Sony Corp of Japan released its BRAVIA liquid crystal display (LCD) television in March 2009, with a reader/writer on the radio frequency (RF) remote control for non-contact FeliCa integrated circuit (IC) technology, making possible electronic settlement through the TV. The system supports the "acTVila Video Full" video-on-demand (VOD) service for high-definition TV (HDTV) video provided by Actvila Corp of Japan. Sony plans to aggressively market the idea to other vendors as well.
Sony is using the
standard Smart Card specification for TVs, as adopted by the Networked
Digital Television Consortium (see Fig). The standard defines
specifications for TV manufacturers (including browsers for electronic
settlement and plug-ins for Smart Card access), and service providers
(guidelines for content creation). Sony formulated its own access
plug-in for FeliCa support, and content guidelines, based on the
Consortium standard. A source at Sony commented that the company hopes
to mount FeliCa ports on TVs from other manufacturers as well, and will
disclose its specs to other companies, service providers, etc.
The FeliCa reader/writer can also be used to communicate with other equipment. BRAVIA models are equipped with functions, for example, to use the TV's browser to open up data from FeliCa-compliant cards, equipment and other sources, and to allow universal resource locators (URL) to be transmitted from the RF remote.
For mobile phones,
the URL of the "Pocket Channel" Website operated by T-Memo Inc of Japan
is transmitted. The site hosts information on products introduced in TV
programs and other things, and allows searches on program name,
products, cast members, etc. According to T-Memo, the goal is to make
it simple for a viewer to use their mobile phone to check out
information picked up from the TV.
If it becomes possible to send unique URLs for each program, commercial, etc, TVs will become much more useful in the future, but that will require full cooperation from the broadcasters as well.
by Shinya Saeki
Nikkei Electronics |
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