August 05, 2007
Lenovo to use TV as a PC monitors
Lenovo (the Chinese company that bought IBM's PC biz) is going to roll out a $199 PC that uses a TV as a display instead of a monitor. They're only releasing it in China for now, but I'm sure they will see the light sooner or later and go global with it. Sounds familiar to the MSNTV & MSNTV2 owners eh?
I bet they won't tie a subscription fee to it too. You bring your own internet connection and have a go at it. I do wonder how they actually plan to convince the rural Chinese that they need a computer, how they're going to handle Internet infrastructure deficiencies, and how they're going to teach people to use these things. Only time will tell...
March 23, 2007
Internet on TV 2.0
Well, well, well....fancy seeing me back here again, eh? Well, I keep seeing people getting signed up to get notifications of updates and I thought I'd give them something to talk about. So here's what's been going on.
I have moved on from Microsoft and now work at a little company called Zing that makes connected portable devices. What does this have to do with Internet on TV? Well, nothing really. But I do still tinker with web browsing on the TV and have tried a bunch of ways. I'm going to round up a few of the ways you can access the Internet using your TV and rate each way out of 10.
MSNTV2 via dialup (3/10): What can I say....this will work, but dialup is seriously done. Some of the most compelling content can't really be fully enjoyed over dialup speed. If you're an email fiend, this is the way to go...but honestly you could get much more for the same amount of cash. Heck, even my cellphone has broadband!. Anyone, I hate to rag on you, but if you still gots the dialup, now is the time to look around for broadband. After all, it is the same price or less than dialup now.
MSNTV2 via broadband (6/10): Better, but still troublesome in some cases. I mean there are issues with flash and the like...playing flash video sometimes works but can be a pain to control. Overall, a better experience than dialup. One downside is that it can be more pricey than MSNTV2 with dialup since you have to pay $10/month on top of your internet access fee every month.
Windows Media Center (5/10): What? Why would I rate a full fledge PC down a level from MSNTV2? Well, even though there issues on MSNTV2, it at least is specialized for viewing on TV. IE can be a nightmare to read on TV. Also, I've found the Media Center experience a bit "hackish" at times. It'll flip you out of TV mode to load IE and install stuff and back and forth. That being said, I do LOVE the media center side of things. The nice part is that there are not service fees on top of your internet access.
Anything else? Well...now that you mention it, Yes.
Nintendo Wii (7/10): A video game console? Yeah you heard me. I got my hands on the Wii by waking up at 4am one morning and casually checking the wii stock checker gizmo on my PC. There were some in stock at Sears, I jumped on it and one arrived on my doorstep a while later (a long while later since Sears has a funky distribution channel that marked the item in stock even though it was on a boat from China). Anyway, after grabbing my Wii and downloading some updates, I noticed that the shop had an "Internet Channel". "Hmmmm" I thought. Well, so far, it has been a pretty neat part of the Wii experience to use. The typing is a little slow, but the using the Wiimote is not too bad. I wouldn't recommend writing long emails with it, but it's perfectly serviceable for typing in URLs and the like. I've yet to try this, but there is also wiiminder that adds a very wii-ish looking bit of featues including tabbed browsing and a few other niceties. The Wii Internet Channel is currently in trial, but a full version should be available in April and will probably cost something like 5 bucks.
The Wii also has email capabilities but requires that you do a funky handshaking thing first. Your Wii can send email to any email address, but those you send email to will first get a handshake request sort of email saying that your Wii is requesting permission to exchange emails with you. Once the other person replies, you can exchange emails. The downside of the Wii email system is that it picks some arbitrarily long and ugly email name for you. I haven't found a way to change it yet, but I haven't looked to hard either.
The Wii also has a neat news channel that is easy to use and keeps you posted on the top news of th day. There is of course the weather channel as well. And of course you get Wii Sports with your Wii. My favorite is Tennis, but I also like to play bowling and golf on the Wii too.
Some other niceties of the Wii are that it has wireless built in so you won't need to buy a wifi adapter like with the MSNTV2 or the Media Center PC. Also there is no monthly fee for the Wii. So if you wait a little while, the Wiis will be in stock everywhere for around $250, it'll be a much better deal than MSNTV2 over the long run (and you can have a bit of fun playing bowling in your living room when you get tired of surfing the web).
December 31, 2006
Leaving MIcrosoft
Well, it has been 6 months or so since I have posted here. I have tried to get someone to take over answering your questions regarding MSNTV2, but no one on the engineering team really has much time these days as we've been asked to take on additional work from other teams but with about the same number of people. In these last six months, I've moved to a new town (Berkeley), started working on a new project (MSN Mobile), and had numerous other milestones in my life. But none so important as my decision to leave Microsoft.
So as of the 5th of January, I will no longer be a Microsoft employee. It's still sort of a weird thought for me really. Being a part of Microsoft has been almost like a part of my identity for about 7 years now. Nevertheless, I think it will be a good change for me to go to a much smaller company and move forward in my career.
