Smart is the new cool

Smart is a popular adjective nowadays. Your phone, your car and your very home are now far cleverer than their one-dimensional predecessors. We are at a point where at the heart of all intelligent life (be it inanimate) lies the internet; the next stage of this evolution builds on that connectivity. This is precisely the leap that televisions made in 2011.

A year ago, connected TVs were fairly ubiquitous. Of late, they have advanced to really justify the ‘smart' characterisation. Integration with web-supplemented services has accounted for this technological surge. The ability to interact with the boob tube — beyond the simple TV guide and channel changing capabilities — is one primary aspect. At the centre of these functions are operating platforms (usually open-source software based) — similar to the conventional OS on your computer — built into the box. In fact, a smart television can be aptly described as a combination of your TV and PC.

A typical smart TV should feature browsing capabilities, both app-based and in their conventional form. These characteristics extend to social networking, communication, and just about anything you would use a computer for. Entertainment also blends with information in the world of intelligent programming. Content is supplemented with information. If you are watching sports, for example, there are apps now that make it possible to pull up stats and information on teams and players in real time. Smart TVs, as the term may suggest, are about the intelligent delivery of content. This, however, does not mean that they aren't equipped with the latest stand-alone technology such as 3D viewing. Purchasing a smart TV invariably means you are buying a device that is rich in all the functionality available today in television sets.

Control over content

Firstly, there is the added control the user gains over viewing content. In the age of YouTube and Netflix, it is the viewer that dictates scheduling, or lack thereof. Continuous live channels are slowly being phased out (with the exception of sports, news, etc). Video on demand and recording ability did slow down this process; the consumer is, however, becoming ever more impatient. Preferred information and entertainment must be instantaneously available. It used to be that the greater the variety, the happier the viewer would be. Now, bombarding the user with variety is no longer sufficient. Content must be targeted — we not only want our devices to offer options, we want intelligent options that cater to our preferences.

Apps on offer

Today's smart TVs already have built-in applications. The Samsung Smart TV, released in 2011, for example, has a Smart Hub that houses several everyday apps including Google Talk, Twitter, AccuWeather, Facebook and YouTube. Other TVs also offer built-in services, such as Pandora (a music streaming service), Flickr (photo sharing), Hulu and Vudu (video streaming). Virtually any web-based function that can be performed on a PC has now migrated to TV, including all aspects of media and social networking. Sony Bravia has its spin on the smart platform with apps by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Livestrong. Panasonic Viera on the other hand is taking a gaming approach to its app store — though far short of your conventional console, it gives an insight into how multifaceted any piece of hardware can be. Although still unavailable in the UAE, Skype is also a popular addition to smart TVs. It is perhaps how we envisaged video calls in the last century.

Consumers should also be excited about the prospect of a brand-new Apple TV coming out, with a fully integrated OS. To be called iTV, it is touted to be the last link in the bridge between all media interfaces that will all seamlessly interact and deliver content from the iCloud.

Moving on, Google runs perhaps the most intelligent search algorithm in the world — one that gets to know its user over time and delivers content relevant to his or her preferences and history.

Television is not outside the scope of this concept. Hence Google's foray into the market is in the pipeline. Targeted advertising replacing conventional and drab TV commercials might also be in the works considering Google's involvement.

Social TV

Social networking has carved itself a special place in smart TVs. The TV aspect of it has yet to take off, but is an idea with potential. Samsung's Smart TV has brought forward a concept called Social TV, where social networking is overlaid on video content. If you are watching a specific channel, for example, and a friend of yours happens to be watching the same channel on his smart TV, you two can interact on the superimposed interface — chatting about the show in real time without ever having to move your eyes away from the screen. A similar application of Twitter also exists.

One issue with social and communication apps is that some people consider those personal activities not to be projected as a living room experience, hence the idea might not take off. Also, app stores for TVs aren't as well stocked and migrating phone or PC apps is difficult since each television producer seems to have their own OS. This might hinder the development of TV app markets.

Another issue is that conventional TV remotes aren't equipped to handle the complex browsing equated with computers. There are, however, some innovative solutions. LG has produced a Magic Motion Remote for its smart TV platform, with which you point to objects on the screen. Typing is usually an issue, but pretty much every TV maker has produced an app for Android or iOS, which is a remote qwerty keyboard for the television set.

Competitive advantage

IPTV or Internet Protocol Television is a new standard making its way into smart TVs whereby streamed YouTubesque video content is played continuously on live channels, again catering to the impatience and shorter attention spans of new generations. As a growing number of devices become integrated as well, it is becoming ever easier to shift content from your phone to your computer to your TV or in any order. Competing companies prevent that level of integration now. For example, it is easy to transfer content across three Samsung devices, but not from your iPhone to a Sony Bravia TV. This might well change as competitive advantage rears its head in the long run — companies stick to what they're good at and become cogs in one homogenous process. In the future all devices will likely be portals to one big information cloud — a chunk of which belongs to you. Television as we have known it for the good part of a century will plausibly be pushed into antiquity.