Going All-Google To Replace Your PC and TV Service 134
GMGruman writes "James Curnow writes 'Google's vision of computing involves tossing your PC or Mac and moving to a cloud-centric, all-Google ecosystem. Call it the Googleplex: a mix of the Chrome OS-based Chromebox PC or Chromebook laptop, one or more Android tablets — perhaps a 10-inch model for work and a 7-inch Nexus 7 for entertainment on the go — and a Nexus Q home entertainment system that you control via an Android device.' So he takes the 'Googleplex' for a test drive to see how well it delivers on the Android/Chrome OS vision."
But what about throwing xbmc or MythTV onto an old (or cheap new) box with a couple of huge drives (HDTV's being glorified monitors and all)?
Sounds like a dream come true... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like a dream come true... (Score:4, Insightful)
Advertisements already pay for "free" TV (well, some of it). If Google can give away software and cloud services using advertising why isn't that a reasonable option?
Re:Sounds like a dream come true... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like a dream come true... (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider cable TV for instance, despite the fact you are paying your cable provider who is then paying the networks for content, you still have ads with few exceptions. Even the networks that don't run ads still have annoying interruptions (this is especially true in radio also).
When it comes down to it though, as long as the content is being displayed on your device and runs through your local network, you have the ability to control it and you always will.
Re:Sounds like a dream come true... (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming there would be no possible way for the government to use this information ...
"No possible way"? If this information exists then the government is always one small step away from accessing it.
You might want to ask the teenager who wasn't ready to tell her parents she was pregnant, whose home started receiving pregnancy related targeted advertising. Pick something you are not ready to share with parents or a spouse or your boss (advertising goes to work not home - for example ads in a browser when your boss walks in), reapply the preceding.
Re:Sounds like a dream come true... (Score:4, Funny)
If it works as well as the current round of 'targeted advertising' your pregnant teenager might well get Viagra adverts.
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If it works as well as the current round of 'targeted advertising' your pregnant teenager might well get Viagra adverts.
Humor aside, you are confusing spam with targeted advertising. Spam is about as non-targeted as you can get.
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It is!?!
Thank God, I thought all those Extenze and V!agra ads came from sites my wife had been surfing. I feel so much better now.
That case was more a problem for Target (Score:1, Interesting)
You might want to ask the teenager who wasn't ready to tell her parents she was pregnant
She told them because she wanted to. Not because she HAD to. Otherwise she could have just said "I don't know why I'm getting this stuff". I mean, it's just advertising. Why would her parents not have believed her?
In that scenario Target was worse off than the girl, because the parents were angry with them at first.
(advertising goes to work not home - for example ads in a browser when your boss walks in)
How is that
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Are you logging on to personal websites at work?
I'm not but plenty of people do. Chat with someone who does tech support for a company and ask them what they find in browser histories.
If it's cookie based stuff, how would it follow you there?
We are discussing google services which require a login, not cookies.
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I'm not but plenty of people do.
Right, people that wouldn't care. So, problem solved.
We are discussing google services which require a login, not cookies.
For those that care you use Firefox with privacy turned on. That's how I would access any Google service from a system not my own (and sometimes even from my own system).
Again, you are really making too big a deal out of something people would not generally care about much. I don't recall ads delivered by google to ever have been so NSFW I would ever ca
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We are discussing google services which require a login, not cookies.
For those that care you use Firefox with privacy turned on. That's how I would access any Google service from a system not my own (and sometimes even from my own system).
How does private browsing prevent google from knowing who you are, again you **logged into** a google service.
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How does private browsing prevent google from knowing who you are, again you **logged into** a google service.
It keeps your google ID out of the rest of the browser windows you are using. So if Google wants to feed me ads about lemon flavored tampons or whatever, they'll only appear in my gmail window, and not in any other browser windows that contain google ads (which means all of them basically) since thy have no clue what my Google identity is.
Similarly searching for a potentially embarrassing term on G
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You won't have the ability to control it. Google will have your media and decide what you can and cannot use. People bitch about Amazon pulling a book over legal issues and you're really ready to trust Google not to fuck you?
I have some seafront property in Montana to sell you... cheap!
Re:Sounds like a dream come true... (Score:4)
When it comes down to it though, as long as the content is being displayed on your device and runs through your local network, you have the ability to control it and you always will.
