
Speaker 1: And more and more people I think have become comfortable
Speaker 1: with watching stuff online, and they're they're even comfortable watching
Speaker 1: it on a small form factor like a laptop, you know,
Speaker 1: or uh in some cases even you know, an iPod
Speaker 1: if they're getting it through iTunes. Um. But I think
Speaker 1: if you ask any of them, hey, would you like
Speaker 1: to have the freedom that you have accessing entertainment online
Speaker 1: where you can look at things like the last five
Speaker 1: episodes on Hulu of any particular show. Would you like
Speaker 1: to have that freedom on your actual television where you're
Speaker 1: no longer using your TV to access whatever the programming
Speaker 1: is that the content providers are are allowing you to access,
Speaker 1: and instead you're able to access a much larger pool
Speaker 1: of content. I think most people would say, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would love that. I just don't want a clunky interface
Speaker 1: between me and the content. And that's Google TV's biggest hurdle,
Speaker 1: I think, is to make that that interface as smooth
Speaker 1: and easy as possible and to try and minimize the
Speaker 1: impact of Hey, you're gonna need a keyboard to be
Speaker 1: able to use this completely. Um. Once they're able to
Speaker 1: get to that point, I think that this product could
Speaker 1: have huge success. Yeah. One other advantage that Google has
Speaker 1: with doing Google TV is that it's using its Android
Speaker 1: operating system, and uh third party providers are going to
Speaker 1: be able to write applications for Google TV just as
Speaker 1: they would for other Google Android operating system UH platforms,
Speaker 1: So that's going to be an advantage to for them. Um.
Speaker 1: Google will actually even have a YouTube interface um. Of
Speaker 1: course Google's parent company for YouTube. UM, but there's it's
Speaker 1: what it's called YouTube lean Back. It's and it's designed
Speaker 1: to be couch ready, yes if you will, so you
Speaker 1: don't have to go in and start searching for stuff
Speaker 1: using a keyboard necessarily. And we'll have it'll have pre
Speaker 1: selected videos that uh that you are supposedly going to
Speaker 1: be predisposed to enjoying based upon your own behaviors online
Speaker 1: on YouTube and what your friends enjoy watching. So it
Speaker 1: also presupposes that your friends enjoy the same things you do,
Speaker 1: which thinking of my friends means I'm in I'm in
Speaker 1: store for some of the scariest videos that you have
Speaker 1: ever seen online, because good lord, those guys are freaks.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, how you doing? Um? So yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think Google TV is going to be an important
Speaker 1: step in the evolution of TV and computer you know,
Speaker 1: convergence with that word again, um. But you know, it
Speaker 1: does require the participation of the content providers. You have
Speaker 1: been traditionally a little reticent to share their information. I
Speaker 1: think personally, I would say that's probably because a lot
Speaker 1: of people associate digital with easy to copy and distribute
Speaker 1: um without any regard for copyright, and that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: true of different interfaces. And it's also associated with reduced
Speaker 1: revenue because you're not getting the same amount of ad
Speaker 1: revenue online as you are through television broadcast. But I
Speaker 1: think Google's approach kind of circumvents that a little bit
Speaker 1: because you're still getting content through your normal you know providers,
Speaker 1: You're still getting content through cable and satellite. You're just
Speaker 1: also able to access content on the web. It's not
Speaker 1: it's not like Google's forcing content providers to to put
Speaker 1: all of their stuff on the web. It's just allowing
Speaker 1: customers to access the stuff that's on the web as
Speaker 1: well as the stuff that's on their TV. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the right approach because it's less threatening to
Speaker 1: the content providers. Right. It's not saying, hey, if you
Speaker 1: don't play our game, then you're gonna get left behind.
