From the MontrealGazette...

"According to iSuppli Corp., a technology industry research company, Microsoft has been losing around $126 U.S. on each Xbox 360, of which there are about 11.6 million units, mostly in the United States. But now the pieces of Microsoft's grand plans are starting to fall into place - in the United States at least.

Americans with Windows Vista Ultimate or Windows Vista Premium can download an application that will turn their computer into a TV broadcaster. No Canadian release date has been set. The content - already hundreds of hours of TV shows and live concerts - is all being supplied by Microsoft for free. As with traditional broadcasting, there will be ads in place to make the venture profitable.

For those uninterested in buying an Xbox 360 to watch Internet TV broadcasts, the company announced the Home Media Extenders, which are basically little black boxes that sit on top of a person's TV and decode TV signals sent from a the computer.

Watching TV over the Internet has become a hot trend. Earlier this year, Apple Inc. released its Apple TV device in the U.S. In a similar fashion to Microsoft's technology, the device is capable of streaming movies and video from the Internet. It can also access files from a home computer. More than a million people have bought the unit so far. But as with Microsoft's new option, Canada is not much of a factor.

Then there is the well-documented Youtube phenomenon. The website hosts about 100 million videos, with 65,000 new videos uploaded daily and more than 20 million visits per month. For Microsoft, the company's latest assault on the living room will help to boost profits. People who want to watch Internet TV will need an Xbox 360 or a Media Extender and Windows Vista."

I guess if you already own an Xbox360 and Windows Vista this is ok.....no, wait, it still sucks! I really don't have any idea where these technology giants are trying to go. Ok, so my computer with internet access, a 300 GB hardrive, latest video card and surround sound speakers is sitting 20 feet away on my desk. But my media experience won't be complete until I buy this other thing which beams all that stuff over here to my 300 dollar game thing... what? I'm lost. I understand that you have a few old tv shows and whatnot available for free, but why not just put them on the internet so I can watch it on that new computer and Vista operating system you told me to buy?

I, myself, am not a gamer. I don't like playing them, I like even less watching them be played. However, I have had a chance to see the Live Marketplace where you can download movie rentals, even those in HD, directly to your Xbox. This seems quite nice. But I don't understand why Microsoft wouldn't make this available to it's PC users. Calling it a bigger market is the understatement of the year. And why is it that they charge for movies in a point system instead of dollar value? Is that simply to trick children into spending a bunch of money each month in downloads before they've realized it?

At the end of the day, Microsoft TV isn't really TV. It's just another place where you can download a clip here, or a clip there. Not really what many of us have been waiting for.