Hasta La Gadget!

Intel Media’s On Cue, the company’s not-so-secret internet-based TV service, was supposed to not only change the way pay TV is delivered, but also upgrade the entire TV-watching experience at home. Now, it looks like it’ll belong to someone else. …

The time has come: As announced earlier this summer, Microsoft is shuttering MSN TV, a service it’s operated since 1997. Originally known as WebTV, the box (naturally) brought the internet to many a living-room set — it was something of a pioneer back in the day, really. Nostalgic types can still turn to the Xbox 360 and the PS3 for their browser-on-the-big-screen needs, of course, and MSN TV holdouts will want to switch their email addresses to Outlook and copy saved content to SkyDrive, stat. For more details, hit up the ultra-comprehensive FAQ page via the link below.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft

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Via: GigaOm

Source: MSN TV

If you’re not quite comfortable shelling out £299 for BT’s YouView box, then you’re in luck. Starting October 26th, the hardware will be free for new Infinity broadband subscribers who ink contracts that are one year or longer. Instead of relying on cable, the Humax-built device uses both aerial and internet connections to deliver content from more than 100 digital TV and radio channels including Channels 4 and 5, the BBC and ITV. With the IPTV box, users can sift through content that’s aired in the past seven days, watch on-demand programs and record up to 300 hours of standard definition television or 125 hours of high-def video to a built-in 500GB hard drive. Current British Telecom subscribers pining for the subsidized box will be able to get their own for a £49 activation fee and a £6.95 delivery charge. Those eager for the gratis set-top solution will be able to order it online starting October 19th if they register interest with BT’s website beforehand. For more details, check out the press release below.

Continue reading BT to offer free YouView box with one-year broadband contract, £49 for existing customers

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

BT to offer free YouView box with one-year broadband contract, £49 for existing customers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 02:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s one reason why Apple may not be producing a television with its name blazoned on it in the near term: it doesn’t look like people have, so far, shown that much interested in them yet. According to a new report out from consumer researchers GfK, connected TV televisions are faring much better in markets like China, Brazil and India compared to the U.S., UK and other developed markets — with China commanding the highest usage at 44% and the UK and U.S. leading more advanced markets with just 11% penetration.

GfK puts it down to consumers in the latter category stuck in an “analog” mindset — although consumers in the latter markets are also big users of other ways of getting the same experience without forking out for a pricey connected TV set.

On top of set-top boxes from pay-TV providers, there are consoles like the Xbox, Roku, and PlayStation that also provide on-demand and connected services to users through their TV sets. And devices like tablets and PCs, which are more suited to interactivity, are also proving to be among the fastest-growing devices for video viewing. And there is of course the increasing multiscreen trend, in which users use at least two devices at the same time to provide a simultaneous lean-back/lean-forward experience.

And there is also the issue of price. A smart TV can cost upwards of $200 or more than a more basic set, and that might not even give you a significantly better screen than a less expensive make.

The supremacy of China in the connected TV category comes on the heels of a report last week from NPD that noted that China — or those in urban centers at least — watch the most online video content, across the most devices, of any other regional group of consumers.

Users don’t care much about getting their Twitter fix right on the screen. GfK found that there seems to be little demand at the moment for the kinds of bells and whistles that a lot of connected TVs are offering. Only 28% of respondents thought interactivity made programs more interesting. Only 25% thought tweeting and other commenting formats make the experience more interesting.

“Our findings suggest that broadcasters need to integrate their social elements far more engagingly into the fabric of the programme, to encourage viewers to interact,” writes Richard Preedy, Research Director at GfK. This particular study took into account a total of 7,000 interviews from Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, UK, Russia, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, USA, China, India and South Korea — 500 in each country except Belgium, where it collected 1,000,

On the other hand, services that helped users find more info on programs fared much better: 33% more viewers searched for information on the shows they are watching than use social networks to share the experience with friends, GfK writes.

Smart TVs go where PCs do not? It seems that smart TVs are faring much better in markets where PC penetration is lower: as they do with their mobiles, users in these markets as a result look to their TVs to fulfill some of the functions that might have otherwise been relegated to the PC: 75% of Chinese smart-TV owners used their TVs’ fancy interactive features in past month; in Western markets the average number was less than half, GfK said.

That also seems to translate into buying intention, too: among U.S. and UK consumers, less than one-third (29%; 26% respectively) said they would look for Internet-enabled TVs in the future. In China and India the numbers were respectively 64% and 61%.

Now also could be the time to strike while the iron is hot: just as Apple effectively created a whole new market for smartphones that were largely the terrain of very early adopters and business users before the iPhone, it could could do the same for televisions. GfK notes that sales of smart TVs in the six biggest European economies were up by 31% in the first half of this year.

It could be newer features that may get users in these markets more interested in smart TVs: 67% of respondents said they were interested in touch and gesture control; and 43% want to control their TVs with something other than a remote, such as a smartphone. Yes, these functions are already here and getting more popular all the time; the question is whether users will look to their TV sets or other gadgets to provide them longer term.

During a trip to Switzerland, my family started off on a day hike to reach the nearby foothills of a mountain. It looked doable, but as time passed the range seemed to recede before our approach. After many hours we turned around, having apparently failed to close any distance.

Crossing from now to the future in technology can likewise seem illusory. When we scrutinize and celebrate each tiny incremental invention as if it were a milestone, we lose track of time as if we were counting grains of sand dropping through an hourglass. Game-changing inventions are rare, separated by epochs in which progress adds up to a lot of sameness. Futurism is an unforgiving business. But sometimes, as in the cases of cloud computing and media convergence, redemption comes with patience.

Continue reading Editorial: The future comes slowly, but revolutions are worth waiting for

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Household, Internet

Editorial: The future comes slowly, but revolutions are worth waiting for originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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