Unit 8 - Developing Technologies

Developing Technologies

The television is one of the fastest expanding rapidly in recent years and it is getting quicker. At the moment there is lots of talk about 4K televisions, this is still new and expensive technology and already there is talk about 8K. This means 4K TVs are going down in price. Samsung only make three 4K TVs and their biggest 85’’ comes in at £34,999, which is a lot but their smallest 55’’ cost £2,799 which is a lot less money and still a big 4K television. 
But this is the talk of today lets go back to the start. 
In the mid 1930s, there had been inventors around the world all making serious attempts at making the first television. Eleven different countries competing, many of these pioneers had no success; a few however were able to produce a TV image and were hailed as the 'inventors' of television within their own countries. 
In 1936 Britain had one channel and that was BBC, at this point televisions were expensive and it was not until after the 2^nd world war when family across Britain had a television like the Decca or a Pye. In 1955 ITV started and nine years later BBC 2 launched. Families stayed three channels until 1982 when channel 4 started. Four years later in 1986 there was 24 hour TV. This meant that people wanted to consume more and more TV. 

Terrestrial TV
Analogue terrestrial broadcasting was upgraded to analogue digital terrestrial. HDTV broadcasting began 2006. 

Satellite 
Satellite technology was developed in the 1960's. BSkyB started subscription services in 1990 at £8 per month. It now has 1000 channels, plus IPTV services.

Internet
At the end of the 1990’s the Internet was all around the world in every building. British inventor Tim Berners Lee developed the idea for linking scientists’ computers together so they could communicate to each other and share information.  It was so effective it spread around the world. From 1994 to 199 web users increased from 3 million to 200 million. In 1993 Mosaic, the first web browser was developed, Netscape and Internet Explorer followed. The Internet is developing all the time, as it has now become a daily necessity in the modern world. Emailing and using Skype are very fast useful tools for commentating compared letters, which takes a lot more time to get a reply.  The Internet is very helpful because of the time it safe for people like doctors and other professionals.  

IPTV 

Internet Protocol Television is a TV systems uses a household Internet connection to was "catch-up" and "on demand". This lets people with a Skybox connect it to their broadband to watch programs, which they have missed or want to watch. Viewers can also store their favourite shows to their Skybox. This merges the modern world's two addiction televisions and the Internet.  Smart TVs also allow an Internet connection to easily watch BBC iPlayer; 4OD and they also have TV Internet services like LoveFilm from Amazon and Netflix.


Netflix are using this rapidly pushing for 4K shows, which is confusing people because 4K televisions are still not that accessible but because of this push it will make Netflix’s competitors also feel a need for 4K and this should help make 4K more affordable. 

So Whats Next?..

Well the development of IPTV will continue and the price of 4K should get lower because there will be more shows in 4K. Also the development of OLED and curved TVs that will allow viewers to watch two shows at once from Samsung. Then Sony has a head mounted display, which gives the illusion of a 750" screen. And of course there are rumors of an Apple resealing their own TV. 

In this interview Apple CEO Tim Cook talks about how he wants to improve the TV and that he thinks people are not happy with the TV experience and he asks "can we control the key technology". 

When looking for evidence of the development on this product i read a Yahoo News report saying... "A company with expertise in high-resolution display technology that could be used for big screen TVs was forced to admit that one of its largest clients is Apple".


In the interview they talk about how many people use the IPad to consume Television. So we could also be seeing an IPad Pro with a larger screen than the current IPad Air. 



Apple is also in partnership with many car manufactures such as Volvo, Ferrari, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and more companies joining like Ford, BMW, Jaguar and others. This touch screen interface will be called CarPlay and will let you use features from your IPhone safety.