If you're like me, your first reaction to hearing that the web is available on your TV is "why?" The answer is quite a bit different than you might think. The answer is not that you want you want your TV to go out to the web to browse content, which is by and large not the most inspiring concept. The answer is that you want web content brought to your TV. In other words, the Web and all the interactive web 2.0 tools are tools that are well suited to bring rich content to your TV.

Ravenexus Summer of Code project is a great example. Check out this video capture of it in action and you'll quickly understand that the point of the web browser is not "browsing the web" per se, but as a tool that allows all kinds of participation in an integrated TV experience that hasn't existed before. Wiki information populating information about shows and artists is just the beginning. Links to shared favorities, community feedback, etc are all vastly more realistic when the tools to bring them are webtools rather than the typically embedded morass.

Neuros hacker Guillaumebel has been hard at work on integrating last.fm and he's been diligently documenting his progress on the last.fm wiki page. Here are instructions to try the Beta. Besides the fact that I'm personally a big fan of the last.fm service, two things really excite me about this application. As the tag line suggests, last.fm really is a quiet revolution in the way that we experience music. Virtually anyone that's used last.fm knows it's a vastly more compelling way to listen to music than traditional fm or even satellite radio. It's interactive, learns what you like, enables music sharing, is powered by fellow users, and ad free. It represents another break from the traditional centralized taste-makers and further increases the power of us listeners, and it provides real protection against some of corrupting influences of money in the industry. Its long been a great pc application, but in need of support on a device to bring it to more living rooms.

The second thing that's exciting about this application is how it beautifully illustrates the power of free/open source software integrating new functionality in a device. Look at item five on the Xi menu as an example, it's a feature that will search and fetch the associated music video from YouTube (or some other online video source). In the future, you can imagine that the customizable Xi menu could search your local collection and other services for "music from this artist" as well as share that music with friends, etc. The simple Xi menu is the result of many contributions, from many projects, XMMS2, a youtube browser, etc. What's key is all that functionality is seamlessly integrated into one familiar media playing interface, meaning it allows one handed operation and works with the simplicity users expect of their electronics.

Neuros and MediaFly are jointly sponsoring a contract to integrate the Mediafly Media Channel service into the Neuros OSD. This bounty pays $2,000 on full completion, as described below. If you are interested in applying, send an email to bounties at neurostechnology.com and describe your level of experience in a few sentences.

In a recent exciting update on the mailing list, Matthias Hardt outlines the progress they've made in getting directfb, and the disko framework running on the Neuros OSD. Check out morphine.tv to see what their software is capable of.

A big big thanks to Greyback and MattJ for representing us at Lugradio Live this year. There's a podcast interview of them you can find at linuxoutlaws.com starting at about 8:13 talking about the OSD1 and OSD2. This is a great model for us, supporting community members that want to attend local shows, so if there's a show you'd like to attend and show off the OSD, just let us know. BTW, I'll be at Linuxworld in San Fran in about a week, exhibiting at the linuxgarage section and giving a BoF on the OSD, so if anyone wants to help me show off the OSD1 & 2 there, I'd love the help, just write me at jborn at neurostechnology dot com, or of course, just show up and say hello!

Neuros is happy to unveil a new way to see the Neuros OSD, in three dimensions. Our friends at UK-based Astera3D have built a model of the Neuros OSD that can be turned, rotated and magnified all within your web browser (Java plugin required).

View the 3D model of the Neuros OSD
Learn more about Astera 3D

I just got my first glimpse of Ravenexus's Web Browser on the OSD and it's pretty exciting. The web browser is particularly interesting component for other programs to draw upon and it will really be neat to see it tied in with the Xi Menus, imagine wikipedia populating "more information about" menu items that would link to wiki pages about the movie, tv show, artist or album you were listening to! This one certainly warrants a future of TV video when done. BTW, the above screen capture was done using the Bagster's VNC Server. More to come!

RELEASE NOTES: OSD 3.33-2.08-09.86o(06/24/08)

IMPORTANT: You cannot simply upgrade to this release. Please check the current version of firmware you are running by navigating to Settings and Properties. If the version begins with 3.33-1.74 or lower, you MUST upgrade to 3.33-1.77-00.86o first!

This release requires that you maintain a 128MB or larger CompactFlash card within the CF slot of your Neuros OSD. If a CF card did not come with your OSD for this purpose, you can request one here.

http://open.neurostechnology.com/files/releases/az/beta/osd-3.33-2.09-00.871.upk

At Neuros, just by virtue of the fact that we have an open device, we encounter so many interesting modifications and enhancements to our device. So I decided to create a little series of videos, where we talk about the technologies, social phenomenon, the trends and the hacks that are shaping television today and in the future. Some of the trends are the obvious ones that we know will come: The future will hold more choice, better time shifting, and access to content on more devices. But the future of television will be much more, and much more interesting than just that. Connecting the open internet to the TV will give us a lot more than a better, faster, cheaper experience. It will connect us in new, previously unimaginable ways.

By now, most of you are aware of the effort to port VLC to the OSD2 but this week's meeting, yielded a special video update from dionoea.

Basic video and audio playback is working, including h.264, so there's progress. It won't be long before all your favorite internet video is available right on your television, so Stay tuned