Not if that content is copyrighted.
I think you overstate people's tolerance for ads these days. Hulu Plus is... I canceled it after less than a month of using it. And how long can you browse without AdBlock turned on before you go nuts?
Just Flashblock for me (Score:3)
And how long can you browse without AdBlock turned on before you go nuts?
I don't use an ad blocker; I just use an SWF blocker, which keeps advertising at a tolerable level. If advertisers have something substantial to say, surely they can boil it down to text or a still JPEG, and if so, let 'em. Flash ads are for video sites like YouTube and Newgrounds.
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This presumes you want Google in your life at all. They belong in your hosts file under 127.0.0.1 as their terms of service are largely indentured servitude. No Google Apps? Have a better day.
The model of give-up-your privacy for free and seductive half-apps has to go.
Easy, browse with Flash blocked (Score:1)
Not if that content is copyrighted.
Dude! That makes NO SENSE. The key is in that first part of the term, "COPYright".
If material is copyrighted you can't re-distribute it, but you can sure as hell block, mangle or ignore it locally as you please.
Hulu Plus is... I canceled it after less than a month of using it.
Yet millions do in fact pay for it so we can see how far off the norm you are in regards to advertising.
And how long can you browse without AdBlock turned on before you go nuts?
I don't use any ad-b
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Perhaps because its not all that bad?
It really doesn't bother me that much that someone could track all of my internet traffic, although I guess that means the end of midget transsexuals with horses porn viewing.
What bothers me is when they get the data wrong or are unable to ascertain the differences between my traffic and someone elses using the same internet connection. A few years ago I applied for a higher end, less expensive insurance product that required they check me out pretty thoroughly. In fact, that was as invasive as when I got
Re:Sounds like a dream come true... (Score:4, Insightful)
personalized, invasive, interactive commercialization being thrust at your face any time you interact with an electronic device
I dunno about 'invasive' but frankly I wish ads *were* more personalized to me. I'm not going to buy a Ford Truck or talk to my doctor about Cialis. I'm not interested in tampons, Sunny D or a Verizon cell phone.... Tell me about something I might care about. Of course if Facebook is anything to go by, that's an impossibility - They can't get it right either.
Re:Sounds like a dream come true... (Score:5)
The problem is, we already have that. It's called Amazon's suggestions. And it usually does a pretty good job. What it does not do is provide a reason for the product vendors to spend money on financing unrelated things like TV shows.
Unfortunately for companies like Google and Facebook, the only way targeted advertising can work well is if it is done by a company that actually sells products and knows what a given person has actually been buying. You can't realistically hope to guess what someone is going to be interested in buying based on what they search for or what they talk about (unless they're searching product listings, and even then, without the ability to delete stuff from your search history, searches are useless). It just doesn't work that way. I talk about computers all the time. That doesn't mean I'm in the market for buying a Dell. I'm pretty much a Mac-only house except for a couple of Linux boxen (either old junk hardware or self-built). And I rarely buy software; I have software that does what I need. And I rarely buy computer peripherals. So pretty much anything I talk about on Facebook or search for through Google is going to be a red herring.
Worse, in a world where just about everything has product reviews on Amazon, if you don't make a good product, it doesn't matter how much advertising you do. When buying products that cost more than a few bucks, most people research the product through such a site. Thus, we're rapidly moving to a point where R&D spending is crucial to sales, and advertising only matters if the potential buyer has never heard of your product.
Which leads me to the ultimate realization that, at least in the long term, advertising is dead. With the availability of better alternatives that do a great job of showing you things that you want to buy (and only while you're in a shopping mood), there's just no room for advertising in a modern society. Apart from advertising to encourage consumption of cheap trinkets like cans of Coke or movie tickets or whatever, advertising can't realistically provide much benefit to the advertisers above what they get from "people who bought X also bought Y", coupled with reviews. And even then, the value is dubious unless the viewers just happen to be hungry or in the mood to go watch a movie in a crowded theater with a sticky floor and screaming kids throwing popcorn at them.
Unfortunately for Big Media, this means that in the fairly near future, content creators are going to have to face up to reality and choose one of two paths: direct sales or patronage. Ad-supported content is on the way out, and the sooner everyone acknowledges this, the sooner we can move on to more sustainable business models.
