After Google's series of
announcements yesterday, I have been digging through the
Sports Illustrated archives (and being pleasantly distracted by swimsuit covers while digging). Years ago, SI published an article detailing the "TV of the Future". Unfortunately I can't find the article. However, it painted a vision of what sports on TV would like in the future (I think it was ten years in the future?). While watching the game you could pull up stats about the game, players, etc. There could be seperate angles of the same play, or even featured camera on star players.
The evolution of the Internet since the 90s promised to get us closer to that vision. However, even though the information has been available on computers for years, even companies like Microsoft and Apple haven't been unable to crack the nut.
So yesterday's Google TV announcement brought me back to when I read that article, and made me think that maybe, just maybe, we can reach that vision depicted in Sports Illustrated so long ago.
Rather than recap the presentation from
I/O 2010, head over to
Boy Genius Report for a full synopsis. At its core, Google TV will either come directly with your TV (Sony being the first one out at the gate) or you can buy an add-on box from Logitech. Both will be available this fall. The tidbit that made me think of the SI article:
Sports fans will love Google TV. You can check out box scores, monitor your fantasy league, etc. While you’re watching the game, you can keep track of the box score thanks to picture-in-picture.
I can envision Sundays during football season (at least the 2010 season, looks like we might be SOL for 2011) where I switch on the 1p game. I have already downloaded the Sportline Live Scoring app for Android that will run in a PIP box while watching the game on TV. The app displays scores for my Fantasy matchup and I click on each player or team to get more details. While the game is going on, I am looking at pics on Facebook from the 907 guys latest outing in DC. When I see a good one, I can send the pic to the TV which will shrink the game to a PIP and show the photo full screen. I append a quick comment remarking on the close up of Oakenfold from the night before and then switch the game back to full screen.
Yes, I am a geek, but you can't tell me this wouldn't be sweet!
Of course, until this is actually released and available, we won't know if this is bullshit hype or reality. Google is also opening the door to start a war with local cable companies (I guess they aren't really local anymore. Perhaps cable conglomerates is better). This is less of a war of Google vs Apple as it is a referendum on traditional media.
Change or die.
I grew up as a techie and first got hooked using an old Texas Instruments programming in Basic ("Hello World" app is my fav) and then learned the fun of "integration" making my PCjr actually run the old Sierra games I wanted to play. After a lot of fun at college, I found myself entrenched in the government technology world leading projects and integrating systems for the past 11+ years. I have extensive experience in technical project management, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), Collaboration Technologies, Information Sharing, and Secure Systems Integration.