GoogleTV Coming Soon? 240
An anonymous reader writes "Flexbeta writes that Google is looking to hire a full time project manager for GoogleTV in Mountain View, CA. The candidate must posses experience developing/launching products in one or more of the following areas: interactive TV, set-top-boxes, personal video recorders, video-on-demand, IP TV or cable TV technologies. Google recently announced their interest in the text messaging market by releasing GoogleTalk; this came to no surprise to many that were already hearing rumors month's before GoogleTalk was released. Google is also working on providing free WiFi service to some regions of the San Francisco bay area. Google is without a doubt expanding their operations beyond the search engine market which makes the possibility of GoogleTV realistic. "
DRM? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:DRM? (Score:2)
I wonder about GoogleTV, so if I search for a program on something rather ordinary like say soap will I get 1000 programs on SOAP ?
I KID I KID!
Also, I really like the new
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no problem with iTune's Fairplay implementation, and I have every confidence that Google would be able to come up with something just as good in terms of comprimise between the content producer and the consumer.
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)
If not evil then at least short-sighted and selfish.
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)
A good DRM scheme is one where the consumer's ability to use the work in the manner they wish isn't impacted while the ability to simply redistribute millions of copies is curtailed.
iTunes' implementation of Fairplay is such a system in my eyes. Yes, the AAC files are protected. But you can authorize up to five computers to play them, you can stream the music over the network, you can even reduce the quality of the file by burning it to CD and then re-ripping it into a DRM'less version.
As many people bitch about the fact that the music industry not adapting to the new age of digital (which I whole heartedly agree with), a lot people still seem stuck in the whole "Tape" generation of thinking where copies weren't detrimental because they never came close to the quality of the original. That isn't true anymore and you need to stop acting as if it were. Unauthorized copies, while not as a horrible threat as the suits want to make it seem, are a problem.
It doesn't take a white beard and half a century of experience in the world to realize that anytime you have a setup that depends on everyone playing along, a setup where one person can screw it up for the rest of us, that not only is that person going to exist but they are going to make it their goal in life to screw it up just to be an A-hole.
Your goals should not be to stamp out DRM but to work to find a setup where both sides of the equation feel as if they have gotten a fair trade out of the deal.
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:DRM? (Score:4, Insightful)
If AAC files are of a greater quality then a CD, then your first argument that you are paying the same price as a CD is meaningless.
The fact of the matter is iTunes DOES allow you to burn to CD. So anytime you wish to remove the DRM, you can do so. And if you truly wished to do so, you could even use a program such as Playfair or Hymn to allow you to remove the DRM without converting the file in anyway whatsoever.
People who complain about something as lax as iTunes' version of Fairplay are the ones who are never going to 'get it'.
The WHOLE point of copyrights was to assure the author that their works would not be stolen enmass as soon as they were released. In the world before digital, this was fairly simple. Copies were either guaranteed to be of lesser quality than the original or would require so much effort to create that there were few who would find the work and risk of punishment worth doing.
That is NO LONGER TRUE. Anyone can rip off a work if it's not protected and just as the RIAA has unwittingly proven, there is no way you can possibly catch everyone doing it once it gets to that point.
You need to wake up and realize, just as the music and movie industries need to, that the world has changed and sitting there bitching about how it's so unfair that they expect you to compromise is the equivalent of the RIAA sitting around bitching about how the internet is killing the music industry.
You are both stuck in the old world analog view of life.
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Interesting)
Less incentive? Sure. Necessary to perpetuate the current content distribution paradigm? Sure. But no incentive? None at all? Without DRM, nobody would ever create any digital content?
That's a stretch. See http://www.bradsucks.net/ [bradsucks.net] for a counterexample.
"Good" DRM appears to be impossible, or at least not invented yet, by my standards. Here's how I wish to use digital media: I want to store it on my file server and access it on whatever device I happen to be sitting in front of at the moment. I want to be able to access it with a variety of programs, and when it's out of copyright (I'm an optimist) I want to be able to manipulate it to my heart's content with a variety of tools that I'm able to apt-get (or write myself, if I'm ever so inclined.) I want to be able to access it locally even when my internet connection is down, and even when the content provider I acquired it from goes out of business / stops making content / decides they don't want me to access the content any more. (I don't enter into contracts that give the content provider that power.)
