The Idiot Box Gets Smart

Unlimited downloading is the final TV frontier. A new gadget, teamed with Netflix, tries to realize the dream

One thing I hate: buying music. I haven't bought a CD or MP3 in years. Instead, I subscribe to music. I pay a small monthly fee to Rhapsody, an online digital-music service, and can access most of the world's music--more than 5 million songs--by streaming it via the Net to my home audio system. I can listen to just about any song I want, anytime, anywhere. That's known in the geekosphere as "music dial tone."

So where's video dial tone? I'd love to subscribe to a service that gives me any TV show or movie I want for a flat fee....

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