Lately it seems like everyone's jumping into the Internet television pool, with AppleTV being one of the most prominent, but so far no one has emerged the victor or even proven that there's a market. That's opened the door for Netfix, which has just announced a new set-top box to be made by Roku.

Netflix, of course, already has a successful membership of DVD renters, and their new box builds on that platform. Basically it's a device you plug into your TV and it lets you watch certain Netflix movies via your broadband Internet connection. (Actually, these are the same movies you can watch today on your Windows computer with Netflix's "Watch Now" service -- but that service is not Mac compatible and doesn't easily let you watch movies on your TV.)

So far that doesn't sound much different from AppleTV. But Netflix's system is innovative in terms of cost: instead of users having to buy or rent movies on an individual basis, you get all the movies you want for the flat-rate Netflix subscription price you are already paying. You can still keep the DVDs you're renting -- the digital downloads feature is simply a bonus.

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