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Future of Internet TV Is Coming Into View

A computer screen shows Internet services available through a TiVo recorder linked to a broadband Internet connection at the Consumer Electronics Show.
A computer screen shows Internet services available through a TiVo recorder linked to a broadband Internet connection at the Consumer Electronics Show. (By Steve Marcus -- Reuters)
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By 2012, trust me, your favorite shows are just going to be there on that little thing you used to call a cell phone. You pay a subscription or per-viewing charge because commercials on portables -- well, let's just say they didn't catch on, despite cheerleading from Microsoft's Bill Gates.

After "CSI," I scroll through trailers of upcoming episodes of my other favorite TV dramas, selecting which ones I want beamed to my Internet player after the plane lands and we get a wireless signal again.

Navigating back to Verizon's main menu, I click on my custom Yahoo channel, select "Yahoo Photos" and scroll through a gallery of images I took at the tech show. I pop up an on-screen keyboard to add captions, which get saved for automatic transmission back to Yahoo's computers after the plane lands.

Had this been autumn, I might have clicked on "My Yahoo Local," selected "Virginia High Schools," then watched highlights of my niece's field hockey game. But no one in my family is playing sports this winter, and I'm no football fan. The guy next to me is -- he keeps cheering as he replays game highlights of his favorite teams on his portable AT&T viewer.

Back home the next day, those same custom Internet channels show up on my living room wall, which looks like a gigantic mirror when my Internet TV is turned off. So I switch it on, tune into my personal "Yahoo GO" channel and watch a slide show of my captioned Vegas photos on my 200-inch, high-definition wall display.

Then I change the Internet channel to Google Video and skip around inside the TV newscasts I missed while I was out of town. My custom Google channel does a nice job of flagging news segments on topics of interest to me so I can jump right to them, regardless of where they occur inside a newscast.

Sound far-fetched? Okay, maybe this scenario isn't 100 percent realistic today. In fact, you may not even want most of it today.

But if you string together all the services announced at last week's gadget fest, there is no question this is where technology is trying to take us -- to a world where nearly every flat surface can provide a view of the Internet that is highly personalized.

Leslie Walker welcomes e-mail atwalkerl@washpost.com.


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