Speaker 1: It's saying, we're giving customers more options and they still
Speaker 1: want to watch your content. If it's good content, they're
Speaker 1: gonna go and say, oh, it's eight o'clock, I need
Speaker 1: to tune into MythBusters, which is an awesome show. You
Speaker 1: know they're still gonna do that. It's not saying that
Speaker 1: you need to put MythBusters online or else no one
Speaker 1: will watch it, which I mean everyone knows that that's
Speaker 1: not true because they're awesome. Well of course, um, but
Speaker 1: actually that I think two. You can see signs of
Speaker 1: that in the the partnerships developed are developing, I should say,
Speaker 1: rather around the TV Everywhere initiatives, which are basically started
Speaker 1: by Time Warner and by comcasts who basically are trying
Speaker 1: to find ways to get content providers on board and
Speaker 1: offer access to a subscriber's TV shows anywhere. Um. In
Speaker 1: this case, a subscriber to the cable services of one
Speaker 1: of those companies would be able to watch their favorite
Speaker 1: shows on a TV or what they log in, you know,
Speaker 1: the proper, proper credentials. They could watch it on their
Speaker 1: laptop or on their desktop computer at work when they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing something important. Um. But but you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they're on I never ever Thorty Rock. But perhaps
Speaker 1: they're on the road. You have a busy executive who's
Speaker 1: on the road, has a difficult time watching his or
Speaker 1: her favorite shows and can tune in anywhere regardless of
Speaker 1: where it is by using this initiative. And I think
Speaker 1: that some of the content or fighters are going, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if they're paying us via a subscription, and you know,
Speaker 1: we can identify them as a paid subscriber, then maybe
Speaker 1: that's not so bad. And also no, no, please continue,
Speaker 1: I don't interrupt. Well no, no, Um there there's another
Speaker 1: Dish network also has a TV Everywhere initiative that is
Speaker 1: a little different because they a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: purchased sling Media, which makes the Slingbox place shifting technology
Speaker 1: that allows you to watch content from your DVR box
Speaker 1: on different media and it's sort of circumvents the whole
Speaker 1: necessary I mean that's baked in you have to log
Speaker 1: into these services. Speaking a Dish Network subscriber and former employee, UM,
Speaker 1: you you actually UM log in to the soft where
Speaker 1: you have to have a log into that account to
Speaker 1: be able to see the information coming from your DVR
Speaker 1: or from your your set top box. So it essentially
Speaker 1: achieves the same purpose. As long as you're you know,
Speaker 1: using enabled hardware and you're logged in, you have access
Speaker 1: to the programming for which you are already paying. And
Speaker 1: I think content providers are a little bit more okay
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, And the reason you would want something
Speaker 1: like that is one it allows you to keep up
Speaker 1: with things like the local news, which you wouldn't get
Speaker 1: necessarily if you were on the road, or sporting events.
Speaker 1: Sporting events are huge, that's the biggest That's kind of
Speaker 1: the biggest hurdle for web tv because UM sporting events
Speaker 1: have their own set of really complex rules about where
Speaker 1: they can and can't be shown. So if you wanted
Speaker 1: to catch the local game of your your home sports
Speaker 1: team and you're in a different market, UM, you have
Speaker 1: only a few options. One of them is to be
Speaker 1: let let's say it's baseball, then one of your options
Speaker 1: is to be a subscriber to Major League Baseball's online
Speaker 1: service where, which would allow you to watch games that
Speaker 1: are when you are outside of that market. Another would
Speaker 1: be the slingbox that is that you were talking. But
Speaker 1: as for the Television Everywhere UH initiative, the nice thing
Speaker 1: about Google TV is I don't think it competes with
Speaker 1: that at all. No, not really. It's actually kind of
Speaker 1: a supplement to it, really because again, it would just
Speaker 1: give you another way of accessing the online portion. So
Speaker 1: let's say that, let's say that your agreement with Comcast
Speaker 1: where you can access the the programming either online or
Speaker 1: UH or on your television because you're already a Comcast subscriber. UM,
Speaker 1: if it allows you to access any back episodes, or
Speaker 1: if it allows you to watch any episode that previously aired,
Speaker 1: or for up to a week. Let's say so, let's
Speaker 1: say that Tuesday's new episode of such and such came
Speaker 1: on and it's Thursday, you missed it. If you're able
Speaker 1: to log onto the Comcast one and still watch Tuesday's
Speaker 1: episode up until the following Tuesday, UM, that would still
Speaker 1: be useful on your Google TV, assuming you didn't already
Speaker 1: have some sort of DVR built in there. You would
Speaker 1: be able to go back and watch the episode you
Speaker 1: had missed because you were subscribed to that program. So, UM,
Speaker 1: we don't know really any of the other details about
Speaker 1: Google TV, like is it a subscription based model, is
Speaker 1: it just a product, is it is the price of
Speaker 1: the product just built into whatever it is you're gonna
Speaker 1: be purchasing. We don't really know all of those details yet. Um,
Speaker 1: and uh, it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. Uh.
