![]() It may sound like I'm merely a couple of weeks late with a stunning Grinch performance, but hear me out. Smart TV is being built I've yet to see evidence that anyone will turn up to the party for a long time to come. Smart TV is possible, and devices equipped for it are trickling into the market, but as countless technology companies over the years have discovered to their cost, "if you build it they will come" is a profoundly dishonest and ill-advised slogan. ![]() Oh, the basic technological capacity is there, of course - strapping a CPU, a GPU, some storage and a Wi-Fi module onto a television is hardly rocket science, given that we're dealing with behemoth devices hundreds of times larger than the average smartphone - but the technological ability to do something doesn't mean it actually makes any sense. I want to give the benefit of the doubt where possible, but none of the arguments I'm seeing about Smart TV actually stack up. Those of you with long memories may recall that 2012 was also eagerly heralded as being the year of the Smart TV, but there are far more voices in the heraldic choir this year - and far more companies eagerly setting themselves up to create content for the Smart TV revolution which is, surely, just around the corner.Įxcept that it's not. Dumb displays are out this year is the year when televisions are going to follow in the footsteps of their pocket-bound brethren, the smartphones, and become platforms for all manner of intelligent applications and, of course, games. 2013, we've been informed rather solemnly by a procession of journalists, pundits, analysts and bloggers, is going to be the Year of Smart TV. Well, if you spend any time reading the tech press (not that I recommend this as an activity), you might imagine that quite a lot of people are thinking exactly that. They're walking into their local Wal-Mart or Tesco and buying cheap LCD TVs from no-name manufacturers" "Consumers are recognising that television is an absolutely commoditised space. I wonder, though how much time did you spend looking at that TV screen, perhaps distracted momentarily from the period thrills of Downton Abbey, and thinking "wouldn't it be great if this played Angry Birds too?" In fact, you may even have been using it to watch actual television, as TV networks trotted out endless Christmas specials and made their annual extra-special efforts to put on a selection of films that don't make you reach immediately for your DVD shelves. If you're a fellow resident of chilly, northern climes, and anything like the majority of the British population, at least, you've probably spent quite a bit of the past few weeks staring at a television screen. ![]()
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