An internet on-demand system for television presents internet content and
traditional television programming as part of a single coherent interface.
The system includes a server and a client capable of providing a dynamic
graphical user interface. The system can display an internet gateway
interface which actively scrolls through and highlights links to selected
web pages which are organized according to templates corresponding to
their content. The web pages are presented on the graphical user interface
as channels as part of the same milieu as channels of traditional
television programming. The user can select a channel from a rotary menu
wheel or via channel-up, channel-down buttons on the remote control
device. An intelligent agent passively filters selected web pages for a
user to explore based on the user's past pattern of usage of the client.
The server queries the client regarding its available data stream
connections, including telephone modems, cable modems, wireless
telecommunications and digital satellite broadcasting, regarding its
ability to detect embedded data in TV signals, in order to determine the
most efficient delivery of different types of data through all of the
available bandwidth connections for both directions of data flow. The
efficient delivery of data allows the client to present text, graphics,
video, audio and other multimedia information from a web page over the
internet as a coordinated presentation.