Internet Now Third-Most-Popular Source For Fun And NewsFor Americans by Ralph Bond (NAPSA)—Just the other day, I found my 18-year-old son laughing at the antics of Gilligan and Intel introduced the world to socalled “entertainment PCs” based on its new Intel Viiv technology. Intel Viiv technology-based surfer, like me, you know that reruns of “Gilligan’s Island,” a sitcom icon of pop TV in the 1960s, are still a part of our TV landscape. But my son wasn’t lounging on the couch with a TV remote in his hand. He was watching Gilligan do his thing on his PC, thanks to AOL’s new free video service. It’s all part of the increasing importance of the Internet and our home PCs as a growing source of entertainment and news. According to a Nielsen study released in January of 2006 by the Television Bureau of Advertising of Dell, HP, Gateway, Alienware, WinBook and Shuttle, are designed with advanced video and audio features, making them thebest players for the emerging world of Web the skipper. If you’re a TV channel (TVB), the Internet now ranks in position three in the stack of how Americans allocate their free time, just behind TV and radio, and ahead of newspapers and magazines. The survey of 1,183 people found that U.S. adults spent an average of 264.5 minutes per 24 hours watching TV, compared to 125.5 minutes for radio, 85 for the Internet, 20 for newspapers and 16.3 with magazines. As the parent of a teenager and 22-year-old daughter, I can tell you entertainment PCs, from the likes multimedia entertainment. To give firsthand that, among that age group, I’d reckon the Internet and PC already occupy the majority of their free time. And this trend has not been lost on PC makers and the Webindustry titans. Web powerhouses like Yahoo! and AOL are aggressively leveraging the Internet to capture more of America’s entertainment free time. This year, for example, AOL launched its AOL Video service, loaded with free and pay video fun, including a collection of vintage TV shows found in the “In2TV” AOL Television service. And the world’s computer crowd is far from asleep at the wheel. During the same month that TVB issued its surveyresults, them the ability to shift from a traditional PC mode to a pure entertainment experience, Microsoft’s Media Center Edition of the Windows XP operating system is employed to provide simple menus to seamlessly access Internet entertainment or personal digital photos, music and videos stored on the PC. Most models come equipped with a remote control, giving the PC a more consumer electronics personality. And some even sport a TV tuner, allowing users to watch or record TV programs. For more about the TVB study, visit www.broadcastingcable.com and use keyword “TVB Study.” And for everything about the world of Intel Viiv technology entertainment PCs, go to www.intel.com/viiv. Ralph Bondis Intel Corporation’s Consumer Education Manager.
