Decide what to buy | the Reevoo.com blog, featuring news on TVs, cameras, laptops, mp3 players & other gadgets, shopping tips and deals, reviews and more

Following on from the introductory post last week, we’re taking a look at the various web-enabled TV technologies offered by the big manufacturers.

Today, we’re looking at the manufacturer who’s got the first web TV system on the market: Sony, with its ‘Applicast’ system.

Applicast is currently available on UK models on the W5500, E5500 and V5500 series.

So what does Applicast offer?

According to Sony, Applicast offers a fairly uninspiring collection of basic computer programs: ‘an analogue style clock’, calendar, alarm, calculator, and world clock.

Fortunately for web-savvy shoppers, Sony has packed a key feature into the Applicast system - an RSS reader. This will allow you to “Get up-to-the-minute news from your favourite websites right on your TV screen. With more than 100,000 RSS feeds available worldwide, you can tune in to any hot topic without tuning out of the TV show you’re enjoying.”

The short version seems to be that you’ll be able to get Decide What to Buy on your TV! There are lots of other potential uses: as well as blogs, you could get news, weather info, stock markets, Twitter, etc.

As you can see from the picture below, the Applicast system presents the content in a pretty classy manner, but you won’t be able to read much on the RSS widget!





Overall, the Applicast system has some potential, but plenty of room for improvement. Still, at least the Applicast system is available on TVs that are on sale now, unlike many of the web TV offerings we’ll be covering!

If you’ve been following the world of TVs this year, you’ll have seen that one of the big trends that has people excited at the moment is the serious attempts manufacturers are making to bring web content to our TV screens. It’s often been predicted, but now it finally seems to be happening: the TV and computer are coming together.

So what is ‘web-enabled TV’ - nobody has been able to agree on a standard name yet - and why should I care?

Web-enabled TV is the ability to get some web content available directly through your TV, which is hooked up to an internet connection. As is often the case with new technologies, the kind and amount of content varies widely, from feeds from from sites like Flickr to weather reports, and potentially YouTube.

Web-enabled TVs should be of interest if you like the idea of checking your email or Facebook from your sofa without having to crouch over the PC at the desk, or if you simply like being on the cutting edge of media consumption: YouTube access in particular, could mark a real change in the content we watch on TV.

Web-enabled TV is an emerging technology, with web-enabled sets just beginning to appear. Over the next week or so, I’ll be blogging about the different technologies available from the key manufacturers, including Samsung with their Internet@TV system, Sony with Applicast, and Panasonic with VieraCast.

We’ll take a close look at the current features of each web TV system, and we’ll also try to predict where each system might end up in a few months time. We should end up with a pretty comprehensive guide to the best of the web TV experience. I hope you’ll be able to join us.