Tivo + Slingbox is close. MythTV is close. CD music has been there for years.
Re:DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is no incentive without DRM then there should also be no incentive with it. Because DRM is a myth.
DRM only restricts people who own legally obtained copies from using them in non-approved manners. It can do nothing to prevent people with illegally obtained copies from using or distributing the work. Furthermore, it can do nothing to prevent people who have legally obtained copies from converting them to non-DRM form.
This is because unbreakable DRM is theoretically impossible. Every DRM scheme ever created has been broken shortly after it became widely used, and once a single person breaks the DRM on a work then you are back to where you started.
Therefore, the restrictions enforced by DRM are inherently limited to those who chose to obey the law to begin with, while it is no barrier those who choose to infringe on copyright.
DRM is compromise - a compromise where the consumer agrees to give up his fair-use rights, the electronic companies agree to complicate thier products, and in return none of the parties, media producer included, get anything of value in return.
Sorry, but that is not the kind of compromise that I want to make.
Re:DRM? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:DRM? (Score:2)
Re:DRM? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:DRM? (Score:2)
stimtv... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:stimtv... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:stimtv... (Score:3, Insightful)
TiVo Competition (Score:5, Interesting)
personal video recorders, video-on-demand
Sounds like TiVo is going to have some more competition.They should just buy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I don't work there, but I did interview there.
Not Likely (Score:2)
And really, I like it that way. Is there a better method for insuring that the project "does no evil"?
Re:Not Likely (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not Likely (Score:2)
First TV, then movies, books, radio, etc. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First TV, then movies, books, radio, etc. (Score:2, Funny)
The crawling chaos, Nyarletgoogle? (Score:5, Interesting)
The mind, it boggles.
Re:The crawling chaos, Nyarletgoogle? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The crawling chaos, Nyarletgoogle? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The crawling chaos, Nyarletgoogle? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The crawling chaos, Nyarletgoogle? (Score:2)
So, for example, "USA", "UK" and "Russia" will return a list including "Canada", "Australia", "France", "Iraq" etc.
Re:The crawling chaos, Nyarletgoogle? (Score:2)
Re:The crawling chaos, Nyarletgoogle? (Score:2)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=inurl%3Agoogl e.com [google.com]
Re:The crawling chaos, Nyarletgoogle? (Score:2)
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Goothulhu Menlo Park wgah'nagl fhtagn!
Re:The crawling correction, Nyarletgoogle? (Score:2)
(...and here's the version of the post I clicked "submit" on, not the one I clicked "preview" on. Pretty sure it was my finger slip, not a CSS bug. Now to outwait the timer.)
Well, Ballmer did promise to fucking kill Google [smh.com.au], did he not?
Careful who you throw that chair at, Monkeyboy. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Goothulhu Menlo Park wgah'nagl fhtagn!
Splitting hairs, I know (Score:4, Informative)
But that should really read "Instant Messaging" since Text Messaging, at least in the UK, is synonymous with SMS on mobile telephones,
unless GoogleTalk does this?
Re:Splitting hairs, I know (Score:5, Informative)
online or over-the-air (Score:3, Insightful)
Given their popularity and success of almost everything else they're launched, if they were to launch an on-line tv station with quality content I think they'd have a real shot to be in line with other major networks in a short while.
Is there a difference? (Score:2)
Of course, if the question is, "will google start channel 5 VHF stations", I would say that is unlikely. Firstly, the project manager position that was linked to doesn't seem fitting for such an enterprise, and secondly, it doesn't fit with their past patterns.
It would be more likely that they would actually design a protocol from the ground up to do pure 'net based interactive TV, and then pipe it through al
More background: research from 2003 (Score:5, Informative)
Many daily activities present information using a written or spoken stream of words: television, radio, telephone calls, meetings, face-to-face conversations with others. Often people can benefit from additional information about the topics that are being discussed. Supplementing television broadcasts is particularly attractive because of the passive nature of TV watching. Interaction is severely constrained, usually limited to just changing the channel; there is no way to more finely direct what kind of information will be presented.