Anyway, this site will continue here for the newbies to MSNTV2. I do have about 2 weeks off during my transition period. If I feel like I need a break from GMAT studying, I'll setup a neat bulletin board system for you guys to use on this site.
Happy New Year everyone...2007 is looking to be quite the interesting year.
June 24, 2006
MSNTV 2 FAQ back online
Sorry about the recent outage. I've been in the process of moving things over to a new hosting service all the while working on finishing up my current project at work, preparing for our move to Berkeley, and helping my wife with her final weeks of school.
Anyway, I will be running through the FAQ to answer questions, delete junky questions that have already been asked and answered, and the like. Stay tuned and visit often as updates are (finally) coming.
May 31, 2006
Live Long and Prosper
Totally not on the topic of TV or anything like that, but I thought I'd point you to an interesting service that just popped up on my radar:
These guys let you lend and borrow money directly from others while cutting the banks out of the middle. If you lend money, you will make more than you would with the banks. I'm giving it a try...if you've got idle cash, put it to work (yes that's a listing that I put out just to give it a shot).
May 23, 2006
How to connect your PC to your HDTV
Boy has it been a while...I mean in the past month or so between my last post a bit has happened:
1. Switched to yet another project team (although related to what I was working on before...still hush-hush)
2. Hongyun's parents have gone home a bit early due to a family emergency. Everything is seemingly ok now
3. Hongyun's open studio came and went with nary a whisper. I'd say the event was a dud, but she did get a bit of exposure with a nice article about her and her paintings in a local newspaper.
4. Hongyun found out that she was accepted to UC Berkeley for the Fine Art Studio major and we've been preparing for the move over to the East Bay.
Anyway, I'm not at liberty to talk about the latest stuff that the "TV Services" (yes, that's our new moniker) team has in the works, but here's a hint about some info I need for the particular project I'm working on:
How to connect your PC to your HDTV - HD Beat
Have a great Memorial Day weekend...I know I will.
April 08, 2006
Back from Vacation...
I just got back from Yosemite and am now getting ready for my wife's open studio event in May. Her site has been redesigned and will continue to receive upgrades throughout the month. We're also going to be working on setting up an attractive display. At any rate, I have a feeling we're going to dead tired by the time the whole even rolls around. Sorry I won't be able to hang around here too much...perhaps I'll have some moments to spare here and there to update y'all on the geekery that is TV these days, but for the most part I'll have my hard hat on over at her site: HongyunArt.
Feel free to drop me a note if you have questions about MSNTV or anything else.
March 27, 2006
The DVR Debate
In the old days, DVRs needed hard drives...but if Cablevision has their way, nary a truck will roll out to your home to replace your ancient digital cable box with the latest and greatest DVR technology.
Cablevision (and I would imagine other cable companies) are planning to introduce "remote storage" DVRs. This will allow them to give cable TV subscribers DVR'ing goodness without ever sending a guy with all-too-low-slung jeans out to crouch behind your entertainment center and give your tube some new tech juice. Nope, they'll be able to do it with a flick of the switch (and a ka-ching to their pocket books since our droopy-jeaned cable guy will be stuck at home wondering if his fashion faux-paus caused his early retirement).
I've always kind of wondered about this. What if there was some large box in the sky that recorded everything and let you watch stuff when you wanted to? Well there is sort of. I had a friend back in the days of yore (well, I'm not THAT old) that worked at an operations center for a major cable company in Los Angeles. One evening, my buddies and I crashed the operations center with a box full of pizza and a ice cold beers to surprise our technically-entrenched friend. He gave us the grand tour and there it was. A computer the size of your kitchen. No, not your refrigerator, or your kitchen sink, but your ENTIRE kitchen. This bad boy ran some ancient version of Windows and held all of the TV shows for two whole weeks. He said the shows were delivered to this thing via sattelite and then doled out to some other gadgetry that turned them into dumb old analog signals for deliver to dumb old analog cable boxes and TVs. Think of it as a medieval Tivo in the sky, if you will.
With the advent of digial TV, there really is no excuse for not giving people whatever choice they want. I mean honestly, I pay my $20 per month for my two Tivos and my $40 for basic extended cable each month, why can't I watch what I want, when I want, where I want? Well it all comes down to the mighty and ever-persitent dollar. They'll make you believe that this technology is state of the art and will cost them more money than it would take to rebuild the sun and the moon if ever they fell out of the sky. In reality though, I've seen the kitchen-sized Tivo in the sky that held the key to all of this back when I was in college. I bet that thing is the size of a refrigerator now and costs less than your kid's college diploma to get going and load up with all of the world's TV shows. We could call it the TV fridge. I bet the guys publically crying about copyright and violation of terms of use are secretly patting each other on the back on how they're going to get a bigger slice of your paycheck, all because they can make you think that it's a really tough thing to make sure their TV fridge is plugged in and loaded up when in fact all it takes is a few college kids paid with late night pizza and ice cold beer.
