WEBVTT - The History of Smart TVs 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.120 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:16.880 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.439 How the Tech Are You? And today I got to 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:25.360 thinking about television and actually debated about what I wanted 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:27.360 to talk about on today's episode, because there are a 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.160 couple of topics I really want to dive into. One 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:34.239 of those is the continuing decline of the cable and 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:39.040 satellite TV business. People have been presaging the death of 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.520 cable and satellite TV for ages. In fact, I kind 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.040 of did it in an interview I did with CNN 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:47.320 years ago. Turns out that was a dumb move on 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.840 my part. Not that I was wrong. I wasn't, but 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:53.440 at the time the company I worked for was owned 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.240 by Discovery Communications, and turns out the bosses of a 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:00.760 cable company are not happy. If you may the observation 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.360 that cable is in trouble. Now, I maintain it's not 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.440 like I caused folks to dump cable. I wasn't telling 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.360 people to get rid of their cable. It's just observing 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.200 the trend. But you know, I guess if you yell 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.440 out Iceberg, you get the blame for the fact that 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:20.000 the ship hit it. Anyway, that's not this episode, so 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:22.520 we will look into that in the future. But this episode, 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:26.200 I'm going to uh cover something else because if I 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.520 want to talk about cable and satellite decline, I really 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.400 need to sift through a lot of information, a lot 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:36.400 of statistics before I do that, because it can actually 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.280 be tricky to know what numbers to trust in that field. 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:44.280 There's some sites out there that uh give pretty dramatic 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.680 numbers for the decline in subscribers, and I'd want to 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:51.080 verify all of that before I actually do an episode. 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:53.600 So instead, today I thought I would talk a bit 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:58.160 about smart television's, you know, essentially the standard kind of 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.920 TV that you can buy these days. Not that every 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.120 television on the market these days is a smart TV, 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:05.840 but most of them are, like definitely the ones that 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:11.000 tend to get prominent uh placement in in uh in 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.040 in places like best Buy, those are definitely smart TVs. 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:16.320 And you know, these are the kind of televisions that 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:20.080 come preloaded with the ability to connect to various online 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:24.120 content providers, you know, like streaming services and whatnot. And 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.000 while they are the norm Now, it was not that 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.960 long ago that your typical television was just an output device, 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:36.120 a dumb one like you would tune it to a channel, uh, 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.320 you know, or perhaps connected to a media player like 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:45.680 a VCR or laser disc or something, and you saw 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.080 whatever was on that signal feed, and that was it, 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.040 and and it was one way, right. You weren't sending 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.640 information back. No one knew what it was you were watching, 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.880 unless you happen to be a Nielsen family, which would 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:00.720 it require you to connect another piece of hardware to 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.480 your television and that would register what it was you 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.080 were watching when you were watching it for the purposes 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:10.800 of collecting ratings. But most people, you know, they're just 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.680 watching TV, and whatever they're watching, that data has lost. 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:18.720 Today's televisions are very different. But how did we get there? 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:24.200 When did televisions start to turn quote unquote smart, or 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.080 if you prefer, when did our televisions start to become 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:33.239 nefarious data gathering tools feeding into the data rich ecosystem 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:37.520 of our modern world. Let's find out. First, let's get 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:41.600 into some prehistoric stuff. So for decades, televisions were dumb. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.600 Depending upon whom you ask, they were dumb in different 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.600 ways or they would make you dumb. You know, they 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:50.920 would be the so called opiate of the masses. They 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:55.240 were also large, they were heavy, they were clunky, you know. 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:59.920 The earliest TVs were essentially pieces of furniture. They depended 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.480 upon cathode ray tubes, which look a little bit like lightbulbs. 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.840 These cathode ray tubes shoot a tight beam of electrons 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.480 at the backside of the television screen. They scan line 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.440 by line down the screen, and in the process they 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.560 hit elements that would luminess and create the pictures that 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.560 you would see on the other side. In the nineteen sixties, 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:21.640 color television began to transform the industry, though it would 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:24.719 take you know, like more than a decade for color 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.920 TV tech to surpass the old, reliable, and perhaps most importantly, 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:33.640 less expensive, black and white television technology. Meanwhile, there were 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:36.480 scientists and engineers who were creating the tech that would 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.000 allow for the emergence of flat screens. Now, keep in mind, 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:44.400 these old CRT sets were boxing. These were the big 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.560 cabinet style televisions. You could not easily mount these to 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:50.000 a wall or anything like that. I mean, you could 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:52.159 mount into a wall, but they'd be sticking way out 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.560 on like an arm that was mounted to a stud 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:57.760 in the wall, otherwise they would just fall right down. 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:00.640 But as early as the nineteen six steas, you had 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.640 teams creating the tech that would allow for flat panel TVs, 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.080 and it would take decades for those to come to 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.440 the market. At the same time, you had other folks 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.960 creating devices that would allow consumers to connect other stuff 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.320 to their televisions. So in the old old days, really 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:18.560 the only thing you could connect your TV two wasn't 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.640 antenna and you would get over the air broadcasts. Later on, 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.600 you'd be able to connect your television to a cable connection, 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.400 either from a cable service provider or later a satellite dish. 