Millions
of homes in the United Kingdom and Western
Europe already enjoy interactive TV over
satellite, cable and terrestrial broadcast
services. Commercial "iTV" operations in the
U.S. finally launched in 2000 with mass consumer
rollouts of video-on-demand services and other
enhanced slated through 2006 and beyond. Now the
U.S. is transitioning to digital broadcast
television.
Visualize
eventually in America and the world an
ubiquitious broadband media device in every home
and workplace, taking many shapes with screens
in all sizes. Each unit will be able to receive
and send live and recorded full-motion pictures,
with enriched sound, plus text, images and
resource files. Imagine the World Wide Web
married to DVD, and you start to see the iTV
vision. Imagine a camera, microphone and
computer in every hand. Will media "consumers"
enjoy marketplace rights as media content
producers?
Already
the television, computer and telephone are
converging for video, data and voice services on
a global public Internet that's everywhere. What
will happen as media hype meets marketplace
realities? How well will we balance our
excitement for iTV with due wariness of
vaporware? Where the facts hit the info
superhighway, is there traction?
Deep
literacy invites understanding interactive and
digital television trends and issues, so each of
us can help shape the future we are creating
together. Hope you find these reports
helpful.
Thanks for
reading and thinking.
-- Ken Judah Freed
.
