As we continue to sort out the future of web-sourced content, as delivered to our televisions, Hillcrest Labs has released the free Kylo browser (Windows, OS X). Similar to software offered by GlideTV and Zeevee’s Zinc, Kylo is a custom Mozilla app designed for couch-based content consumption. Assuming you have a computer connected to your television. Hillcrest, best known for motion remote control technology and now bankrolled by UEI, hopes you’ll consider their Loop in-air mouse ($99) to work the interface. Although iPhone owners are probably better served by Mobile Air Mouse Pro ($2, iTunes). And with TiVo, Roku, a bazillion connected Blu-ray players, the upcoming Boxee box, etc the number of folks resorting to PCs at their TVs will remain small.
Man, does Hulu suck. The app’s been out only a few hours and they’re already blocking access from Kylo. Hillcrest better change that user agent string to Firefox or similar… As 30 Rock/NBC’s Tina Fey says: “Suck it!” (NBC is of course the studio that founded Hulu.)
Hulu is very dysfunctional. I don’t recall networks prohibiting these services from accessing video on their own sites though, so if they are fine with that, what’s the big deal about Hulu.
This is just one of the reasons why I never understood why Hulu has been such a darling among tech crowd. I don’t want to be subjected to random restrictions, clips instead of full shows, and undecipherable content availability rules.
I sincerely hope that situation changes when Hulu goes to a subscription model.
Sorry to say it but Kylo is nothing like Zinc. This is basically a 10ft version of Opera’s Speed Dial.
Zinc gives you direct links to videos from various websites using RSS feeds. So all you need in a remote is up, down, left, right, enter, and backspace. A big plus is that if you know how to, you can set up an RSS feed and basically create your own channels in Zinc.
This is a great concept. I’m curious as to how the browser formats content. It would be great if Kylo could optimize RSS feeds in a slick presentation for the 10-foot experience.
Also, seems like it would be more beneficial to user if Kylo displayed a site’s mobile experience instead of the full blown 2-ft interface. Mobile design shares a lot of similarities with designing for 10-ft experiences.
As far as Hulu is concerned, I’m not sure what they’re deal is. They actually have a fantastic version of their interface designed for a 10-ft interface…which does them no good if they don’t allow access to it. My hypothesis would be they’re shopping around their product/service to different manufacturers and developing integrated solutions for certain companies (eg: televisions with built-in wireless could come with a lifetime ‘Hulu-pass’ for a bit of an extra cost). This could be a way to bypass subscriptions by tacking the cost of service onto hardware. Then again, I’m no businessman…so…