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Google and Apple Finally Teaming Up?
nieske writes "Rumors are spreading about Google and Apple teaming up to form a video alliance. Google might provide streaming video content for Apple's upcoming iTV, which was revealed in last week's Apple event. The only thing that seemed to be missing in the iTV preview was streaming video, and with Google's Eric Schmidt on the Apple board of directors, this alliance might actually not be so far-fetched."
Lots of people dismiss this product, but the kicker for me is that its priced so I can put one in each room with a TV, instead of a PC beside each TV.
Imagine watching Youtube on your bigscreen... (on the other hand, with that crappy video, perhaps not).
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Does anybody know what exactly the iTV is based on? Is it based on a special edition of OSX (akin to Windows MCE), a new real-time OS based on Darwin/xnu, Quartz, Cocoa and QuickTime (though lacking large chunks of OSX which are irrelevant), the iPod RTOS, or something else?
Back of napkin maths...
My MythTV box in the UK consumes about 1.4 GB of data per hour of programme. That equates to about a 400kbit/second bandwidth requirement to be able to stream broadcast quality standard definition video (I think? Can anyone confirm that?). So basically I'd need at least a 4Mbit ADSL/Cable connection to stream video in real time and that's without enough of an overhead to ensure a 99.9% free picture.
What resolution did they say the iTV was running at? If I download a film from iTunes, what resolution is it? 640x480? That's a fair bit less than PAL. Maybe they could use a different codec to squeeze some more performance out of it, but it seems that the bandwidth requirements are pretty high right now...
The problem is that my dad, for example, expects the TV to work, when he turns it on, all the time. If he turns on his TV and gets some "buffering" messages up, he's going to take the thing back to the shop and tell the guy that sold it to him that "it doesn't work properly"...
Anyone else think that streaming TV is just not ready yet? I'd say we need another couple of years at least...
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
meaningful or YAGAAR (Yet Another Google-Apple Alliance Rumor)?
"We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - Major Mike Shearer, UK
This is a particularly dumb example of classic "slap-2-big-names-together" rumor production. All Apple really has going for it in it's negotiations with the studios is that they, Apple, are the experts when it comes to online distribution. Why in the name of God would they blow that by being seen to defer to Google?