Interviews with Digital Media Thought Leaders
Browser-Centric TV Sets
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on March 2, 2009
If you would like to learn about a company that makes browser-centric semiconductor chips enabling televisions to visit any Website and display any Internet Video, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Gordie Campbell who is the CEO of Personal Web Systems. During a 30-year career he pioneered many technological innovations including the first Ethernet chip, the first electronically erasable microcomputer, the first PC-on-a-chip, and the invention of the chipset upon which today’s PCs are based.
During the past month we repeatedly noted that consumers are discovering that they can get Internet Video to TVs by connecting a laptop computer to the TV. Essentially the TV acts as a giant monitor for the laptop which gets to the Internet via on-board WiFi.
However, we also noted that the laptop-as-TV-Media-Controller is merely a “forcing factor” that will eventually result in televisions being factory-equipped to connect directly into the Internet. Ultimately the TV-set becomes a dual-purpose device that can function as either a display for conventional TV or a giant monitor into the Internet. Personal Web Systems (PWS) is a fabless semiconductor supplier of chips that enable such a scenario.
Since the company originated in India, the first product will be marketed in that country within a month or so. It is an appliance about the size of a paperback book that permits TV-sets to jack directly into the Internet. A similar product is expected to be offered in the United States by the end of the year. Eventually the company hopes to sell chips to set manufactures directly so that TVs come-off the factory floor as browser-centric displays.
In our analysis, set-makers would be well advised to consider offering browser-centric TVs promptly for two reasons.
First, consumers want unrestricted Internet access at their TVs. The TV set is becoming a dual-purpose device, much like the iPhone. When consumes use an iPhone for a telephone call they think of it as a phone. When they use it to visit Websites, they think of it as a hand-held Web-browsing device. The laptop-as-TV-Media-Controller phenomenon is leading them to conceptualize the TV as providing both Internet access and conventional television.
Second, if conventional set manufactures are slow to innovate they may well be forfeiting the digital living room to Apple. If Apple introduces an iTelevision centered on iTunes and its own App Store, then Apple might emerge as the leader in the future market for smart televisions much like it leads in smart telephones.
For example, if the broadcast networks were to provide their programming to iTunes as ad-supported podcasts, the (hypothetical) iTelevision could become the dominant set-of-choice for consumers. This might lead providers of other popular video, like Cable networks and Hollywood studios, to focus on Apps for the iTelevision to the exclusion of whatever smart televisions the conventional makers may be offering at the time.
This is Third Generation Television.
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Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: Apple, digital-media, Digital-Video, Future-of-Television, Hollywood-Studios, Internet-video, iPhone, Sony, television, TV, WiFi
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