Indeed, several companies have explored suggesting web pages to viewers as they watch TV. For example, the Intercast system, developed by Intel, allows entire HTML pages to be broadcast in unused portions of the TV signal. A user watching TV on a computer with a compatible TV tuner card can then view these pages, even without an Internet connection. NBC transmitted pages via Intercast during their coverage of the 1996 Summer Olympics. The Interactive TV Links system, developed by VITAC (a closed captioning company) and WebTV (now a division of Microsoft), broadcasts URLs in an alternative data channel interleaved with closed caption data [17,2]. When a WebTV box detects one of these URLs, it displays an icon on the screen; if the user chooses to view the page, the WebTV box fetches it over the Internet.
For both of these systems the producer of a program (or commercial) chooses relevant documents by hand. In fact, the producer often creates new documents specifically to be accessed by TV viewers. To our knowledge, there has been no previous work on automatically selecting web pages that a user might want to see while watching a TV program.
In this paper we study the problem of finding news articles on the web relevant to the ongoing stream of TV broadcast news. We restrict our attention to broadcast news since it is very popular and information-oriented (as supposed to entertainment-oriented).
Re:More background: research from 2003 (Score:2)
Gee, this sounds virtually identical to the Teletext systems used in Europe for the past 30 years, only with IMG tags...
Re:More background: research from 2003 (Score:2)
This sounds like exactly what a search on Google News [google.com] does. If you're not convinced then keep reading:
Logical step (Score:2)
I'm just waiting for telepathy.google.com. Or tstv.google.com -- although I heard you can get there from Google image search.
perfect timing. (Score:5, Interesting)
in the end, i also think it will IMPROVE a lot of content. since nobody really wants to download an infomercial, the content will have to be interesting/informative to make it worthwhile. for those of us in media, we should buckle up, because the whole paradigm is about to change.
Re:perfect timing. (Score:2)
>>> it will IMPROVE a lot of content. since nobody really wants to download an infomercial,
Somehow I doubt that commercials will be sepeartely downloadable (or skippable in any other way either). Just like TV today, You'll be forced to watch commercials in o
Re:perfect timing. (Score:3, Informative)
Now, none of that is really that important. What *is* important, IMHO, is how Current TV does advertising. They don't seem to be having a lot of commercials in your standard sense (they do have some -- but I guess because they are mostly submissions they don't
Re:perfect timing. (Score:2)
Re:perfect timing. (Score:2)
Google Current TV is pretty interesting, they pay people up to $1000 a showing (I think) for a 7 minute clip (in a 'prime time' slot) users not only submit clips, they also Vote on which clips to air on the network. Not bad, you produce an interesting clip, submit it through the currenttv site, and it's actually better than the other stuff other people are putting on there and you can get it voted on a
Hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Do they have a business plan, or are they just feeding off the hype?
Windows only??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Picasa
Desktop
Earth
Talk
Secure Access
???????????
Re:Windows only??? (Score:2)
I don't hold it against Google that they didn't write Yet Another Jabber Client for GNU/Linux. They've also been fairly consistent about exposing their services in a SOAP-y way, so you could implement the gmail notification/tie-ins fairly easily, if you felt like it.
Re:Windows only??? (Score:2)
Picasa: Purchased from a seperate company, porting will take time.
Desktop: Nobody on Linux wants this; significant community rejection.
Earth: Purchased from a seperate company, porting will take time.
Talk: GAIM and other IM clients are being recommended instead; GTalk is not even a really great Windows front end for Jabber.
Secure Access: never heard of google secure access.
Coming soon? Try "already" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Coming soon? Try "already" (Score:2)
Re:Coming soon? Try "already" (Score:2)
I wonder... (Score:2)
Realistic? (Score:2)
Google is without a doubt expanding their operations beyond the search engine market which makes the possibility of GoogleTV realistic.
I guess Google Space Vacations are realistic too, seeing as how they're hiring for their moon base [google.com].
