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The concept of interactive television is not new, with companies like Philips developing such systems as the Philips CDi. CDi stands for Compact Disc interactive. The idea here is that you connect the Philips system to you television, and you play the CDi's viewed on the television. These interactive CDs included games and other interactive software controlled via remote control or some other external peripheral.
Development in this area has seen a change in the media used with the television and the television itself. So the latest developing equivalent to the Philips CDi is the interactive Internet television. The Internet television is simply a television that is connected to the Internet, which can be used to surf, download data and send data. With the use of cable television technology the idea of the Internet television isn't far fetched. Modern cable television companies used fiber optic technology to transmit television signals. But this media can also be used to send any other digitalised data like that used on the Internet. This transmission media has been improved to support larger volumes of data being sent at faster rates. This new system is supposed to be the ultimate home communications system, allowing the user to communicate via email, online chat, fax, voice, file transfer and video phone. The finished, fully developed system would be voice command or touch screen controlled but that is still a long way away. |