OzHub, the Macquarie Telecom-led cloud computing alliance, has come down firmly on the side of Optus over the copyright controversy surrounding Optus TV Now, warning that any moves to change the law "risk branding Australia a global luddite state."
Forget your new iPods, forget even the elegant new iTunes movie downloads service, for my money the big announcement of the day has to be Apple's iTV device. For US$299, Apple has come up with something that has been sorely needed for some time a seamless link from the home computer to the TV set.
While the workings of iTV may not be exactly
clear just yet, the intent of Apple surely is. What Steve Jobs and
company intend to provide through a book sized device that connects to
the TV, including high definition TVs, is a wireless connection from
the PC, using the 802.11 standard, that will enable users to easily
stream downloaded videos to their TV set.
This is an infinite improvement on the suggestion from the Amazon Unbox
page: "In most cases, connecting your computer to your television is as
simple as using an s-video connection. S-video is a standard 4-pin
video connection available on most televisions and video cards. S-video
only transfers the video image, so you will also need to connect the
audio out port on your computer to external speakers or to a home
stereo system."
Clearly not many would-be movie downloaders will want to go to that
trouble and Apple knows this, which is why it has come up with iTV.
Unlike Microsoft, which has unsuccessfully tried to force the world to
put PCs in the living room, Apple has taken the more pragmatic approach
of connecting the living room to the PC or Mac using a device that acts
as a wireless router for videos. Then an Apple remote control can be
used to access the movie and music content streamed from the computer
to the TV through the router.
What happens with sound is not exactly clear but it would be fair to
assume that the iTV will also connect to a home sound system.
We will not see iTV until the first quarter of 2007 and no doubt
between now and then Apple will be pushing its new iTunes movie
downloads service, including trying to seal deals with other studios
besides Walt Disney.
David Frost
| SYDNEY– February 9, 2012. Gigamon®, the world leader in Traffic Visibility Fabric solutions, announced that it has expanded the breadth and s…
How to Make Business Discovery Work for Your Business
Business Discovery takes its cues from consumer apps. Like Google, it encourages us- ers to hunt for and explore data without worrying about or even noticing the underly- ing technology. Their entire experience is working within an intuitive interface to get real-time, self-service results with only minimal training. ...more
Try an easy-to-use set of web-enabled
tools for business-class productivity services. Office 365 provides
anywhere-access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars
on almost any device.
