The future of TV or the future of computers and all that jazz in general

Read this: Is the future of TV on the Web?  Okay, you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to, I’ll summarize.  A lot of the big television broadcasting companies have been allowing their content to stream on the Internet, via their own websites or other sites like Hulu, generally with limited commercial content.  So what does this mean for TV?  Is it all over?  And what is next?

Allow me. 

First I should inform y’all that, while I consider myself to be rather informed on a lot of things, I am in no way a technology analyst or somebody who knows for certain in what directions computers and televisions and everything else is going, but that being said here is my idea of what the future of all this tech stuff might look like.

I think that someday (quite possibly in our lifetime — though considering potential consequences of global warming, depleting natural resources, or inevitable robot and/or zombie attacks nothing is certain) we will see fully integrated technology along the lines of all of us (or at least most of us) owning devices that act as both our computer, our mobile communication devices, our televisions, our media players, and a whole bunch of other things.  These devices (there will very likely be different brands and models) will be able to hook up to ports in our homes, offices, vehicles, and probably all sorts of other places (libraries, hotels, airports, etc) to allow us to use bigger screens and keyboards and also interact with certain features at specific locations (think being able to control climate and lighting in your home or confirm flight passes at the airport).  Of course we are already starting to see devices that do some of this; you know BlackBerrys and iPods and iPhones and all that.  Still I imagine we are going to see it become more and more advanced and integrated.  I can imagine the day where most people don’t use desktops or laptops but instead just have ports at there desks and fold out keyboards and screens for on the go that connect to whatever their personal device is.  Maybe you’ll still have something that looks like a nice big Plasma screen TV but in actuality it will still be hooked up to the personal device and streaming content off of the Internet or whatever the Internet eventually becomes (I say this last part with the consideration that the Internet itself is continually changing and it would be kind of ignorant to assume that what we know as the Web today is going to be the same ten, hell, even five year down the road). 

Again these are just my predictions based on what I’ve already seen happening in the technology market.  Likely there are already a whole slew of things that companies are developing and getting ready to unleash on the world to change the way we interact with each other and our surrounding environments.  Technology changes, this isn’t necessarily good or bad, it just is and we kind of have to deal with it. 

I’ve been viewing television shows off the Internet for the past few years now (more so lately considering I don’t have cable or any working TV channels).  I started watching the TV show LOST on ABC’s website because I had a class when it regularly showed.  Now I watch all sorts of things, especially using Hulu but also my Netflix account. 

~ by Nathaniel on May 1, 2008.