Found it (Score:2)
google for your google (Score:5, Funny)
Re:google for your google (Score:5, Funny)
Re:google for your google (Score:2)
Hmmm.... Replace "google" with "smurf", and I think you might have something there.
Re:google for your google (Score:2)
TY, Captain Obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Other than the fact that absolutley no one should be surprised by this...
Search engines are not Google's market. Search engines are Google's clients' market. Google sells advertising, and search engines are one of their delivery mechanisms. Previously on Slashdot, Google print ads have been discussed.
It's really just horizontal expansion. Online advertising, print advertising, and now television (and you can bet they'll be delivering ads) -- what about radio?
Google VOIP? (Score:2)
-l
Google Talk (Score:2)
-l
Dark Angel over Dark Fiber... (Score:2)
ICrave(g)TV? (Score:3, Interesting)
evil lurks here (Score:2)
but I won't worry till google conception is announced.
TV Guide (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd say a TV guide style service that also doubles as a scheduling service for PVRs would be right up their alley for starters. Lots of people want to know what time TV shows are playing, and what an episode is about. Making it easy, fast, and searchable would be better than any of the others I've seen lately. I use TitanTV to do scheduling with my PVR right now, but I'd be happy to look at a google alternative. Maybe some of the ads would be targeted at things that actually interest me or are related to the shows I'm looking up. I'd also bet a number of Google employees have MythTV boxes at home they'd love to have a great scheduling service for, ala Tivo, especially if it included suggestions based upon the shows you already watch.
Anyway, that is my prediction. I don't think it is likely Tivo will release a hardware box anytime soon, although it would be great to have another credible competitor in that space. A google branded MythTV box with a simple and easy UI could be a real winner. TV over IP is also a fast moving space with amateur video podcasts and DTV both starting to have content I actually like to watch. Still, my bet is on the first idea, an online TV guide and PVR scheduling service. It seems to fit their MO the best.
Re:TV Guide (Score:2)
Make all of TV on-demand and eliminate the need for PVRs in that sense.
That would be great, but monopolies and cartels love bundling. The Cable companies and TV studios are largely owned by the same corporations. The cable companies might be willing to give up their advertising and channels to the content providers, if they were still the delivery mechanism, but I don't see it happening without government intervention. Content providers like to sell entire shows, channels, and even groups of channels a
Google on Current TV (Score:2)
As riveting TV goes, I think Current has a way to go, but its off to a good start. A lot of the stuff is fairly iteresting, although some of the political humor, like "Super News", is dreadfully heavy handed. And as
Re:Google on Current TV (Score:2)
Will anybody want to buy... (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously though. Except for their original search engine, Google hasn't done that well bringing new products to market. They keep introducing cool features and web applications. But major new products? Nada.
And no, I'm not forgetting Google Earth or Picasa. Both of which they acquired.
Re:Will anybody want to buy... (Score:2)
What is a "product" but a collection of cool new features and applications that has a frame (and possibly a price tag) attached around it?
Re:Will anybody want to buy... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Will anybody want to buy... (Score:2)
They could probably snatch up as many of these [2wire.com] as they need...
Hmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
$ whois googlemusic.com
Registrant:
Google Inc. (DOM-1314687)
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CA 94043 US
Domain Name: googlemusic.com
Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com/ [markmonitor.com]
Administrative Contact:
DNS Admin (NIC-1467103) Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CA 94043 US
dns-admin@google.com +1.6502530000 Fax- +1.6506188571
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
DNS Admin (NIC-1467103) Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CA 94043 US
dns-admin@google.com +1.6502530000 Fax- +1.6506188571
Created on..............: 2003-Feb-13.
Expires on..............: 2008-Feb-13.
Record last updated on..: 2004-Nov-01 09:49:36.
Makes me wonder if eventually Google might do their own music distribution service. Not sure how it could succeed much better than the other music services, but you never know. Of course, this was registered way back in 11/2001, so they may have been grabbing domains as they thought of anything.
Oh Great! Another.... (Score:2)
They have a very powerful core technology and do a very good job of selling/delivering ads I've seen.
