If you’re like me, you’ve got half a dozen places you can call that will bring a pizza to your house. How do you choose between them? Well, there’s the obvious stuff. Who’s cheaper? Who do you have a coupon for? Who gets you the pizza before it’s stone cold? Which pizza has the most intuitive user interface? Wait – that’s getting ahead of myself.  So each of these pizzas are like different Web TV boxes. You’ve got your Roku, your Apple TV, your Google TV, your Boxee Box, along with a bunch of other players.

Let’s say the hardware on the box is the crust. Some crusts are good and some are lousy. You want the right balance of chewy and crispy. You don’t want it too soaked in grease. You want a quiet fan, a decent processor, and a remote control you can figure out easily and use in the dark. If the crust sucks, the whole pizza is going to be inedible. If the box crashes all of the time, spilling the rest of the pizza on the floor, then you’re not going to want to connect it to your TV. Or something like that.

The software on the box is the cheese and sauce. Yeah, you can have a pizza without cheese, or one without sauce. But then you’re just going out of your way to break the metaphor, and it’s fragile enough as it is. So don’t do that. The cheese and the sauce are the user interface for the pizza. If you can navigate around, select content, do searches, whatever you want to do easily, then you’ve got good cheese and sauce. If things are laggy, or confusing, or just not fun to use then you’ve got lousy cheese and sauce. The best crust in the world is no good if you spread Velveeta on it and try to call it a pizza.

Lastly, you’ve got your toppings. Pepperoni, mushrooms, pineapple, pickled herring. This is your content. Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, funnycatvideos.net. Obviously some toppings, and some content, are more obscure than others. Maybe some pizza places have better pepperoni than others, but by and large if you’re getting pepperoni on your pizza, or Hulu on your box, then you’re getting pretty much the same thing.

Now, imagine that you really want pepperoni, but all of the pepperoni in the world is controlled by the National Pepperoni Company, and NPC doesn’t want to sell any pepperoni to, say, Googoli’s Pizzeria. So you’re not going to be able to get a pepperoni pizza from Googoli’s, no matter how much you like their crust, cheese and sauce. And you’re not going to get Hulu on your GoogleTV. If pepperoni is a deal-breaker for you, then you’d better order from someplace else. Until Googoli’s and NPC come to some kind of mutually beneficial understanding, and that’s a transaction that you’re not part of.

It works the other way too. If you really want a pickled herring pizza, then you might be forced to order from Scandio’s Scandinavian Pizza, even if their sauce is made out of ketchup. Nobody else has that obscure content deal, probably because there are so few customers for it.

So you’re probably thinking, “That’s a great and useful metaphor and all, but how does this relate to Kylo, the CES 2011 Innovation Award-Winning TV Browser?” Great question. To answer it, we have to go back to Metaphorland.

You see, if you’re in the mood for pizza, you might decide that you don’t want to order a pizza, you want to make one yourself. If you’re really dedicated you can start rolling out dough for a crust. If you’re a little lazier, you’ve got some kind of pre-made pizza crust that you can pile stuff on and throw in the oven. 

What you’re doing here is connecting a computer to your TV. Maybe it’s an HTPC (Home Theater PC) that you’ve specialty built out of components. Maybe it’s an off the shelf computer designed for this purpose, like a Dell Zino or a Mac Mini. (Some of these come a little closer to the “frozen pizza” neighborhood of Metaphorland.) In either case, you’ve got complete control over how your pizza turns out, including which toppings you put on there. Nothing’s stopping you from going to the store to pick up some pepperoni, regardless of what NPC might think. And nobody’s stopping you from putting Brussels sprouts and Jolly Ranchers on your pizza if your favorite web site happens to be http://www.watching-grass-grow.com.

So here (finally), we come to Kylo. Kylo is a pizza-making kit. It comes with cheese, sauce, and a whole lot of toppings. You go get your own crust, which could be a top of the line HTPC, or it could be a laptop that you’ve got sitting around collecting dust. You put Kylo on that crust/computer, you hook it up to your TV (umm…. Maybe that’s like baking it? We’re really in metaphor breakdown territory here…), and you end up with a really tasty pizza. Most importantly, you can use Kylo to go to any website in the world, or at least any website that you can get to with a regular computer and web browser. You can use the toppings on the Kylo Directory, or you can use your own.

The goal with Kylo is to make it easier and more fun for you to make exactly the pizza you want, even if your tastes change every day. You’re not locked in to anyone’s menu. Moreover, with Kylo you’ve got tools like Zoom built in, so even sites that you wouldn’t think would work well on a TV become very usable. That’s right, you can put salmon on your pizza and it’ll taste really good with Kylo. Or something like that.

Furthermore, if you’re using a computer instead of a dedicated box, then you’ve opened the door to doing lots of other things. Run iTunes. Play World of Warcraft. Use Skype to make video phone calls. Get a meatball sub and a Greek salad with your pizza.

