In a move to head off Media Centre PCs and other threats to their living room domination, the world's largest television makers have agreed to create a common standard for directly connected IPTV (TV broadcast over the internet).

Media Centre PCs have so far mostly proved a clunky failure. But with one eye on the rapid rise of broadband, Sony (or its consumer electronics division, at least) has taken the lead in cajoling rivals into taking a joint approach to promoting flat screen TVs with built-in ethernet, and support for home networking and copy protection. The company sees web-enabled TVs becoming standard by 2011 (at least in countries where digital TV and broadband are persuasive). Sony says the IPTV intiative will be based on open standards, including Linux.

So far Sony, Matsushita (owner of Panasonic and JVC), Sharp, Toshiba and Hitachi have joined the Japan-based initiative.