Looks like the FCC wants to replace your Cable Card with, I don’t know, something useful. The new device, dubbed “AllVid,” would work with a variety of media—TVs, computers, and the like—to deliver “multichannel video programming and Internet content.” And I’m the Queen of England~!
AllVid was proposed by FCC president Julius Genachowski at a fancy meeting yesterday. It’s probably a fine idea—I don’t know if you can call the Cable Card any sort of success—but the reception seems mixed. And this is the reaction by other FCC people—they’re all but rolling their eyes, partly because, you know, let the private market work itself out.
I guess the pie-in-the-sky idea is for some company to come up with a brand new, totally amazing device (like our inanimate carbon rod friend here) that allows your to receive over-the-air TV signals, cable and satellite signals, and everything in between, and output said signal to a TV or computer screen or mobile phone screen.
That’s probably not going to happen, no, but I can think of something that’s pretty close: it’s called Usenet. Use it while it’s still around.