From The Valley to Vegas

San Francisco, gateway to the Met in every region on earth. Silicon

Valley stretches of From Here To San Jose, this is where you'll find

technology companies, new and old, big and small. They have

transformed how we have it in the past 40 years. There has been one

industry that has not been changed and that is television. There has

been heavy talk of a marriage between the weather and TV but it

has been slow to happen. Silicon Valley software giants are on a

journey they believed would transform the way we view TV. We

will follow that journey all the way from San Francisco to Las Vegas.

Television has boundless possibilities. It has been the

revelation that failed. This could be the air it finally happens. Our

journey will take us to the software giants who believe they

can usher in a brave new world of choice and changed the way we

interact with television. We will meet the TV manufacturers who

believe change is in their hands. Let's start in San Francisco and

job in in one of the tiny media firms which proliferate the city.

We found a man who was involved in working with the future of TV for

us many years. I press this button and it tells my satellite receiver

to switched to the right channel and turn on whatever is bearing.

His letters firm believes in what is called a second screen solution.

It shares the social experience of what you are watching with friends.

He admits that TV and the wet have not been natural soulmates. It is a

we'd love and hate relationship. The internet is the very definition

of staff you want to do and television is the definition of

kicking back. We are trying to find the blend of making it easy,

entertaining and farm. Do we need this? We have a lot of television

and plenty of choice. Why do we need the internet and television to

come together? I think TV is great today. We are reaching a new point

where we are going to enable the consumer. We have seen the tidal

wave of the internet as it crashes over businesses. It generally

improves the day-to-day lives. As the internet was over television,

the consumer will have more choice. Let's head off down the freeway to

Mountain View, the epicentre of Silicon Valley. First there was

stop briefly at a company whose headquarters is in Seattle.

Microsoft is not yet much of a player in terms of what we watch on

television but they had to change how we watch it. The Xbox Connect

system for video games turns the but it also response to voice

command. Microsoft is offering television services delivered over

the internet to the Xbox. You will be able to shout at the television

and it will respond. Will this catch on? May be but only if it is

A couple of miles away is the headquarters of the most successful

company to emerge from the Silicon Valley over the last 15 years. It

was at Google which we found the most ambitious attempt to reshape

TV. It is a warm sunny January lunchtime for Silicon Valley's most

powerful business. They are harder work shined to make a serious

impression on the way we watch television. GoogleTV has launched

over a year ago. When I sat down in the company's viewing theatre, my

first need was to understand it. is about bringing more

entertainment choices. But doing it in a smart way. We have a lot of

things to watch but we need to know what is the best thing to watch at

any given time off. You have a key wards. Is that what gives us

access? Yes fours -- yes. We want to make it so that the -- add to

the current television system to make it more engaging. I am

watching television as I would normally watch it. I have something

now where I can access a whole other set of content I could not

access before. Whether it be movies, television shows on Netflix Ora

whether it be specialised channels building themselves or platforms

like GoogleTV. If I click on the New York Times, I had just switched

what is happening on the traditional TV to a channel of

concept that the New York Times has created. So that is not a website,

that is a channel? That is correct. They created content that viewers

can watch on their television. Just like you would as a TV channel.

was say it TV is a lean back experience and the internet is a

lean forward experience. What do you know about television? Google

is very good at helping users find what they want. That is what we

believe in. We can help this technology to help you find exactly

what you want when you want it. People are just not interested and

GoogleTV. We are in early days of this revolution we see happening in

TV. More concern is coming on lines. We are just beginning to build

vittles. -- tools. The real question is, how do we make it so

simple for a user? That is what we Back in the car and off to a

company which is an even hotter property den Google. It is the

social network which is well on the way to more than 1 billion members.

Facebook's idea is to inject a social element in the way we choose

what we view. Online and on TV, that experience is disconnected.

Most people discover TV shows in an impenetrable grid of 200 channels

and Times. It is hard to find a needle in a haystack of what you

want to watch. You can imagine a much more compelling TV discovery

experience which has enabled by what your friends are watching and

what you are interested in. We really see that as one great

example of how social information can make discovery better. U-turn

on your TV and you saw a new show your mum or a best friend

recommended, you can discover it. That is an idea of TV in form by

your friends and injures. It seems more compelling. We are leaning in

that direction. -- friends and interests. There is company which

had -- whose headquarters we would have loved to visit. Apple has made

a sweet for TV with its set-top box but there are rumours they are

making a bigger push. Steve Jobs says he wants -- wanted to create

an integrated television with the simplest interface. I finally

Where no-one available to talk to us, we went to see a man who knows

apple better than most. This technology blogger has immense

himself in Apple kit and has followed their every move four

years. He thinks the iPad and iPhone will be followed by a

television. They have all the pieces to do something pretty

interesting. Apple is a luxury brand. They have proven that people

will pay it a bit of a premium for the best quality of everything.

