Tag: Future TV

TV and Killer Apps

The Financial Times recently released a special report titled “Digital and Social Media Marketing.” The folks at Social Commerce summarized the lengthy release and drew out several bullet points I find especially interesting regarding the state of television:

  1. The average American still spends about five hours a day glued to TV; the smart money in digital is being invested in making TV advertising better
  2. TV is not dead, it is just evolving into a two screen experience, the TV display and a tablet or smartphone. “Lean-back” TV experiences, passively consumed from the comfort of the couch, are giving way to “lean-in” TV experiences, where viewers multitask viewing and interacting on smartphones and tablets
  3. A survey by Time Warner’s Medialab found that 65 per cent habitually multitask with a digital device while watching TV. Much of this activity is in social media discussions of TV shows (tripled in the last 12 months), stimulated by TV networks to sell TV advertising space by showing their content is more engaging

    4. This report only confirms what I had previously suspected: multitasking is now widespread. I used to think only younger demographics multitasked but it seems that these days people of all ages use tablets or smartphones while doing other tasks. It’s done by business execs but also by those in the home. People use their smartphones or tablets while talking on the phone and while watching TV.

    Since the late 1990s I have used a laptop while sitting in front of the TV. I now often use a tablet, but until the devices came out, I was the only one in my house who took advantage of a second screen. Now my wife and the grandkids play games or surf the Web on their tablets while watching TV. In a sense this qualifies as part of the two-screen living room experience but I believe this model has enormous potential when the device is intrinsically tied to TV viewing itself.

    There are currently a lot of apps designed to enhance the TV viewing experience. I have Comcast’s XFINITY TV app, which lets me record programs remotely; the IMDB app, which gives me info on movies, TV shows, actors, and entertainers; the TV Guide app; and more. All better my TV experience but I believe that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the future of two screens in the living room.

    When the Apple II came out in 1978, Visicalc, the first PC spreadsheet, was developed for it. It became the killer app that moved the machine from hobbyist stature to the business world and it quickly became a tool that even large businesses started using to manage their financial forecasting. When the IBM PC came out, a product called Lotus 1-2-3 became its killer app that caused the IBM to take off like wildfire in a short time. The key for both of these products’ growth was what the industry calls an SDK, or a software developer kit, which provides tools for developers to write applications for the machines. In fact, tens of thousands of apps fueled the growth of the IBM PC and PC clones as well as the Mac and to this day remain an important part of their software ecosystems.

    Various companies have been creating smart TVs, Web browsers, and their own apps but what is missing is a dedicated SDK that can work on one or multiple PC platforms and encourage the development of apps for the TV. More importantly, this SDK focus should be more on the tablet or the smartphone and how they connect to the TV to deliver a richer viewing experience. I think we will soon see a model in which the TV is just a smart screen with apps designed to work with it via tablet, smartphones, and perhaps PCs or laptops.
    There has been a lot of talk about an Apple TV and I actually have a bet with my son on this. I think it will make a physical TV as well as a new souped up set-top box that gives all digital TVs access to its program. My son, on the other hand, believes the real magic will be with the SDK and a new Apple TV box. He says it doesn’t make sense for Apple to make an actual TV at this time. However, we both believe that the Apple TV focus will be on the iPhone and iPad; the TV will be more of a screen that is tied to and interacts with an ecosystem. It could ultimately change the way we view television and, in true Apple fashion, redefine the second-screen concept.

    Just look at what Google is doing with Google TV. It too has a similar model in mind. Android TV apps are already popping up but the platform needs a dedicated SDK that just focuses on the TV to give developers the ability to create products that make the two-screen experience fly. Microsoft is also trying to drive a two-screen experience, albeit through the Xbox at the moment. I expect the company to flesh this out further in the near future.

    It will be very interesting to watch what happens in the coming months with this two-screen concept. Google, Apple, and Microsoft all have their big software developers’ conferences within weeks (and miles) of each other. (Google I/O begins on May 15, Apple’s WWDC on June 10, and Microsoft’s Build 2013 conference on June 26.) They will all likely announce big news around their new operating systems and development tools for their core products, but I also expect that they will make clear their plans for a future TV.
    The connection between smart TVs and mobile devices is still in infancy. This could be the year however, when these mobile devices take on a more interactive role within the TV viewing experience. By July we may finally get a real glimpse of what the two-screen TV future will actually look like.

Interactive TV Trends – How the TV Experience is Changing

The article below is the first in a three part series describing key interactive TV trends. This first article looks at new technologies to control the TV – and how the TVs future ability to recognize users will allow it to tailor content choices and preferences. The second article in the series will examine how multiple screens of the PC, tablet, smart phone and TV will alter the TV experience. Finally the third article discusses new trends in image processing and why major improvements in picture quality are still necessary

Credit: Soft Kinetic
Part 1: Where’s the Remote? Controlling the TV with your Gestures and Voice
The convergence of the internet and broadcast TV is changing the way we will interact with the TV set. Convergence is enabling the use of the TV for gaming, social interaction and new ways to watch content. As the internet and broadcast TV continue to intertwine – the way we interact to the TV will continue to evolve. This evolution will focus on finding new ways to fuse interactive functions to work well in the “lean back” TV experience. Nobody wants to “lean in” on the TV in the living room; this is why early attempts to simply graft a PC to the back of a TV were never going to create a useable interactive TV. The industry is finding new ways to bridge the internet more naturally into the TV experience. This is the first in a series of three articles explaining key trends in interactive TV and the technologies that are being developed to support them.