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.320 Plus you would have connections that would let you hook 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.720 up a VCR, laser disc video game system, that kind 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.520 of thing to your TV. The television was gradually becoming 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:44.280 a more versatile technology, or rather it's compatibility with other 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:49.680 technologies would increase television's utility. The TV itself wasn't really 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:53.839 getting that much more advanced, surprisingly, at least to me. 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.200 One predecessor to smart TVs launched as early as the 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:02.640 nineteen seventies. Now I say surprisingly because in the nineteen seventies, 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.120 you still had folks building out our panet, and our 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:09.279 ponnet in itself was kind of a predecessor to the Internet. 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.400 It's where a lot of the protocols that would later 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:17.760 end up powering the Internet were first designed. So how 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.080 could you have a smart TV if there were no 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:26.000 Internet for the TV to connect to? Enter the video text? 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:30.320 That's V I, D, E O t X. Now, in 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.799 many ways, video text was like computer bulletin board systems 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.360 or bbs is. These were things where one person could 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.320 turn their computer into a host machine by running some software, 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:47.159 and they could allow other people to dial in using 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:51.200 an over the phone line modem into that PC in 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.640 order to access files, maybe save files to the machine. 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.840 They could leave messages for other bbs members, they could 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:01.360 play the occasional game AIM that kind of thing. So 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.280 it wasn't the Internet. It was contained to this one 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.600 computer system, but people could dial into it. View text 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.760 was similar, but it was meant mainly for television's or 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.920 dumb terminals. Now, the view text typically consisted of two 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.760 pieces of hardware that you needed in addition to your television. 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:25.120 One piece of hardware was essentially a set top box, 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.560 that you would connect to your TV. The set top 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:31.320 box would connect to your phone line as well. Later 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.239 versions would be able to connect to cable TV feeds, 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:38.160 so it would connect like a VCR to your TV 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.960 and would have an outward connection that would connect to 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:46.560 some specific provider that would let your television display information 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:50.600 sent over that transmission line from whatever company it was 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.440 that offered the service. The other piece of hardware was 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:58.200 some sort of controller. Frequently it looked like a keyboard, 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.960 and these would often use infrared signals like your typical 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:06.080 remote control to send messages to the set top box, 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.720 and that made the video text. Technically, it could be 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.280 a two way communications technology. Not only would you be 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.680 able to view information on your TV like news articles 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:21.360 or stock market quotes or whether information or whatever, you 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:25.320 could potentially send information back up to the service. So 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.320 some of these would offer message boards like classified ads, 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.440 that kind of thing. You could actually leave messages on 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.080 those boards, and that became a popular service in a 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.360 few places where this tech actually took off, which was 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.240 mostly in France. Like it launched in different places around 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:43.040 the world, but in most places it failed to get 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:47.120 much traction apart from France. Now one reason why it 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:52.400 didn't get much traction is the hardware was typically pretty expensive. 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.360 There were a few places that really tried to make 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.560 it work. The UK really pushed for this. Uh there. 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:02.880 The Post Office was really promoting video text technology pretty hard. 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.880 And you might wonder why was the post Office interested 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.120 in this? While the time the Post Office was in 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.040 charge of the telephone lines in the UK, and in 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:14.120 the UK folks were charged for using the phones, even 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.040 if it was for local calls. So the more you 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:17.880 use your phone, the more you had to pay the 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:23.360 post office. So why not create a service that encourages 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.400 people to tie up their phone lines and generate revenue. 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.319 Except it didn't really take off in the UK. Now, 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:35.960 video text was fundamentally different from the Internet. Yes, you 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:41.000 were getting information sent over transmission lines from another place 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:43.000 and you were viewing it on a screen, but apart 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.600 from that, it was very different because the Internet is 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.360 a network of computer networks, and over the Internet you 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:52.520 can access information stored on servers that are all over 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:54.840 the world, not just one server, but any of the 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:58.800 servers that are available to you to go to. Obviously, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:01.560 some servers have textions in place where unless you have 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.000 the proper credentials, you don't get in, but you get 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.320 my point. Video text was more like a direct line 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.480 to a specific company's service. So if you purchased a 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:15.959 video text system, you could only access whatever the company 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:19.920 that offered this system had. That was it. You couldn't 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:23.400 swap over to some other company's service unless you were 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.120 to go and buy all new hardware and connect to that. 