NYT: We need a browser for TVs
Published January 3rd, 2008 2:19 PM EST By Daniel GoldmanThe New York Times hit the nail on the head today.
The Times writes about how the Internet on TV is becoming like the early online services of AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe in the 90s.
These days many TV manufacturers are handpicking Internet-delivered video content for their television sets. LG today announced that it will stream Netflix movies on LG televisions.
The Times writes:
“That’s why we need the equivalent of HTML and the Web browser for television. We need a standard publishing format that will let anyone create video content that can be found and viewed by any set. The format really needs only to be a variation on standard HTML, combined with a bit of Flash and other video formats.”
I’m not sure, though, why a variation of HTML is needed. I think Opera has already shown how the standard HTML with CSS and JavaScript can work just fine on TV sets and gaming consoles.
With this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, it should be interesting to hear about the new Internet capabilities on TV sets and other devices.
(Browsing the Web with Opera on the TV)
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Isn’t this the point of the video element opera has been advocating?
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the times is way behind the times.
The latest and greatest technology is - of course - web browsers for newspapers. With some equivalent of HTML of course, in order to be able to display all the letters and such. I wonder which newspapers would start using the marquee element for their headlines …
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I guess html could greatly be enhanced for TV by files that contain (TV-channel-) specific fonts, paragraph-, page- etc. layouts - and more info. One or few files per provider, that are downloaded the first time only and then kept until maybe updated or deleted. They should supply much more possibilities to serve with a distinct and individual “handwriting” of each provider. TV-html, scripts and stylesheets could refer to data in these files, and thus could be smaller - or sometimes even be spared. I would think this is feasible for a limited number of channels, in contrast to the nearly infinite sites on the web. I would just beg to not additionally bloat any OS-registries
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Daniel, how about Opera advertising directly to TV makers for them to include a webbrowser out-of-the-box ??
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xErath, you could sure bet that our sales people will be very busy at this week’s CES show.
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Agree with xErath. Don’t forget that would mean major development of TVs, though - it’d mean they’d need a essentially turn the TV into a micro computer, including either an ethernet port or built-in wifi.
But that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing; it would be ace to be able to stream content directly from my computer over the household network to my TV without an additional device.
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Mr daniel goldman, please im sory before bcs i can english little, im fm bali in old village hv some trouble using om4, i just hv n70 fm my sister n do not nothing, can you help me, please,
1. I can upload picture via mms, where is email addres opera?
2. I know fm my friend to maximize om4, i can get key opera mobile? I think you can help me, im stupid n want to about techn, if Mr.Gold happy please send me KEY OPERA MOBILE TO MY EMAIL. Putukode@yahoo.Com
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http://www.newsweb.no/newsweb/index.jsp?messageId=158715&lang=
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Putu, I’ll take this up with you on email.
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What ever happened to Opera for Verticles
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Two questions: how do you design a web page meant for navigation with a remote and 10 feet of space between you and the screen?
I know that there’s CSS for TV, but most webpages and their widgets are designed or formatted for usage with a keyboard and mouse.
Apple had an advantage with the iPhone: show the world how the ideal web app looks on our fullscreen iPhone form factor.
But then again, the iPhone is a mobile device that, like other mobile devices, allows for fuller-body contact and general purposing. But the television, or its remote control, doesn’t have as much flexibility for user-interfacing.
Plus, it doesn’t have as much navigational freedom as a mobile or a personal computer; it’s designed to be both programmed sparingly, and be sorted through a provider-preset number of channels, not an infinite number of engaging applications.
So if there is to be a WWW for TV, something has to change: either the hardware form factor of the TV, set-top box, or remote has to incorporate a greater degree of applications or interfaces, or a subset of WWW has to be designed for a traditional television interface (like .mobi for mobiles).
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Rayne, take a look at the Wii — that’s the Web on a TV.