Internet-While-TV
The only significant attempt to date to merge television and the Internet, WebTV, does little more than make the Internet available as one more TV channel. WebTV is an Internet-or-TV proposition. Network Computer, Inc. focuses on a different model: Internet-while-TV, or Enhanced TV. True merging of television and the Internet exploits Internet resources to extend and enhance the TV viewing experience with a range of hybrid programming and services.

	Typical Hybrid Programming & Services for Enhanced TV Content is king, and Enhanced TV will offer consumers entirely new forms of programming and services for entertainment, enlightenment, and communication.
	•	Enhanced Program Guides
	•	Personalized News/Information
	•	Interactive Sports Networks
	•	Family/Interactive Learning
	•	Games
	•	TV Chat or Vote
	•	Interactive Shopping, Banking, Travel Planning

What Is Hybrid Programming?
Hybrid programming combines content from different data sources. For example, closed captioning and Teletext are kinds of hybrid television programming that have been around for some time now-all it requires is a TV set with the capability of displaying the captions to enhance the main program.

In the same way, Internet-enabled or "smart" TVs will present hybrid programming that combines television with content from the World Wide Web. As far as what kinds of hybrid programming and services will succeed, consumer tastes and desires will of course drive the market. But the possibilities are rich and varied. Imagine, from the consumer's point of view, watching your favorite sitcom and at the same time chatting with other viewers, or family members across town, about turns of the plot, or voting on your opinion of the leading actress' new hair style. Imagine news programming that's customized to your personal interests-with a ticker of your stocks and mutual funds running in real time across the bottom of the screen. Imagine traffic information on TV that's specific to your commute route. Gameshows you can play along with. Advertising and product information based only on what you are in the market for. Interactive meetings on your community, your schools, your interests-all in the comfort of your living room, and as easy to access and participate in as watching TV.

Personalized, Interactive, and Easy
Enhanced TV allows consumers to access virtually every page of the World Wide Web as easily as they watch television, and to link to television programming from any appropriate Web page. But the true breakthrough of Enhanced TV is this: it exploits the personal, interactive nature of the Internet to personalize television and make it interactive, too-while preserving TV's consumer-friendly ease of use.