Rethinking how we watch TV: Apple, Intel and others push new technologies to take control of the living room

13 years ago

“To understand how much television could soon change, it helps to visit an Intel Corp. division here that runs like a startup,” Don Clark and Ian Sherr report for The Wall Street Journal. “Intel’s plans include a server farm to record every piece of programming aired—local, national and international—and store it for at least three days in the ‘cloud.’ With an Intel-designed set-top box, people won’t have to own DVRs or even plan to record programs.”

“Other tech giants pushing TV advances include Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Sony Corp. and Google Inc.,” Clark and Sherr report. “[Apple] has since 2007 sold an add-on box called Apple TV for streaming content, but has been mum about new TV offerings. The company has tested designs for its own televisions, executives at Apple suppliers have said. Apple has explored a number of new features for such a product, people familiar with the situation have said, including integrating DVR storage and its iCloud Internet syncing and data-storage service, and voice-interaction capabilities — which Apple’s Siri brought to its mobile devices.”

Clark and Sherr report, “Whatever the name, Intel and others planning to create new Internet-based services are widely expected to face tough sledding in negotiating rights for video content. Such companies are in a position to demand lucrative terms, says James McQuivey, an analyst who tracks TV technology for Forrester Research. But he doesn’t expect licensing hurdles to stop long-term trends that will weaken the influence of TV incumbents. ‘The business is very quickly shifting away from the people that have controlled it forever,’ Mr. McQuivey says.”

Read more in the full article here.