World Telecommunication Day 1999 |
Europe boasted roughly 104 million households with televisions at the end of 1998, compared with only 32 million with PCs
a huge gap that television-based Internet access service providers like Warner and Disney would like to fill with full-blown interactive networks.
Some say that consumer demand for products that feature the convergence of televisions and computers may be overestimated, pointing to the fact that watching television is often a collective activity, while using a PC is for individuals.
Still, there is no shortage of investment in television-based Internet access services. In Britain alone, three major cable broadcast companies - Telewest, Cable & Wireless and NTL - are developing products based on Pace Micro Technology set-top boxes, an Internet-based broadcast system that provides Internet access through the television set. Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB is launching a similar system across Europe called eVentures, a joint venture with the Japanese group Softbank. In Germany, the Bertelsmann publishing and media group recently abandoned its television interests to concentrate resources on Internet development.
Interactive television is already a reality in France and Spain, where Canal Plus has aired interactive advertisements for Audi, Honda and America Online. Open, a home shopping network being developed by BSkyB, HSBC, British Telecom and Japan's Matsushita, will offer interactive advertising this fall.
Also making its debut this autumn is another new television/Internet product called Two Way TV, 50.1 percent owned by Cable & Wireless Communications. Users will be able to predict the outcomes of sporting events, for example, on a C&W digital television platform. The remote control will be used to choose various options.
Convergence hardware has been around for a while. Philips, for example, launched its Internet television products in the United States in 1996 and in Europe two years later, and there are many other offerings on the market. But that does not daunt skeptics such as Teruaki Aoki, president and Chief Executive Officer of Sony Electronics.
Mr. Aoki believes that the television and computer will remain separate machines, although each will contain features previously inherent in the other. He says the market is moving beyond being PC-centric or television-centric and into a network-centric world.
To this end, Sony has restructured its core electronics units into four network-driven companies, including one for networking the home through television, PC monitor or home audiovisual products. ''These new companies will focus on the big picture, thinking less about single-use products and more about network-centric solutions,'' says Mr. Aoki.
Sony has already developed home audio-video interoperability (HAVi), a consumer electronics specification that ensures network compatibility among digital audio and video products, regardless of manufacturer. Eight leading electronics companies support HAVi.
In July, Sony introduced the INT-W150 Internet terminal. Measuring only eight by seven inches (20 by 18 centimeters), the product includes e-mail capability, a built-in printer port and a programmable television/Internet remote control, with an optional wireless keyboard for Web surfing.
In September, Sega of America launched its much-anticipated Sega Dreamcast, a superconsole with a built-in 56K modem. Sega claims the product is 15 times more powerful than the Sony PlayStation and 10 times more powerful than the Nintendo 64, with four times the graphics processing power of the fastest Pentium II processor.
Dreamcast currently supports 16 titles, a number that is expected to grow to 30 by year's end. But what brings this new system into the convergence arena is the fact that it also comes with a program that allows gamers to log on to what the company describes as ''a highly interactive gaming environment'' with gaming news, reviews and insider information. On-line stock trading via the Dreamcast is also being rolled out.
It's only MP3, but I like it
The availability of digital music on the Web will generate an estimated $1.1 billion for the American music industry by 2003, according to some industry analysts. IBM and five major record companies - BMG, EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music - are currently developing a system that securely distributes CD-quality albums over the Internet.
It is not just record companies that are interested in this new method of distribution. Performing artists such as David Bowie and the artist formerly known as Prince are viewing the Internet as an alternative to traditional music distribution methods, empowering artists to control their own sales and dissemination, and creating opportunities for artistic self-representation.
Julia Clerk