In conclusion, whether you order a pizza or make one on your own, pizza is good. And internet content on the TV is good. There’s a nearly infinite variety of things to watch and to do on the Internet. Why wouldn’t you want all of that on your giant TV screen? Do you hate pizza? What’s wrong with you?

(Care to comment? http://kylo.tv/community/viewthread/271/ )

Google requires that all Google TV devices include a keyboard, arrow keys and a mouse controller. While the Logitech controller is big, the Sony one is small. The Logitech one looks like a PC keyboard and the Sony version looks like a game controller. Personal preferences vary between the two devices because some people like the smaller controller on their couch while others like the easier to understand full keyboard.

Our feeling is that no one should have to choose between them when an in-air mouse can do it all. It is possible to run products like Google TV using a stable and precise controller like the Loop pointer.

And better still, the software on Google TV is tantalizingly close to ready straight out of the box. The standard mouse driver works, so you can plug in a wireless mouse or a Loop pointer and use it today. Most of the user interface and applications will work. Some apps like the Chrome browser are even better because the pointer makes everyday page scrolling much easier, and it’s faster to click on links.

Some of the new apps for Google TV are well designed for either cursor keys or a pointer. This feature makes sense because both the Sony and Logitech remotes have integrated cursor keys and track-pads. The Vevo app is an excellent example of dual design because you can move up-down-left-right or use simple point-click-scroll actions to control the app. Pandora works well too. The Loop, however, offers a distinct advantage since it uses just 3 buttons instead of 85. Unfortunately, some of the new apps gratuitously ignore the pointer leading us to believe that implementation guidelines for Google TV apps would benefit from both approaches. It’s quite simple for a Google TV app to support cursor keys AND point-and-click control. Developers should do it! The interaction would be less confusing, and the apps more flexible and future proof.

Reviewers are sensing this already. Recent comments include:

“...when you are just leaning back and relaxing, you still have these honking big remotes…”

“...comes with another potential irritant -  a remote control that may intimidate all but the most digitally savvy users.”

“...you’ve got multiple interface paradigms that are competitive rather than complementary…”

“That’s Not a Remote; That’s a Speak ‘n Spell!”

Some people consider this ridiculous because we put pointers on computers 25 years ago and smart phones are adding pointing with every new model. Today, the quality of technology for in-air pointing is so good that this is a fantastic opportunity for Google TV 2.0.

The mission of Kylo is to bring the entire Web to the television set. The Web was built with mice in mind, and so Kylo remains focused on having a pointing experience. This can be with a Loop pointer, a wireless mouse, a trackpad, a trackball, or even a regular old mouse with a really long cord. We’ve seen plenty of people rolling their mice on the arms of their couches, and it’s entirely workable.

There are a large number of users, though, who have been hooking their computers up to their televisions for a long time before Kylo came around. Many of these users use software such as Windows Media Center to access their content. Systems such as these are typically based on using a four-directional, or UDLR*, remote control. Four arrows and an OK button, and you can get to most of what you might want to do. Remote controls like this are ubiquitous and cheap, and have been used for all sorts of consumer electronic devices for years. You probably have three or four lying around your living room right now.

While we believe that the experience of surfing the web will always be better with a pointer, we can’t deny that there are people who just want to occasionally do some light web surfing without having to switch remotes. For those users, we’ve taken a step forward in version 0.8 of Kylo. It’s a bit of a hidden feature, though.

In the Settings menu, under Controls, there’s now a checkbox labeled “Allow arrow keys to control cursor”. If this checkbox is turned on, then Kylo will be set up to respond to the keyboard arrow keys (up, down, left and right), moving the mouse cursor on the screen in response to keyboard presses. The Enter key becomes mapped to a mouse left button, to click on links or on the Kylo buttons.

So that lets you use a keyboard instead of a mouse. Which, on the face of it, sounds like a giant step backward. The magic here is that most Windows Media Center remotes operate by mapping their buttons to the same keyboard presses. So in many cases with no additional work you can use these remotes with Kylo just as if you were using a somewhat clunky mouse. There are limitations, of course - you can’t move diagonally, you can’t randomly jump to points on the screen, you can’t drag and drop. But for navigating web links, it works surprisingly well.

We’ve incorporated ballistic motion into the cursor movement, so holding down the buttons results in faster movement over time. And in the Settings you can customize the speed of this movement a bit, to find a setting that you’re most comfortable with.

At the end of the day, using the web for extended periods of time with an UDLR remote will never be as easy as using a mouse or other pointing device. But sometimes you don’t want the smoothest way to get there, you just want to get there. Now with Kylo, you can.

*Affectionately pronounced “oo-dler”

To start with, let’s talk about Clicker…

Clicker isn’t a source of internet video; it’s a guide to television-quality video from all over the net. There are hundreds and thousands of places you could go to watch video on the net. Clicker acts as a one-stop shop. They comb through the rest of the net and put the best stuff all in one place, primarily television shows and television clips. There are thousands of shows that you’ve heard of, and tens of thousands that you probably haven’t, including loads of shows created just for the Internet. If your Internet viewing has been restricted to YouTube and Hulu, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the wide range of other content that’s out there.

