A Better TV Remote Control for Internet Television

To access many of the new amazing services and features available on Internet TV, a new type of remote control is needed. Laura Nelson from Logitech showed me during the CES trade show that users need more than a simple combined TV remote and wireless keyboard. There are some special buttons, controls, and functions that can dramatically make using Internet TV intuitive and easy. A better TV remote combines a full Qwerty keyboard, mouse trackpad, and includes other keys that can be used to control advanced television features. An important control is an input selection that allows the viewer to choose from set top box, audio video receiver, or television. A navigation panel that includes back (previous steps), home (personal screen), favorites (marked channels and media), and dual view (window within a window) is included. There is a dedicated search key that starts the search function which allows the viewer to find TV channels, programs, or other media. There are also some shortcut buttons such as the guide (to bring up the program guide), DVR (to store programs on a media recorder), and a TV button (switches to TV mode). There are other dedicated keys such as volume controls, channel up and down keys, and others. Because Internet TV can have many new features (and some additional features in the future), a menu button is used to change the functions of some of the keys (such as zoom in, zoom out).