Apple TV to fight Google

One week after Google announced its bid for the hearts and eyes of America's TV viewers with Internet-based Google TV, its Silicon Valley rival is reportedly poised to overhaul its own offering, Apple TV.

The stakes are high. Whoever wins could play a leading role in one of the great technological transformations of recent memory by piping limitless video and other content from the Internet and television to the small screen. Americans spend several hours a day in front of their televisions, creating what some analysts estimate to be a $150-billion advertising market. "A generation from now, people simply won't believe how limited the world of linear programming was, the same way people under 30 today can't relate to 12 channels and a knob," said Jim Lanzone, chief executive of Clicker.com, an Internet TV programming guide. Nearly 40% of consumers said they wanted to connect their computers to their televisions to watch online video, according to a recent survey by Frank N. Magid Associates. Yet Internet television has remained largely a pipe dream for the brightest, richest technology companies, including Microsoft.