Digital Home Thoughts: The Future of the Living Room According to Microsoft

"Summer is a transition time for many people: the break between school years; a vacation before tackling another year of work; and for network television that's been a guest in our living rooms for so long, summer is a time of transition between seasons. It's appropriate then that we are also in the middle of a fundamental transformation of the technology in our living rooms. Traditional broadcast and cable TV are steadily being augmented and enjoyed in new ways such as ‘time-shifted' and on-demand TV via DVRs and other devices like the Xbox, PCs, tablets and even smartphones. Similarly, DVDs are being replaced by on-demand movie delivery via services such as Netflix and Hulu. And the standard 30- or 60-minute commercial program is no longer the only game in town - today's entertainment options are a vast cornucopia of content from ultra-short to full length, all delivered over the Internet."

Over the past decade I've seen a lot of these sorts of things coming from Microsoft - they all look like great ideas, but rarely do they come to fruition. Will this time be different? I'd like to think so - there's some compelling stuff in this video - but I'm not going to hold my breath...