Re:Sounds like a dream come true... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a narrow view of advertising, one that I suggest is incomplete.
Let's say, hypothetically, there is a Coca-Cola ad on the side of this page, even though you rarely drink Coke, and have no plans to drink more at the moment. And let's say you only superficially see and note it. And you still don't rush to the vending machine to purchase a coke.
Has the ad failed? I say probably not. For most people, they may subconsciously note that Coke is a common thing to drink, a tasty thing to drink, and there may be a statistical increase in the likelihood that they purchase one a week from now, a month from now, with some restaurant meal.
In other words, advertising has long term payoffs, from simply informing customers about a product to getting into a person's subconscious.
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I have a degree in communications. I'm well aware of that purpose of advertising. However, as I understand it, those subconscious effects primarily change a person's impulse buying choice between commodity products (products for which there is little to no differentiation between vendors' goods). The more expensive the buy, the less likely people are to buy on impulse. The more differentiation between goods, the more likely people are to have a strong preference.
The problem is that although there's sti
Aha! Theories disassembled (Score:2)
The more differentiation between goods, the more likely people are to have a strong preference.
Consider Coke and Pepsi. The difference between them really is minor, and yet they evoke incredibly strong preferences in just about anyone I've ever met.
although there's still a lot of impulse buying, it is mostly for stuff that would piss people off if they had to watch ads for it, like laundry detergent.
Are you sure about that? People seem to hold strongly onto laundry detergent brands.
These days, the ads peo
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IMO, Coke and Pepsi taste nothing alike. Coke has a much stronger bite to its flavor—almost a tartness—that Pepsi does not have. They are a commodity from a functional perspective. From a flavor perspective, not so much.
Yes, I'm sure. People typically buy wh
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Your threshold for "interesting" must be a lot lower than mine.
Very likely, mine I think is just about perfectly average, which makes me a great leading indicator of what ads will be popular - any ads I like have invariably been widely liked. I enjoy analyzing ads and thinking about why they might work or not.
However, I cannot believe you can talk about advertising without acknowledging the massive success that was the Old Spice Guy [mthrty.com]. If you don't understand what happened there, I don't think you know the
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I don't even know what the "Old Spice Guy" is. That line of ads didn't have enough impact to get even a single mention by anyone I know, including my 459 Facebook friends, or any of the folks I converse with around the halls at work, or at church, or.... So maybe the line of ads was effective among the market segment who actually still watches commercials, but that market segment is rapidly dwindling.
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I don't even know what the "Old Spice Guy" is. That line of ads didn't have enough impact to get even a single mention by anyone I know, including my 459 Facebook friends, or any of the folks I converse with around the halls at work
And yet if you asked 90% would know what I am talking about.
It was huge at the time, and it is the future of advertising. If you truly never heard of it, you cannot possibly know what is to come.
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I'm pretty much a Mac-only house except for a couple of Linux boxen (either old junk hardware or self-built). ... Which leads me to the ultimate realization that, at least in the long term, advertising is dead. With the availability of better alternatives that do a great job of showing you things that you want to buy (and only while you're in a shopping mood), there's just no room for advertising in a modern society.
A "Mac-only house" with a couple of computers running Linux is not a Mac-only house. It is an example of cognitive dissonance, Orwellian double-think; and believing such is a demonstration of Apple's successful marketing. Proof that advertising is not dead. "Going all-Google" is the same thing with a different name.
How does a non-marketing person think? "My house has 7 computers." Dull, isn't it? Missing all the drama and bickerings and thrills of marketing speak. Feels peaceful though.
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You prefer random advertisements that have nothing to do with your interests?
I don't want to watch the commercials I see most of the time on television because they don't interest me. Every now and then I'm skipping forward on the PVR and see a commercial that interests me and rewind. I know lots of other people do it too.
So my other choice is the option to have less* advertising that's more targeted because it actually knows some stuff about me that's useful for filtering my probable interests. Wow, tha
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Of course, all this talk about targeted vs. untargeted ads ignores the elephant in the room: People don't like ads at all, and will block them if possible. Why even bother debating targeted vs. untargeted when it's clear that the majority will choose no ads, knowing that it's an option?
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To be fair, I don't think that's true. Advertising works for a reason -- people do actually want to know about new products, they do want to be told about options and offers and sales. The sick truth is people do actually appreciate advertising. cf. the old adcritic website.
