Research proposal
For my major research assignment I am going to look into ‘smart TV’ and specifically into the convergence of the Internet, computers and TV. I will research into how it has been perceived in the past and look at why it has taken so long to actually come out, the idea of smart TV has been talked about since the early 90s but only become reality in the last 12 months. I will look into what is available currently in terms of technology and what could be available in the future. In order to gain further knowledge and understanding I will look at specific examples of TV-Computer convergence for example GoogleTV, YouView, the android market and various available smart TVs. The android market is something that I am really interested in, apps are already available for smartphones but you can also get them for your TV. This is something which really makes TVs ‘smart’ I think, with the addition of apps stores and Internet connections they truly are becoming more than just TV’s.
My prior knowledge points to the fact that Social networking plays a large part in smart TV, people want to be able to share their TV experience more. This is something which I will look at but it poses issues of confidentiality, do you really want to be accessing your FaceBook on the family TV while everyone can watch? I want to find out what people think of this, would they be happy to use they’re FaceBook via the TV? Perhaps it would be different if there was a simplified version for sharing links only and not so much for conversing with other people or having private interactions.
In terms of research I will rely mainly on the Internet, this is because smart TV is a very modern technology, I suspect that there will be limited information available in paper form. In addition to Internet research I will also produce and carry out at least 1 survey on peoples opinions of smart TVs and how useful they think they are. I will go into further detail asking what they think Is good or bad about them and how they think it could change their lives or the way that they use social networking. I’m interested in people’s attitudes towards a TV that does all these things; do people really want so many features on their TV?
I intend on blogging the majority of my research but I will ensure that I embed videos/photos to help explain things that I am talking about. I am going to do some video interviews asking peoples opinions on Smart TV and presentation slides to ensure that my research is kept interesting.
Working title
Smart TV, Computer-TV technology convergence and the development of social media as a result.
Questions I want to answer
- Why has Smart TV not already taken off? The principals of the technology have existed for a while.
- What Smart TV technology is available?
- How could Smart TV technology change the way we interact/use social media?
- Do people want so many features on their TV? Particularly if it’s going to be in the family living room, what problems could be encountered? Decline of the desktop computer? Copyright issues? Does it bring streaming illegal music/videos to the household living room and therefore make it even more accessible? Is social media integration going to be useful on TVs or will people want more privacy e.g. Facebook?
- What existing products or technologies are available and how likely are they to break into the popular consumer market? E.g. GoogleTV, Apple TV
- What is there for the future? What’s next?- Technologies that are in the pipeline etc.
