TechPulse 360

Look for it at CES, says Reed Hasting

The next revolution in broadcasting will come from putting the Internet on TV, Reed Hasting, CEO of Netflix, said Thursday.

Speaking at the NewTeeVee conference in San Francisco, Hasting said it is time to replace the standard television remote with an on-screen pointing device and use a browser to navigate beyond the bounds of the traditional television network.

“Then you’ve got the beginnings of the next revolution where you’ve got the Web on television,” Hasting said during a keynote address.

Until then, the spread of video on the Internet will continue at a steady pace, he said, nurtured by the large installed base of personal computers, where video is primarily viewed today.

“There is no big inflection point,” he said. “Available content will just increase every year.”

A breakthrough will require finding a standard way of broadcasting video content from the large number of Web sites streaming it to the myriad devices people will want to use to view it. That standard is the Internet, he said, and technologies such Adobe’s Flash or Microsoft’s Silverlight could play a role.

The concept behind this standard can be thought of as the Safari browser from Apple wedded to the Wii game machine from Nintendo with its motion interface, he said.

With a browser inside each machine, the remote can be replaced by a pointing device. People will point and click.

“I think you will see this next year starting at CES,” he said referring to the annual Consumer Electronics Trade show held in January. “Now the time is right for the Web to be on TV.”