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People may want to know about products, but they know that they can't get accurate or useful information from advertisements. Offers and sales might appeal to a few people, but most folks I know don't go in for it.
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You're wrong on the back of the basic thought puzzle that is 'why do companies spend so much on marketing as it is now if nobody likes it?'
The fact of the matter is, it works, and it works because most people aren't that interested in facts. Some basic marketing history would teach you this -- there was an era when marketing targeted facts and it didn't work. Nobody cared to read why this soap worked better than that soap, they care that this soap claims to make you happy. You can think that's bunk all y
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In practice, targeted ads are horrible. I've been getting ads for phone plans for 3 months, since I started looking for a contract. I bought one 2 months ago, but they haven't stopped. I would rent a VM somewhere to run some various services if it was really cheap, but all I see are ads for web hosting. And then I see Pedobear trying to sell me some kind of insurance on slashdot. (and no, I'm not a pedo)
In theory, targeted ads are slightly better than normal ads. I don't mind getting untargeted ads as long
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So because you didn't like the specific ads you got, which sound to be mostly related to your actual interests (a phone and hosting, as opposed to diapers or cleaning products), you think targeting doesn't work.
You know its not that hard to do a private browsing session and check what ads you get online without the tracking data instead ...
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We wouldn't.
Sincerely,
Some of the AdBlock Plus crowd.
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So, basically, we're talking about Google becoming Apple?
No thank you.
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A MythTV box? (Score:4, Insightful)
But then the content would be cached in a large cheap local buffer, and not streamed from the cloud over bandwidth-constrained wired or wireless connections. Not only would MAFIAA not approve, but Google/Doubleclick wouldn't get analytics/metrics.
You didn't think that the availability of cheap general-purpose computing hardware was supposed to benefit the consumer, did you?
Re:A MythTV box? (Score:4, Interesting)
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What is this, 2005? MythTV is out man, everything is XBMC and downloaded content. You actually subscribe to cable or satellite "all in one" bullshit? LOL, I guess someone has to be the n00b sheep.
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Actually yeah, I do subscribe to cable. It costs me $40, and don't have to worry about updating/maintaining a computer attached to my TV. I also have Netflix for $7.99 and I can watch movies through my ps3, apple tv, sony bluray, etc.
Then again, just the fact that you're using a computer to get stuff onto your tv makes me believe it's not about rights or anything else, it's just that you don't have a lot of expendable income. I'm sorry.
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I won't speak to the grandparent, but I am doing similar (though with less 'tude). It has nothing to do with disposable income, it has to do with the fact that $40 (though around here it's closer to $60) a month for something I don't use very much is stupid. When I cancelled cable it was because I only watched 3 weekly hour-long shows, and they were all on (free) Hulu. I also watched 2 daily half-hour shows that were also on Hulu.
The 3 weekly shows have since been canceled, so now all I watch on Hulu are th
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You can't beat free. It varies a lot from place to place, but the stuff you get for free over the air in the UK is all I need for TV and almost for films too (I have a large backlog of things I "should" have watched, but haven't). I don't mind ads, I have a "skip forward" button for when I have seen them before or they aren't interesting (cars, "lady products", etc). Of course, you can beat free with free, i.e. torrents, but I've been trying to go legal lately.
I actually have (Score:2)
most of this set up. Google TV on my HDTV, an Android phone, and a Chromebook for the kitchen. And I like it... they're robust, functional, easy-to-use products.
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Or, I could just be a normal person, and... (Score:4, Insightful)
Buy whatever electronic devices I find favorable, and configure them however the fuck I want.
That way I can avoid their "ecosystem", with its inherant vendor lock in, and pervasive bullshit entirely!
As a consumer, that sounds far more desirable.
However, I do see where other normal consumers may fall victim here, since getting all the equipment and services from a single company should (theoretically...) make setup and use easier.
Personally though? When I plop down on the couch to veggify some braincells, I want a few annoyances as possible, which mans the equipment has to do whar *I* want, and not what a bunch of shyster lawyers in hollywood, and a bunch of beancounters in the bay area google HQ want.
If that means DIY home theater with MythTV and a raid array, so fucking be it.