In the newest version of Kylo, we’ve integrated Clicker directly into our URL bar.  Typing any term in the URL bar will automatically bring up a selection of Clicker links. From there you might end up going to Amazon Video on Demand, iTunes, or any number of other sites. Some of these are premium sites, where you’ll have to pay to watch. Many are free. The Clicker site is very clear about distinguishing these, so you won’t end up accidentally getting charged for anything. When you’re done watching, you can always come back to your Kylo URL bar to get started again.

If you’d rather not make use of Clicker, no problem - just go to the Settings menu and disable it. But give it a spin before you do - you might get hooked.

(Okay, in deference to our many Kylo users outside of the United States, it’s worth mentioning that Clicker does index an awful lot of content that’s only playable in the US. So no guilt from us if you want to go ahead and turn off that feature.)

At first glance the results are not surprising. The most popular two sites for Kylo users are YouTube and Netflix. The networks predominate the top 20.

Beyond this however there are some intriguing winners. Facebook is not designed for viewing in the TV environment, but with the Kylo zooming feature, Facebook takes the #3 slot.

We also see that music on the TV is quite popular with three music sites in the top 20: Pandora, Vevo and VH1. It’s worth noting that Pandora is typically not used to watch videos of any kind so many Kylo users are converting their TVs into power stereos of the 21st century.

Another revealing winner is Farmville. At slot #18, it is the only game in the top twenty. If you play Farmville you know that it easily zooms to full screen and that the huge majority of game play is controlled simply by a mouse – or an in-air mouse like the Loop pointer.

We plan to update Kylo Klicks on a regular basis so to track emerging trends with the web on TV. Stay tuned.

The official site for all FIFA information is www.fifa.com.  You can view highlights, listen to the matches and soak in the World Cup atmosphere. 

To view live games, you can visit http://www.univision.com.  This site is in Spanish, but provides you a link on the top right to change to English.  Select “Watch LIVE” to view the game.  Note that the video commentary is in Spanish.  ESPN 3 is also broadcasting the games, but you will need the login credentials from your ISP.

It is going to be an exciting month of fantastic football.  Enjoy the videos and be sure to share this momentous day with fellow fans from across the world.

One feature that is likely to attract your attention is the capability to configure the Kylo browser to access Hulu.  Kylo is simply a Web browser based on open-source Mozilla code, like Firefox.  We fully respect the rights of content owners and aggregators, and as such, we do not deep link, re-index, divert users past ads, or overlay different user interfaces on video players.  However, we believe consumers should be able to use the Kylo browser to visit any site on the Web on the display screen of their choice.  Our hope is that a respectful dialog with Hulu will encourage them to consider changing their policies.

New Features of the Kylo Browser Beta 0.7 include:

• Windows Media Center launcher – A new Kylo plug-in is now available for Windows Media Center. This feature enables people who use Windows Media Center on their computer connected to their HDTV to launch Kylo and then easily return to other Windows Media Center applications after surfing the Web.

• Auto-hide control bar – Users can now select an auto-hide feature for the Kylo control bar. For video sites that do not offer full screen mode, this gives users the maximum viewing space possible. The Kylo control bar conveniently reappears when the cursor is directed at the bottom of the screen with a mouse or Loop pointer.

• Domain-specific user agent string setting – Advanced users can now change the user agent string used by Kylo using the application’s new settings.  This feature, used in other conventional browsers, can improve compatibility with some Web sites like Hulu, and can enable Kylo users to view sites that are designed for other platforms like the Apple® iPad, Nintendo Wii™ or Sony PlayStation®.

• Better zoom indication – The new Kylo makes it easier to discover and use Kylo’s zoom capabilities for reading Web pages at a distance across the living room.

• Default zoom level setting – This new setting allows the user to set a minimum zoom setting for all Web pages, which is particularly useful for Kylo users with 1080 HD resolution settings.

• Enable/disable auto keyboard – In its default setting, Kylo automatically presents its on-screen keyboard to enter text on Web sites as appropriate.  With the new version of Kylo, users who typically have a keyboard handy can select this setting to keep the on-screen keyboard hidden.

• Multiscreen support on Mac – Mac users can now target their secondary screen as the main browser screen for the Kylo browser.  This capability previously existed for PC users only.

• Printing – With many home computers now linked via WiFi or Ethernet to a networked printer, Kylo users can conveniently print from their TV browser.

• Updated directory of links – The Kylo directory, which serves as a fast index to top sites, has been updated with a variety of new and increasingly popular sites, like RadioTime and several photo sites, to further expand the experience of Web surfing in the living room.  The directory contains links to dozens of sites across a range of topics including: TV, movies, music, sports, games, and more.  Users can also continue to use Kylo’s bookmark feature to set up their own personal, visual directory of their favorite sites. 

Download the latest version of Kylo Browser here.