Techno Babble

Is Internet-connected TV the future of home entertainment and the gateway to the internet ?

Manufacturers are making more sophisticated TVs which you can simply connect to your home network to provide access to the internet. The TV will help to accelerate the growth of the internet as a platform and easy access to the cloud of information available.

Project Canvas is a partnership, in the UK,  between a number of companies – BBC, ITV, C4, Five, BT, Talk Talk and Arqiva to build an open internet-connected TV platform.  While the main aim is to explore the future of broadcast and online TV, another objective is to make access to web content and services simpler. For example, providing access to public information web services such as NHS Direct and other Government services, via a simple, common user interface.

Currently in the initial development stages, the three main elements to the venture are:

• To set the standard(s)
• Build the technical platform
• Create the User Experience

It will be interesting to see how this evolves over the next year or two. While broadband may be more widespread and consumers are getting more familiar with services such as video-on-demand, will the overall existing network infrastructure be sufficient to meet the demands ? We are already starting to see unlimited data downloads provided by ISPs starting to become subject to “(un)fair usage” policies due to existing demands on their services. And what is this current myth about broadband getting faster? You can only imagine the effects on the service with the expected increased demand provided by access from the TV.

Details of the project are available at:

http://www.projectcanvas.info/

The Microsoft Robotics Studio is a Windows-based environment for academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotics applications across a wide variety of hardware.

Key features and benefits of the Microsoft Robotics Studio environment include: end-to-end Robotics Development Platform , lightweight services-oriented runtime, and a scalable and extensible platform.

Read an associated datasheet, Microsoft Robotics Studio DataSheet Oct06 English.pdf

You can also read an interesting article in the Redmond Magazine, Microsoft’s Future Is … Robotics? where there’s an interview with the general manager in charge of the Microsoft Robotics Studio product, Tandy Trower.

Google is your computer

Some interesting ideas are raised in this article

http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-5759958-1.html?tag=nl.e501,

about how the future of the desktop may be changing.

There is a nice description of a piece of the enabling technology, Ajax, that drives google maps and other google sites.