Google expert predicts end of TV

 

Television is approaching an 'iPod moment,' according to the Godfather of the Net.

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Vint Clef, one of the pioneers of the internet, has predicted the imminent death of traditional television in the wake of new technologies. Viewers, he suggests, will soon download their favourite TV programmes in the same way that listeners consume music through devices such as iPod players.
 
Clef, who is now vice-president at Google, the world's largest search engine, was speaking at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival.
 
Reflecting on viewers' habits, Clef, 64, commented: "Eighty-five per cent of all video we watch is pre-recorded, so you can set your system to download it all the time ...You're still going to need live television for certain things - like news, sporting events and emergencies - but increasingly, it is going to be almost like the iPod, where you download content to look at later."
 
"In Japan, you can already download an hour's worth of video in 16 seconds... And we're starting to see ways of mixing information together... imagine if you could pause a TV programme and use your mouse to click on different items on the screen and find out more about them," he continued.

Future of the internet

Clef also revealed that he has been experimenting taking the internet into space and allowing it to be used in interplanetary exploration. 
 
"Up until now we've been using the so-called Deep Space Network to communicate across space with radio signals. What my colleagues and I would like to do is use a version of internet...

“I want more internet. I want every one of the six billion people on the planet to be able to connect to the internet - I think they will add things to it that will really benefit us all," he concluded.
 

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