Hillcrest Labs builds TV-friendly Kylo browser for its Loop pointer, Hulu promptly blocks it
In what is becoming a depressingly familiar tale, Hillcrest Labs has just released a free new browser based on Mozilla with a TV-friendly UI designed for control from the couch, but despite these friendly and standards-compliant underpinnings, Hulu has already managed to block the Kylo browser, mere hours out of the gate. Apparently Hulu worked fine in testing all the way up to launch, and Hillcrest Labs is looking for a solution as we speak. Hillcrest, Boxee feels your pain.
Meanwhile, we played around with Kylo a bit using one of those Loop pointers for gyroscope-based cursor control, and found the mousing experience just as intuitive as ever, setup non-existent (we tested on a Mac, but it's easy on a PC as well), and the browser nicely unobtrusive and distance friendly. Typing with the onscreen keyboard is about exactly as nice as typing with your mouse, which is to say "not preferred," but completely doable in a pinch. The address bar has the same sort of URL prediction we've come to know and love in modern browsers, though we wouldn't mind if it pulled in our Firefox history to round out the database from the start. In theory we also think the Loop pointer could provide some sort of more intuitive control for zooming and panning, but overall it's a simple, clean UI that should at least beat out your PS3 or Wii browser for this sort of duty -- if you're smart enough and rich enough to get your PC or Mac plugged into your TV, or have an extra one to spare. The browser also of course works with any old mouse you might having lying around, but Hillcrest Labs sure hopes you'll make the Right Choice. Check out a video of the browser and Loop pointer in action after the break. %Gallery-88725%
