PC in TV

Just got to know about this wonderful example of some more new technological evolution...so thought of sharing with you all on this very part of cosmos.
A Bristol company is putting a netbook computer inside a Freeview TV set to create a screen-saving TV/PC combination for the UK market. There's nothing new about adding a TV tuner to a PC, but adding a full PC to a TV set is a bit more unusual. That's what Bristol-based Bristol Interactive is doing, with its as-yet-unnamed 22-inch and 32-inch TVs. The 22-inch model shown above is a standard Freeview TV set. Click the remote, however, and you've got what amounts to a built-in Atom-powered netbook showing Windows XP on the TV screen. The PC part also includes a gigabyte of memory, 160GB hard drive, four USB ports, an RJ45 Ethernet port, a circular "air mouse" and a wireless keyboard. (The one in my photo looks like a Hillcrest Loop Pointer.) The screen resolution is 1680 x 1050 pixels, which is far more than you get on a netbook.
Bristol Interactive's chief executive officer Paul Fellows says: "This is a full digital television set: a Freeview chassis for the UK market. The red button works, and the TV is completely independent of the PC functions. You don't have to be in Windows to watch TV."

One thing that's missing is Wi-Fi, because of the reliability issues and the potential for support costs. An Ethernet cable works better if you want video, and Fellows expects this will be a main function: buyers will be using the BBC iPlayer, and watching YouTube and similar videos. Internet radio is another attraction.

You can, of course, run standard Windows software. However, the problem is that users typically sit much closer to a PC screen than they do to a TV set. On-screen text is small enough that you wouldn't want to read it from a TV-watching position.

Fellows thinks the 22-inch model will find a home in bedrooms and kitchens, where its versatility will be attractive, as will the lack of unsightly wiring. (You can use a couple of HomePlug devices to make the Internet connection -- or, if you insist, a USB Wi-Fi plug-in.) The 32-inch model might find a home in living rooms.

Bristol hopes to launch the system in October, with 22-inch models being sold through supermarkets for less than £500.

There's clearly a market for this sort of thing. How often it stretches to £500 is another matter.

At the moment, my standard suggestion for this sort of use is to get an Asus Eee Box, which you can attach to the back of an LCD TV set. But at £300-ish plus the cost of the TV set, that's not really a cheaper option.