Improvements in the way we interact with the TV start with how we control the TV. Gesture recognition technologies are a very promising development – especially command gestures that do not require a remote. The Xbox Kinect is probably the most compelling example of the importance of this trend. The Kinect works by combining the use of a camera, and light emitter and receiver as well as voice control. The combination of these capabilities enables the Kinect to recognize you, watch and understand your physical movements and gestures, as well as understand voice commands. This results in an interactive experience that enables remote free gesture control. You can control the TV and games by using hand gesture. For games, this is great as it allows a more immersive experience.

For example, by detecting your body’s movements and articulation – your movements are translated to your avatar representation on the screen. For action games, you simply mimic the movements as though you were skiing, dancing or playing tennis. This technology can also be used to control the viewing experience on TV. A typical example is viewing menu pages or video thumbnails – you can move options or pages around by a wave of your hand. Future advances could allow for more intuitive controls as well as systems that integrate coordinated gesture controls from your tablet to your PC.

Apple’s new Siri improved voice control is also a promising technology that could have a place in the interactive TV world. Siri enables people to speak to machines in a more natural way. The Siri technology includes a semantic sensitivity – that can find meaning in your statement to help it understand you better. This has huge implications in the interactive TV world where we need this type of personalized control especially when we convey our intentions, preferences and feedback to search and discovery.

There are consistent rumors that Apple is working on an Apple branded TV or at least an improved version of their Apple TV media box. They could easily apply the Siri voice control capability to the control of the TV. (As we will discuss in the next series, Apple’s combination of the multi-screens in the home and their elegant interface to the cloud creates a TV ecosystem that could pose a threat to existing TV OEMs.)

TV OEMs like Samsung have been experimenting with remote free gesture control for a while. Samsung, Toshiba and others have shown these technologies at CES over the years. But there is no large scale market availability. That said, in China, mega TV maker Hisense announced that it will be shipping a remote-free gesture control TV starting this month. On the voice side, besides Xbox, there are several electronics companies that have been working on standalone voice activation TV remotes. Voice activation on a remote or a tablet may have a lot of advantages. For one, it is easier for the TV to isolate who it should listen to when there are several people in the room. It will be interesting to see what will come out at CES 2012 on these technologies.

Remote free gesture and voice control are excellent solutions for overcoming the lean back environment of the living room TV. And these capabilities will only get better as the underlying software, user interface, electronic program guide and menu systems improve. The methods of controlling the TV will also become more efficient as TVs take on their ability to personalize their menus for either an individual or a group in the household. In short, TVs will have the capability to recognize us and present a tailored list of menus and services when we come into their vicinity.

Personalization in general is a key trend on the internet. We see that many interactive programs attempt to improve their services by personalizing their user experiences. Examples include the voting function “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on Pandora allowing it to tailor an individual’s song selection. The interactive TV will also take on capabilities to personalize menu options as well as content and service preferences. This represents a new level of convenience in terms of controlling the TV, as the TV will only be presenting options that you really care about.

To enable this, smart phones or tablets interacting with the TV through WiFi, Bluetooth or other interactive technologies can also identify users to the TV. Alternatively or in addition, TVs could use camera technology just like cameras are used in our hand held devices and laptop computers. Cameras together with facial recognition algorithms can do a good job to see who walks into the room. Imagine entering your living room or den and the TV automatically brings up options dialed into your specific preferences and interests. The TV can also set up all kinds of services and capabilities that are tied to your needs. The system can stand ready to serve up your favorite TV shows, download music for your run or commute, enable or disable your home security system, regulate the sprinkler system if it is raining, and update you on the whereabouts of family and friends.

Preferences do not have to be limited to individuals. TVs will also be able to recognize groups of people such as your whole family sitting together, the kids only or even the family dog and will serve tailored content and service options appropriate to each group.

The TV can be programmed to personalize its menus when the entire family or various subsets of the family is sitting in the front of the TV. The TV greets the family and immediately serves up some appropriate video, audio or service options. The father can ask the TV through a voice command to display the photographs from the recent family trip to Hawaii and provide some Hawaiian background music. During the slide show, the family can also ask the TV to dial in a distant grandparent to join the review of slides. If a child asks a question such as when Hawaii became a state – the TV can search video, webpage or blog content on Hawaii’s history. Likewise, if the family suddenly has an interest in buying a surfboard, the TV can put together a list of interactive ads from local surfboard shops.

Of course, it can be unnerving for some to contemplate this type of interaction with a TV or any machine for that matter. Thoughts of Space Odyssey 2001 may come to mind. There is no doubt that the preferences and choices made through an interactive TV represent valuable information to advertisers and retailers. The technology should also provide consumers strong privacy controls. But the advantages of personalization will outweigh the concerns of letting “HAL” loose in the home. In terms of control – it is much easier to control what you want if the TV is familiar with your preferences.

The technology driving gesture control, voice commands and cameras with facial recognition are available today. We are likely to see incorporation of these types of concepts in TVs next year. As the internet makes further inroads into our living room TV – we can expect to see the use of these tools to improve our ability to interact and maintain our feet-up laid-back position on the couch.