While the war rages in Iraq the battle of the television networks to capture viewers on the Internet has heated up.

Some commentators claim that the Iraq war may be the "defining moment" for streaming news media, in much the same way that Cable News Network came into its own with its non-stop coverage of the Persian Gulf War. Perhaps, but there's still a long way to go.

Streaming media refers to audio and video broadcast over the Internet. Some television broadcasters are offering streaming video news for free right now while others have started paid-subscription sites. ABC News and Yahoo! subscription-only site costs about US$10 a month and includes ABC television news and the RealNetworks RealOne player "SuperPass" service.

The RealOne services include live sports and highlights from MLB.com, NBA.com, Nascar.com, Pgatour.com and FoxSports.

CNN, the channel where military generals serve as commentators, offers a similar service with RealNetworks for the same price. An example of true streaming video can be found at the service provided by Toronto's Pulse News.

The station provides streaming video live, as if you were watching their channel on the television. Canada's CTV network ended a similar service last month due it said to the high cost of providing the feed. Canada's CBC still provides its nightly news broadcast on the Internet for free.

Streaming radio and television is really the first wave in the transformation of your computer or some other sort of "box" into a complete home entertainment centre from which you can play games or call up radio, television and film to listen to or view on demand.

You can already do all of these things over the Internet on your computer, but the quality, especially that of streaming movies, can be poor. If you do not have broadband services forget about the whole idea and stick to your cable television service. For a full list of free streaming television sites visit http://broadband-television.com, which lists all the available channels in English, French, German and Spanish. These sites are targeting expatriates who are away from their home country but who still want to keep up with the local news.

They are also targeting those at work who are more likely to have broadband connections at the office. Bosses can take succour in a recent study that shows that personal Web surfing at work may not take away from productivity.

The National Technology Readiness Survey, conducted by the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business surveyed 501 people in December 2002 and found that people with Web access at home and at work spend an average of 3.7 hours per week surfing sites for personal use at work.

The survey also found that such employees spend more time, 5.9 hours per week, logging on from home so they can work.

This is a bizarre discovery, if true. I guess it is the guilt kicking in or a good means of avoiding a spouse or everyone is lying. "Thus, the Internet seems to have a net effect of shifting work to home more than personal activities to work," the study concludes.

"Looking at the shift in time in a different way, of those who have computer access at both home and work, 47 percent spend more time using the Internet at home for work purposes than at work for personal reasons. Only 27 percent spend more time on personal pursuits than they give back at work. And, 25 percent report shifting their hours between venues evenly, spending as much time on personal business at work as on work business at home."

When people have access at work but not at home, they may take advantage of the work access for personal reasons.

Such workers conduct an average of 6.5 hours of personal business at work. However, people with home access but no work access may also use their home system for work, an average of 3.7 hours. The survey suggests companies should accept some personal use of the Internet at work as not only inevitable but as positive to the organisation.

I would go even further and state that the study suggests businesses should consider subsidising home Internet use at least in part."Many people may conduct personal business at work because the workplace offers more desirable infrastructure such as high-speed connections," the study states.

"And, most modern PCs still require an effort to boot up, so consumers may be more likely to conduct personal business on the job where their computer is on all day. The growth in e-services creates new reasons to go online that might be conducted during the workday. In the other direction, computers give workers new-found freedom.

"For example, a person can now leave the job early enough to have dinner with the family, and finish up business on the Internet afterwards."

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Tech Tattle deals with issues in technology. Contact Ahmed at editoroffshoreon.com