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Most people will have a cable company supplied DVR/DigitalCable box, a different brand of television, and a different yet brand of stereo surround sysytem.
The "google" solution would have all these devices made by google.
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... and people wonder why I'm so pissed at Apple for making this locked-in 'eco-system' bullshit palatable. For now, the Google devices mix and match with pretty much any technology and tend to use open standards, but it's worth keeping an eye on them. The attraction must certainly be there.
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The "google" solution would have all these devices made by google.
Nexus phones are made by Samsung at the moment and Nexus Tablets by ASUS. Chromebooks are also made by other hardware vendors. The only "Google" device that is "made" by Google, AFAIK, is the Nexus Q
Unrealistic vision (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Unrealistic vision (Score:4, Interesting)
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While that may be true today, Google is probably building this stuff so that when the world is ready, Google will be there for them.
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haahhahahahahahahaha!~@!
*wipes eyes*
ahhahahahahahahahaha!!E!
is that what they told you? *snort* hahahaha
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nothing is free, you pay one way or another.
How does that apply to only google and apple, and not say... the entire universe?
When you figure out that nothing is free PERIOD, everything else starts making sense.
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If you're interested in products and services from those companies, I think You need to make a couple of simple decisions.
Which do you value less your freedom or your privacy?
You don't actually need to pick either, but both of these companies do have attractive products and services for those willing to accept the loss of one of these. Personally, I'm fine with it as long as we always have a reasonable choice to to pick one of these. If either gets to be big or pervasive enough (like Microsoft did), we lose
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When they come back with a reasonable offer where they don't expect to spy on our lives, they'll be invited back to the negotiating table. Until then, nobody owes them respect just because their CEOs thought up some crazy evil business plan .
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Apple is going succeed and MS is going to succeed and Amazon is going to succeed and Google is going to succeed in different way. The thing of interest is who is leading and who is following and who is panicing. Google has not had a successful hardware consumer product and is so desperate for one that it is contaminat
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Video on demand is Netflix and Amazon. Both are hardware agnostic. Apple and Google cannot match what these players are doing
What you say is true of Google perhaps, but not at all true of Apple. Tons of people use iTunes to buy TV shows, and to some extent movies.
Apple is far ahead currently of Amazon in terms of delivering downloaded media content to homes. Netflix is probably ahead of both, but then you'd expect that with a service that offers all you can view for a flat fee.
You also left out Hulu, rea
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Apple wants to sell you devices and has control issues. Google wants to sell you devices, the software they run and the network that connects them, watching everything you do so they can sell it all to their customers.
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Nothing is free, you pay one way or another. Wether you pay with money or with your personal information, it's just the same.
And the Slashdot privacy nuts need to remember that, for most people, even when they know that the cost is their personal information, it's a cost they are willing to pay. Hell, I'm fully informed and willing to pay it. The private information that Google has access to is not really valuable to me. I can trade it to Google for something that is. Exchanging something someone else wants more than you do, for something you want more than they do, is the basis of trade.
People need to remember that, although the
Cant happen (Score:4, Informative)
Not going to debate if its a good idea or not, as ISPs with their non-neutral bandwidth limits have eliminated this sort of option anyway.
"Replace your PC" (Score:2)
If I had a "Chrome OS-based Chromebox PC or Chromebook laptop", would that not be by definition a PC? So I'd just be replacing my PC-with-one-OS with a PC-with-a-different-OS. Better than predictions that in the future we'll all be doing everything on little tablets (laughable), but still, no thanks.
Can't use common peripherals (Score:2)
So I'd just be replacing my PC-with-one-OS with a PC-with-a-different-OS.
You'd be replacing your PC with a different PC that can't use common peripherals such as a flatbed scanner or a webcam. I've noticed that some employers are starting to require people to have a webcam on their home PC to get or keep a job. And until some counterpart to AIDE [google.com] comes out, you'd be replacing your PC with something that can't even self-host its own developer tools.
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WHICH employers require (!) a webcam at home for employment?
sure does not sound like the typical geek engineering W.A.H. stuff. I don't know of any geeks that would tolerate that.
HireVue (Score:2)
WHICH employers require (!) a webcam at home for employment?
Any company whose HR department uses HireVue [forbes.com], for one thing.
ChromeOS and webcams (Score:2)
Well, other than the fact that Chrome OS can certainly use a webcam.
