There are several of them. What are they called?
"channels" on Roku, as on broadcast television not "stations" as on broadcast radio
"services" from Google, no, "products", 'no", apps, in Wikipedia; "services and tools", actually all of these names for the multiple Google possibilities can be found right on Google's own pages
"apps" for iPad and iPhone
The reason this matters is that using a good name for the multiple possibilities makes it easier to recognize and remember that there are multiple possibilities.
We have two television streamers, machines that connect wirelessly to our router and extract from the internet some signals of television. They are both connected to our tv and after pressing the right buttons on the correct remote (we are working with 4 of them), we get the selection. Not the straightforward, old-fashioned broadcast tv, like NBC and CBS but more specialized signals such as Netflix and Amazon TV. The first streamer we got was a Roku and we got it simply because the envelope for returning a Netflix DVD through the mail advertised those two organizations as possibilities.
We had already been alerted by a Wired magazine article entitled "The Death of Television". That was a typically sensationalistic title but the point was that streaming by Roku and other streaming organizations, television free (so far) of ads, was very attractive and was and is pulling many of those who used to watch the standard broadcasts away.
Our other television streamer picks up the signal from Amazon TV. Unlike the Roku, it seems a little harder to understand the organization. Roku makes clear that there are quite a few channels that I can add to my Roku array but many of them have a monthly or other fee associated with them. Amazon has a large selection of movies and tv shows that are free if you buy the Amazon Prime deal.
The point is that many re-runs, such as Cheers and Ballykissangel, as well as a large number of original shows are available only through streaming. If you are not looking for movies or tv outside of the broadcast channels, you might be interested in the Google services/products/apps. They are all free and they include widely different activities, such as shopping, maps including of the ocean floors and "Scholar", a search engine of academic, university and professional research.
If you are looking for something different, try the app store on an iPhone or iPad. There are over a million of them. Many of them are games. Quite a few are "productivity" apps, such as word processors or audio recorders. I use the Weather Channel app several times a day. I like the by-the-hour probability of precipitation. It helps me plan my day.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