-maybe the way this plays out is they provide the infrastructure to deliver URL's to a broadcast, but I hardly see an urgent need being filled, much less the Studios buying into the idea. I
-maybe they are trying to do an end-around all of the communication oligopolies, courageous move, but I
Re:Oh Great! Another.... (Score:2)
GoogleTV already here? http://www.current.tv (Score:2, Informative)
It uses google search data for news broadcasts and story selection. It also lets users submit content.
Google runs or is somehow related to a new television network. http://www.current.tv/ [current.tv]
I've been watching this new network on DirectTV.
Basically they do serveral things well. The network is really addictive to watch.
- All (almost all) shows are 7 minutes long unless they are REALLY interesting.
- Viewers can submit video's and Current.tv airs them
Microsoft TV inevitable (Score:4, Funny)
I anticipate the announcment of a totally rock solid vapor TV that will ship with Tinhorn.
Getting hot in here... (Score:4, Interesting)
If they turn to the darkside, we're all screwed.
An Interesting MSoft/Google Comparison (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft got loaded after they achieved their market dominance. What did they do with their money? They put some into R&D. They bought some companies out.
Google came along and made their loads of money too. And they too have bought a few companies. But here's where the differences are. Microsoft simply wanted to protect their monopoly. They bought companies they they saw as threats or companies that they thought would help them maintain their monopoly. Google on the other hand seems to have been exploring with their money, putting it into the "cool" technologies that are still just outside the threshold of everyday consumers. It's as if Google is trying to pull it into the mainstream. It's these fringe technologies that Google is going after and preparing to assert their mark.
Thoughts? Comments?
Re:An Interesting MSoft/Google Comparison (Score:2)
Hmm... let see some of the "cool" technologies that Google has been investing lately (publicly announced).
GoogleTV - Oh, is that like Microsoft Digital Media division which has been investigating TV on demand for over a decade?
GoogleIM - Oh, is that like Microsoft's Messenger that MS has had for close to a decade now?
GMail - You mean Hotmail competitor?
Yeah, it really looks like Google is blazing its own trails... NOT!!!
Hey, Google may out maneuver Microsoft and execute better, but please stop thi
Re:An Interesting MSoft/Google Comparison (Score:2)
Re:An Interesting MSoft/Google Comparison (Score:2)
And your argument about MS' only aim is to protect its monopoly is bogus.
MS's TV efforts is perfectly representative of the fallacy of your argument.
Set Top Boxes are NOT threatening MS's Windows business (at least not any near future). You can argue that they were trying to EXPAND their business but not PROTECTING their existing
Re:An Interesting MSoft/Google Comparison (Score:2)
First off, I did not say "Google's strategy was cooler". I said they were "putting it into the 'cool' technologies..." with cool being in quotes. Not because I thought it was cool, but what the mainstream thinks is cool. "Wow, Google is putting money into this 'new' or 'cool' technology". Not my thoughts...just the general public's.
Your points about set top boxes are valid to a sense. It depends
Re:An Interesting MSoft/Google Comparison (Score:2)
Pick me! Pick me! (Score:4, Funny)
GoogleBigBrother (Score:4, Funny)
Here we have Google for that.
Thrashing around? (Score:2, Interesting)
Google TV already exists in a form (Score:3, Insightful)
This could be a more formal solidification of the relationship, or hiring for someone to manage the relationship, or I guess it could be something altogether new. Certainly Current TV isn't 100% full of non-repeating content, so there is some room for Google to take more of their broadcast time.
See:
http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=9
Google Current - Already on TV (Score:2)
Current is also carried in a couple of other major markets. I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up more often.
Frankly (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:G... (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently, truer words have never been spoken.
Re:G... (Score:2)
That shouldn't be too hard for you.
Re:G... (Score:2)
Re:Google idiocracy? (Score:2)
Though is it me or was K5 mysteriously down earlier?
Re:Google idiocracy? (Score:2)
Re:Google idiocracy? (Score:2)
Re:Google idiocracy? (Score:2)
What is that, government run by idiots?
And anyone who takes the easy, lame joke and returns a Bush administration crack will be shot on grounds of lacking creativity...
Re:Move Over Richard Branson... (Score:2)