WebTV itself will probably be the first consumer-level set-top device to run Windows CE.
Wink's service is free to the consumer and doesn't require another set-top box, as does WebTV.
Wink's service is free to the consumer and doesn't require another set-top box, as WebTV does.
"The competitive landscape here is strange, ranging from Navio to even WebTV, " he says.
Since the days of WebTV there has been this concept of bringing the Internet and TV together.
The software giant thought it could get an early jump on interactive TV with its WebTV service.
AudioNet's set is user-friendly, offering simple navigation, troubleshooting tips, software links, and alternative pages for WebTV users.
Andy's a super smart person, having done stints at Apple, General Magic, WebTV and Danger before starting the Android project.
If the executives at WebTV aren't careful, they may wind up spending all their time in La-Z-Boys too.
Microsoft's other attempts to put a Trojan horse in your living room, WebTV and UltimateTV, were dismal failures.
It also supports (but doesn't bundle) Microsoft NetMeeting, Microsoft WebTV, and the Microsoft MovieMaker software found in Windows Me.
Today he's a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, where his 30-plus Internet-related investments have included WebTV, Goto.com, and About.com.
Whatever the gadgets to blend the two -- high-speed modems, Microsoft's WebTV, something else -- the public isn't ready yet.
Had Microsoft's investment bankers valued WebTV Networks like a cable television company Gates would have overpaid by more than twice.
It didn't work when Microsoft did it with the WebTV in 1996 and it doesn't work on the Google TV.
ENGADGET: Editorial: What's wrong with TV, and what it might take to change it
Not new, I hear you say - that has been tried for years, all the way back to WebTV in the 1990s.
His phone outlets, called Hit Shops, give away satellite receivers, WebTV boxes, and mobile e-mail routing services to get the revenue stream.
Expect more deals in the coming months like the one Infoseek recently signed with Microsoft making it the search engine on WebTV's services.
Such systems may, in fact, be good deals for those who no longer want their WebTV or have yet to get on the Net.
The companies will create a 24-hour interactive games network that allows viewers to play along at home through personal computers or set-top boxes such as WebTV.
Worse still, early versions of WebTV's software didn't fully support the full range of tricks web designers employ, so the pages were often impossibly skewed and confused.
The Wii's channels and WiiConnect24 features could achieve everything from an affordable way to get photos to grandma to the functionality of WebTV without the monthly fee.
In WebTV he saw the first example of convergence that actually worked: Sure the graphics were blurry and the layouts none too pretty but it was the Internet on a television.
Sure, there have been experiments in interactive TV -- gadgets like WebTV and modern game consoles are connected devices, and set-top boxes like the Roku and TiVo add connected components -- but most TVs in the US remain blissfully ignorant of the internet.
After all, in the spring of 1997, when Microsoft announced the acquisition, WebTV Networks was a two-year-old stripling of a startup with an oversized marketing budget, an aging demographic (25% over the age of 50) and a scant number of subscribers (less than 100, 000).
Microsoft's hardware partners in the venture-- Philips Electronics ( PHG) , Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people) and Mitsubishi--are working on new WebTV units that run Windows CE and, like palmtop computers, can run stripped down versions of Microsoft Excel and Word.
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