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A tablet won't do for work. (Score:4, Informative)
-B
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A litte arm powered tablet might as well be powered by frito-lay for what I use computers for at work.
Industrial CAD eats cpu cycles for breakfast, while chuggng down ram allocations like a fratboy at a weekend bender.
Don't even get me started about how the touch interface simply won't work for what I do either.
No, Tablets will *NEVER* replace an engineering seat. Not under this paradigm anyway.
PCs will still be available at some price (Score:2)
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But it might replace a secretary or clerical seat...
Correction (Score:2)
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Yes, a tablet for work is indeed a joke, unless you're a salesman or a CEO, or work at the McDonald and your tablet is used as a point of sale.
And assuming you're a salesman, or a CEO, the only Android tablet I would even consider for work is the Asus Transformer, because of its dockable keyboard which also acts as an extra battery, and that model is not even listed among the options. I guess Asus did not pay Infoworld enough to get included in there.
For everyone else: accountants, developers, IT, admins,
Chromebook (Score:2)
I've had a chance to play with a Chromebook, and yeah, it's a very well designed product. But I remain skeptical about its commercial success. There's too much lockin to PC-based applications, and people are much too thoroughly trained in non-cloud file systems. This may well change, but I wouldn't bet on it happening soon.
Sorry, your connection is dropped (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't like using software that depends on online connections to operate. Connections are not fast enough or reliable enough. Nor are they secure. Compute Locally.
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Executive summary (Score:2)
The Googleplex solution is currently too limited and won't let normal users do a lot of what they'll want to do. But if you like incessantly fiddling around, this may sort of work for you.
(I cheated and read the article - sorry)
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So this is the future (Score:3)
I bet... (Score:3)
Every huge technology company (Or in googles case advertising company) wants total control over all your gear and your data.
Being honest and telling everyone this is actually your plan or that this model somehow represents the future and you will like it is an interesting strategy however the answer is still "no".
This is for googles own good too. The more we stand by and help google corrupt its own soul the worse off everyone including google is in the long run.
Gnu & GPL never anticipated ChromeOS, Mac, etc (Score:1)
The otherwise far-sighted, prescient GNU project and their GPL never imagined anyone would take a GNU/Linux PC and cripple it to make it a walled garden. So far, this has been the paradigm followed by Apple (Mac and other BSD stuff), Google (ChromeOS), Amazon (their middleman browser), etc. They've taken open source software and turned it into the very thing open source was meant to stop from happening, the locked-down walled garden.
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"What? You mean a mac is really just a PC with a special bios that let's it run OSX? OMG! Everything I know is wrong!"
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Well, that's the motherboard, yeah... by that logic every computer is basically the same.
The rest of it is engineered quite a bit differently than a Dell/HP/Sony/Toshiba/etc.
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It is a rectangular display device with a built in radio frequency tuner and an audio subsystem intended for the playback of home entertainment motion pictures, and the reception and display of live broadcasts.
This particular form of entertainment was slowly phased out in favor of superior offerings toward the end of the 20th century.
It's happening, but more slowly than you claim (Score:2)
[TV] was slowly phased out in favor of superior offerings toward the end of the 20th century.
It was a little later than the 1990s, as you claim. I'd say around 2006 is when TVs started to be replaced with large computer monitors that had a built-in TV receiver for backward compatibility. Some parts of your vision are still taking a while to happen: it's taking a long time for high-speed Internet access without a harsh cap to reach rural areas, and a lot of people are still reluctant to connect a general-purpose computer to a living-room-sized monitor.
PC? No. TV? Meh. (Score:2)
Replace my primary data storage with cloud services? Not a chance. Run my applications cloud-based off cloud-based storage rather than on local storage? No, that's way too slow; even serving disks across Wifi is slow. Not only is it not cost-effective, and not performance-effective, but more importantly, I don't control my data that way.
Get most of my TV from Google/Hulu/Netflix/etc. instead of Comcast? Meh. Most of it's probably there, and digital broadcast TV probably looks better than analog most
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To put it simply, try downloading over the Internet when your Internet connection is down. That's the great thing about local storage.
"HDTV's being glorified monitors and all"? Isn't putting an apostrophe there considered incorrect?
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So... In other words... [moonbuggy.org]
I think I get it now...