Speaker 1: What I'm really interested in is the potential of using
Speaker 1: something like Google TV and marrying that with things like
Speaker 1: video games, so that you could use a you know,
Speaker 1: I could see that Google TV evolving to the point
Speaker 1: where you could subscribe to a video game service and
Speaker 1: kind of like the cloud video game systems that we've
Speaker 1: talked about in the past, you would be able to
Speaker 1: play video games over your broadband connection without the need
Speaker 1: for a disk or anything like that. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: you want to jump on a game and play a
Speaker 1: few first person shooter multiplayer games, you might be able
Speaker 1: to do it through Google TV in the future, right,
Speaker 1: And they haven't talked about that, but it's a possibility. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as as we've been talking about this, I think I
Speaker 1: would have to say that I see this not as
Speaker 1: an end point but just another step in the convergence
Speaker 1: of content and platform. So basically, we'll have content coming
Speaker 1: from multiple sources and you can watch it on multiple platforms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we could ultimately get to the point where it's like
Speaker 1: a giant stream of content and the way you access
Speaker 1: it is up to you. Yeah, that's that's probably where
Speaker 1: we are ultimately heading. But it'll still take a while
Speaker 1: before we get there, because I mean, we're moving from
Speaker 1: one established model into something that's still being kind of
Speaker 1: of formed as we speak, so it'll be a while
Speaker 1: before we get there. But it's definitely an exciting future.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating to watch to just to to see what
Speaker 1: kinds of content are enduring. And the ones that, for me,
Speaker 1: it's even more funny are the ones that the models
Speaker 1: that they predict will be dying any minute now, and
Speaker 1: that just you know, people really like things like TV.
Speaker 1: They just want to be able to watch it in
Speaker 1: different places. I think. I think part of the danger
Speaker 1: is that we look at the folks who are way
Speaker 1: way way ahead of the average consumer, and we're basing
Speaker 1: everyone's behavior upon a very small sample population and that's
Speaker 1: always dangerous because there's always gonna be some people who
Speaker 1: will run out and adopt something that doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: it will be successful. Uh, look at all the people
Speaker 1: who adopted LaserDisc or HD DVD UM. These are things
Speaker 1: that that met with initial success but ultimately didn't make
Speaker 1: a huge impact in the overall market. Yeah. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: still trying to find a way to hook up my
Speaker 1: Beta Max to my slingbox. Good luck with that. So,
Speaker 1: uh well, that wraps up that discussion. Let's let's hit
Speaker 1: a little listener mail. This listener mail comes from Angela,
Speaker 1: and Angela says, in morning, Chris and Jonathan, Hey, how
Speaker 1: do you know? We're recording this in the morning study afternoon.
Speaker 1: While listening to your recently aired episode, I became increasingly
Speaker 1: interested in learning more about Ada Lovelace. I opened Google
Speaker 1: Chrome and began searching for any type of media about her.
Speaker 1: I opened four tabs Google etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. She wanted
Speaker 1: to know, is there a search engine that could encompass
Speaker 1: all of the websites that she wanted to search, consolidate
Speaker 1: them into one largely organized search result. And Uh, if
Speaker 1: there is, what is it and Chris you had an
Speaker 1: answer for Angela, Yeah, directly. The first thing I thought
Speaker 1: of was role yo, which is r O L L
Speaker 1: y o dot com. And it's a way to, uh
Speaker 1: basically create your own search engine. You you can search
Speaker 1: multiple websites at one time, and you can specify which ones. Um.
Speaker 1: You know. It's a it's a very customizable platform. You
Speaker 1: can create an account and have multiple search engines by
Speaker 1: which you know, you you have your own uh search
Speaker 1: roles um you know that you can use for different platforms,
Speaker 1: especially useful if you have multiple searches. You know, in
Speaker 1: this case, she had something that she was looking for
Speaker 1: in particular, but if she does a lot of searching
Speaker 1: on those same websites for topics like that, she's gonna
Speaker 1: want to create an account, uh to do that so
Speaker 1: she can, you know, bring that up in a moment's notice.
Speaker 1: You can also their plug ins for different browsers as
Speaker 1: well that use that. But there are other meta search
Speaker 1: engines such as Dogpile or Clusty that search multiple search engines, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Yahoo, being Google and all those others at
Speaker 1: the same time, so that you're getting the multiple the
Speaker 1: effect of searching a whole bunch of search engines at once,
Speaker 1: because not all of them use the same algorithms to
Speaker 1: bring up content, so it can be very useful. But
Speaker 1: Rollo is a lot more customizable and you can search
Speaker 1: individual websites like right. So Rollo is kind of like
Speaker 1: the precision Uh, you're using a scalpel to go and
Speaker 1: try and whereas the other one is like you're you're
Speaker 1: you're doing widespread bombing right right. It's a difference precision
Speaker 1: and recall, and you probably don't want me to launch
Speaker 1: into that right at any rate. Hopefully that answers your question, Angela,
Speaker 1: And if any of you have questions for us, you
Speaker 1: can write us. Our email address is tex Stuff at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and Chris and I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon if you're a tech stuff
Speaker 1: and be sure to check us out on Twitter Text
Speaker 1: Stuff hs wsr handle and you can also find us
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash tech stuff h
Speaker 1: s W for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com and be sure
Speaker 1: to check out the new tech stuff blog now on
Speaker 1: the House stuff Works homepage. Brought to you by the
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