There is real changes in TV that has just come out. You get

dramatically better picture. If Apple can get back into their CV,

you see that TV is way better than the one you have. -- met TV.

are seeing it as a two screen experience? Or three. I do not

believe you will be watching TV from ten feet away. You could use

your hands. I do not believe you will interact with a screen that is

ten feet away. I think you want to interact with when that is here.

And watch TV like these. -- like this. This is what Apple Mac wants

Before we leave Silicon Valley, time to ponder what is as the

confidence it believes can change the industry. Tell us about the

history that has been made here by the technology investment point of

view. In 20 years we have seen a lot of firms staff here. His own

again meet the tour of a restaurant where entrepreneurs try out their

ideas to venture capitalists who I was here to meet a Silicon Valley

veteran. He arrived here in the 1960s as a student. He was an early

supper where piney and has worked Apple, Xerox, a lot of Silicon

Valley companies. What is it about this valley that gives birth to

such innovative companies? There has been a very well defined

culture of capital-raising for start-ups. It is almost a rite of

passage after you have a successful company and you have made some

money, you do not just retire or move to the Caribbean. You are not

allowed to move to the beach when you have made it big. You spend

most of your time here funding other people. How would you sum up

the self-confidence of Silicon Valley? At a time of the global

crisis. They have a willingness to enter new markets. Silicon Valley

seems to be ignoring the slowdown this time around. Instead of

waiting until sales are better. The times when the economy is slow and

other companies are slowing down is exactly the right time to invest if

you have got the money, and they do have the money. Investing so that

when things pick up again... If you think things are growing fast now,

they will grow faster in the Valley when the economy recovers.

It is time to get back in the car and do some serious driving to Las

Vegas. It is 600 miles to the Nevada desert. Let's look at some

numbers about the state of television in the UK. There are now

more than 10 million television sets sold per year with one million

While nearly half of all households have a digital video recorder, 86%

of our viewing is live television. Things are changing more gradually

It is January in Las Vegas and that means it is time for CES, the

For years, Silicone Valley has been convinced that television and the

web are natural partners. In Las Vegas, it looks as though they are

Let's see how that marriage is going. We visit hardware players on

their stools at press conferences and in the Convention Centre, the

words, Smart TV, were everywhere. New ways about getting access to

television and the internet were being put through their paces. And

lot of products shown at places like these turn out to be duds and

leave consumers cold. But the man who runs it says it is still the

place to see the future. 20,000 products are introduced at almost

every CES. Many of them will not see the light of day. The visitors

are the ones who decide what succeeds and what fails. That is

the entrepreneurial beauty. It happened with remote controls,

microwave ovens, personal video recorders. We do not need any of

these products but we have come to rely on them. There will be

products introduced and people will say, why didn't I think of that and

how can I live without it? walked around the show and wondered

what made this year different in terms of connected television.

year the biggest innovation has been to bring these technologies

together and create smart television. It can act as the web,

you can watch YouTube videos, video conference, Skype with people.

These things have not been possible for consumer television before.

Hardcore enthusiasts have been able But who is going to win the smart

At Samsung's press conference, hundreds were locked out from an

overcrowded ballroom and the mood was triumphant. They were going to

lead the industry forward when they Smart evolution. This represents a

significant change across all out devices. It is the future of smart

Other manufacturers think they are smoking with a shot as well.

The big TV manufacturers battle to show that they can produce the

biggest, slimmest, most beautiful new televisions. This year's winner

appears to be LG, with this 55-inch television - beautiful picture, but

very expensive. Will attention switch from the technology to the

content and how we access it? Samsung was making losses and is

We were treated to an A-list Hollywood star, a Sony pictures

movie and a best-selling artist Proof, the company believes, of

what makes its offering different. I think the most important thing,

over and above making sure we present a great TV set in terms of

features and functionalities, is the content which is available for

the customer to enjoy. We have a lot of third party content, but we

have in house video unlimited and music unlimited. We are starting a

service for managing digital photos and videos online as well. More

value to the customers. The company paints a picture of a connected

home where your Sony tablet talks to your Sony movies and your Sony

These are not just used for viewing your television shows. It is

accessing content from the internet. But, like every other company we

have met on our travels, it still needs to fill in the missing link -

tempting customers to care about connecting their televisions to the

internet. One of the most important things we have to focus on as an

industry is getting consumers to understand the breadth of the

content available. You should connect your TV right to the

internet because of the services we On our journey we've met software

firms big and small which believe they can be the force that

transforms television, and hardware businesses who believe that it is

still in their hands to reshape the future of the living room. Two

different views of whether this is These televisions will cost �1,000-

1,500 pounds. That is a lot of money when people are tightening

their belts. 2014 is likely to be The computer has migrated into the

TV set. Before buying this, they want to be connected to the

internet. They want to click on an icon and learn about the stars, get

the background, see what you have been missing. Why not? It is a

matter of convenience, ease, simplicity and new options.