Convergent interests
In a recent blog post Richard Whitt, Washington telecom and media counsel at Google, makes the point that ‘convergence' is an overused term, and he's not wrong.
Especially in the form of ‘the digital home' we've been hearing for years about the convergence of the IT, telco and consumer electronics sectors, to produce some kind of sentient domicile that anticipates our every need and enables us to live on a perpetual state of automated, perma-stimulated bliss.
Now we don't know about you, but that has yet to happen in our house, where daily drudgery of having to do things like turn on the kettle and choose TV programmes continue to render life barely tolerable. And it seems that Google feels our pain.
For this reason, and the small matter of all the extra revenue from search results and YouTube that would ensue, Google is lobbying the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to open up the means by which (US) consumers can access the Internet via their tellies.
"In comments we filed today with the FCC, we expressed our support for the so-called ‘AllVid' solution," blogged Whitt. "This approach would allow consumers to purchase inexpensive universal adapters, featuring common interfaces and standards, that would connect with smart video devices, including TVs.
"In essence, for the first time consumers would be able seamlessly to bring the full power of the Internet to their in-home TV screen. That's the kind of convergence we think everyone should be able to support."
A quick glance at the full document reveals Google's wishes are philosophically along the lines of Project Canvas, in so much as it wants to move away from proprietary set-top-boxes, etc, and towards a common standard of accessing the Internet on your TV.
Once there, of course, your first port of call would be Google or YouTube - to search for stuff to watch or do. Google makes frequent reference to its Google TV project in the document, and thus is making no attempt to disguise the self-interest. But just as with Project Canvas, anything that facilitates the convergence of TV and Internet is definitely a step forward.
