The future of television

With more video content being offered on the web it is only natural to tie it to TV sets. Many cable companies already have video on demand for movies and NBC announced the Nightly News will now be available to download any time on MSNBC. The New York Times has the latest on the attempt to merge the internet and television:

Yahoo and TiVo plan to announce a deal today that will connect Yahoo's vast online service to TiVo's set-top boxes, which, in addition to recording television programs, have a largely unused capability to connect to the Internet.
The deal will allow TiVo, which has been struggling to differentiate its service from generic video recorders offered by cable and satellite companies, to offer a range of content and services linked to the Internet.

As Yahoo and most other major media and Internet companies rapidly develop video programming, users may want to watch some of it on big screens in their living rooms, rather than on PC monitors. David Katz, Yahoo's vice president for entertainment and sports programming, described the deal as a first step as Yahoo explores TiVo's technology.
"Our core business today exists on the computer because that's where the majority of our users are," Mr. Katz said. "Our goal is to provide our users on any platform with whatever content they are most interested in."

It's just a matter of time before new televisions being sold are hybrid machines with computer capabilities that can access the web.