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In the past few years if you wanted to use your internet connection to watch TV, you basically had to hook up a computer to the TV view content. Why mess with all that?

TV's should be able to simply connect to HULU, Netflix, or any other service to stream content and bypass all the computer equipment. Just plug in an ethernet cable to the back of your TV and that's it.

Well, that's finally starting to happen. With new TV's from LG, Samsung, and others, you can finally watch TV via the internet without the need of a computer.

We really need some competition against Comcast. They initially built their networks so cheap to begin with that it's now beginning to catch up with them.

We noticed that channels on our non-set top box TV's were being replaced by some text encouraging us to switch to digital. You call Comcast and they give you 2 free DTA's (Digital Transport Adapters) to hook up to each TV.

By switching to all digital signals (different than the Federal switchover), they are freeing up more bandwidth because they have run out of space.

Again, just pause the DVR look at the picture quality on your digital HDTV channels. Notice the blocks of pixelation occurring because of how much compression they are using.

Where is the competition?

I recently purchased a year subscription to XM Sirius after cancelling my previous service about 6 months ago. The receiver is a stock Nissan unit and stock Bose Infiniti system. I'm not sure if things have changed in 6 months time, but I've noticed quite a bit of compression that impacts the sound quality.

Notice the 's' and 't' sounds in the dj's voice when talking. It's missing quite a bit of high frequencies. It reminds me of low bit-rate 128k mp3's.

Does anyone else notice this as well? Is XM trying to cram more stations into their bandwidth at a cost of sound quality?

Now that everyone vents their frustrations and thoughts online, it is much easier for companies to keep an eye on what people are saying.

A while back, I was upset that Capital One raised my interest rate. I made a post about it, and a couple days later, I had a comment from a customer service rep. Kinda cool that they're actually reaching out and trying to use these things to their advantage.

They must have some sort of search that scans the blogs and feeds for their company name and employs people to browse the web and respond.

Some companies won't embrace technology and others will. Just go to twitter, perform a search, grab the feed, and add to your google reader. Then you'll always be up to date on  what others are saying about your company.

I ran across my mother's old iPod touch the other day and wanted to access the app store to see what programs were available for it. Unfortunately, the thing had not been used in a while and it needed a software upgrade in order to use the app store.

After much searching for the usb cable, I finally found one and hooked it up to my computer. I unfortunately had to download itunes and let it take over my computer. No, I don't want quicktime. No, I don't want the ituneshelper app loading at startup. No, I don't want the apple update software loading either. Goodness gracious. Too much unnecessary stuff.

Anyways, I went to update the software on the iPod and it asked me if I wanted to purchase it. Are you kidding? You have to purchase the update software?

I can understand having to buy new versions of an OS for Apple computers, but seriously. This is an ipod. The updates should be free.

No wonder people jailbreak these things.

Last night I checked my T-mobile bill online to see where I was for the month. I immediately noticed that I had been billed $87 for text messages despite switching to the unlimited messaging plan online over a month ago.

I called customer service to see what was going on. The rep said there was no record of me adding the plan (system error), so I still had my usual 1000 messages. The additional charge was because I had gone over my limit by 500 messages. She explained she could not credit our bill because it has already been sent out, but she could add the plan to our upcoming month. I said fine and hung up very frustrated.

After I got off the phone, I double checked the bill again and noticed that I had a total of about 500 text messages, definitely not over the 1000 included. T-Mobile had been billing us for every single text message. I didn't catch it and neither did the rep.

Since we have the family plan, I explained the situation to my mother who might be able to rectify the situation. She called, got a different rep, she noticed the error, and immediately credited our bill.

This just goes to show how much variance there can be between representatives in customer service. The first one stated she could not go back and change our bill, the second one was able to do so. The second one immediately saw the error as well.

If you don't get the answer you are looking for, just call back and get a different rep.

After watching news about how the RIAA is recruiting ISP's to spy on their customers in order to prevent copywright infringement, I'm starting to see more of this happening around the world.

Even on Slashdot today, Irish ISP's have settled with their music Industry's equivalent of the RIAA. ISP's in Ireleand will first warn their customers and then disconnect them if they continue to involve themselves in illegal downloading.

As this practice begins to take hold around the world, there is going to be some defensive actions taken by many. I predict that people will either switch ISP's or there will be a new push to encrypt much of your internet traffic.

ISP's will employ deep packet inspection to validate the contents of information and use other tactics to identify trading of copywright material. Measures will be taken by others to avoid these offensive maneuvers. Users of the internet will always be one step ahead. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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Netbooks, Android OS, Palm Pre WebOS, 3G cards, GPS units, Kindles; They all want to be on the internet.

Laptops are getting smaller and turning into always connected devices with built-in 3G. Manufacturers cram cell phone technologies into GPS units in order to download realtime traffic info. You can download books anywhere you are with Amazon's Kindle and sprint's network. People are starting to put Google's Android OS into more devices: Android GPS, Movit Mini, Asus Android Netbook, Android everywhere.

What's happening? Computers are becoming smaller and cell technologies are permeating their way into all sorts of devices. The internet is becoming ubiquitous.

We will begin to see platforms and chipsets emerge that can be placed in any device providing a common framework for communicating over the internet.  Google has begun to do this with Andrioid and it's just the start.

What possibilities exist when the internet can be anywhere? Perhaps real-time heads-up traffic displays in your car. Maybe it's a small unit that always shows the price of gold for use in pawn shops. Maybe a pair of glasses with a projected display in one eye and face recognition to recall all communications with the person you are talking to. Maybe we'll have internet chipsets in our heads in 100 years.

Information will be in all places at all times. Soon enough, you won't need to download things any longer. The internet will be your hard drive.

The connection is made!

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So it's all about getting the content to the viewer. First it was blockbuster. Go to the store and get the content yourself. Then Netflix, where they send it to you. Now netflix is streaming the content to your computer. The PS3 and xbox will now stream your content to your tv. What's the next logical step? Skip all that mess and just push it right to your tv.

In the last few years, manufacturers have been putting Ethernet ports in their TV's to pull weather, stocks, and news. But at this year's CES, manufacturers such as Samsung have put flash players and simple browsers on their tv's so users can stream youtube and hulu. CBS, ABC, HBO, and others are now putting their episodes online. Just keep it simple and watch your tv over the internet.

In the next 10 years we are going to see the decline of cable companies providing televsion access in favor of your internet connection as your new cable.

We'll see televisions bypassing your computer and connecting straight to the internet to pull content directly. Everything will be streaming as broadband speeds increase.

These are exciting times as technologies continue to evolve!

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My music player of choice has been Winamp for over 10 years. I've tried others, but nothing ever sparked my interest or converted me. iTunes was never something that I liked despite its simplicity and ease of use. Maybe I'm biased, but I never liked that it installed so many helper services in the background just to run the application. No thanks.

Enter the era of Songbird. If you're familiar with Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird, you'll know how to use this app immediately. Just add your music and you're good to go. Considering it's currently version 1.0 and changes are still being made, it's a great app for searching, playing, discovering, and organizing your music.

I really enjoy the instant search. Just start typing and results automatically appear. The platform is extensible, so plugins are constantly being released. It will display song lyrics, post your played songs via rss, give you coverflow, show local upcoming concerts of your artists, display news and images of the artist playing, and even download suggested songs too.

It will even manage your iPod too, so you're not stuck with iTunes any longer.

Get Songbird!

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