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:29.520 So imagine for a second that you could only use 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.000 your computer to access I don't know all of Disney's material, 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:35.640 but nothing from anyone else. If you wanted to be 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.360 able to access I don't know Reddit, you would have 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.480 to go out and get a different computer and subscribe 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.160 to a different service. It's not exactly consumer friendly. One 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:48.760 brilliant bit of business with the video text was that 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:52.400 the companies that offered them could double debt in a way. 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.960 They could offer to carry information from specific providers, like 0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.880 content providers, like a like a prominent news paper, for example, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.600 and they would charge a fee to the newspaper and 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:09.440 in return they would carry the newspapers content to users. So, 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:11.600 in other words, content creators would have to pay a 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.600 fee to video the video text provider for the privilege 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.480 of having their content sent to viewers, and I'm guessing 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.480 they would do this because it was a new way 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:22.320 to make those viewers aware of the source of the 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.240 information and that hopefully they would go out and then 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:30.800 subscribe directly to the periodical for example. Then the video 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.280 text provider turns around and also charges a subscription fee 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.080 to the user on top of all the hardware fees 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:39.040 they had to pay in order to get the system 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.480 in the first place. So the video text company would 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.600 get paid on both ends, the content and and the consumption. Now, 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.720 this is the kind of stuff that net neutrality proponents 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.720 point at when they make their arguments that if you 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.000 don't have net neutrality, you can have a situation where 0:11:55.480 --> 0:12:01.000 Internet service providers are charging both customers to access service 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:06.760 and content creators to carry their content. That would fragment 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:10.360 the Internet experience. A person who's subscribing to I s 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.800 P A could end up with a fundamentally different experience 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.920 from someone subscribed to I s P B, all because 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.400 the two different I s p s only offer access 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.680 to a subsection of all the stuff out on the Internet. 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:27.280 But I digress. The hardware and services were so expensive 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.600 that they just never really took off in almost every 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:36.800 market except in France. In fact, France was really an outlier. 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.400 The relevant service in France, called Mini Tell, was popular 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.480 enough that it was actually more popular than the Internet, 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:47.720 even as late as there were more people on France's 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:51.320 Mini Tell service than there were subscribers to the Internet. 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.800 But even many Tell could only remain relevant for so long, 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:59.960 and in twenty twelve the service finally went dark. Still, Videotel, 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.800 which had lots of different proprietary names depending upon the region, 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:08.320 acted as a as a kind of predecessor for smart television's. Granted, 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:11.680 this technology was an add on. It was a set 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:13.600 top box that you would connect to your TV, so 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:17.760 it wasn't like it was directly integrated into the television 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:20.959 set itself. But some of the ideas relating to smart 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:24.679 TVs were definitely showing up as early as the nineteen seventies, 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.640 using the television to access additional content and services beyond 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.000 your normal TV shows. Now, when we come back, we'll 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.320 talk more about the early history of smart TVs, but 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:46.760 first let's take a break for these messages. Another thing 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:51.400 I need to mention is a Japanese technology, though this 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.320 one we have to have some caveats. So, according to 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:59.960 gen Gregory in his collection of articles, which is title 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:06.000 Japanese Electronics, Technology, Enterprise and Innovation, which I have to add, 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.960 is not necessarily an unimpeachable source when it comes to 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:14.360 historical data. According to him, Japanese companies developed an intelligent 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:19.440 television receiver his words, that would allow Japanese broadcasters to 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:22.600 include additional information that viewers would be able to access 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:25.440 if they happen to have a television with one of 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:30.560 those receivers. But beyond this assertion, I can't find a 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.600 whole lot of information about this. Doesn't mean that that 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:37.000 he's wrong or that he's not referring to something specific. 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:42.200 I just could not find corroborating information. However, I found 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:46.960 a ton of different sources that reference Gene Gregory, So 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.320 they're using him as kind of the prime source for 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:54.440 this particular entry into the history of smart TVs. It 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.800 very well maybe true, I just can't find verification for it, 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.840 at least I it, and before the recording of this podcast, 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.520 maybe I will eventually come across some and then I 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:10.840 can extend extensive apologies to Geene Gregory. But the idea 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:15.800 was that there is unused bandwidth in a channel's range 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.040 of frequencies, and that broadcasters would be able to tap 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:21.320 into some of that because they weren't going to be 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:23.440 using very much of it in order to send some 0:15:23.480 --> 0:15:27.200 additional information to viewers who happen to have these kinds 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:30.160 of televisions. So if you do a search for the 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:32.560 history of smart TVs, you're likely to see some mention 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.080 of this somewhere. But as far as I can tell, 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.120 it all traces back to Gregory's collection of articles, and 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.400 some people have said that he gets a little loosey 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:44.280 goosey with historic facts because that wasn't really the relevant 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:46.560 part of it. It was more of an overall view 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:52.520 of Japan's influence in the innovation in general, and you know, 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:56.360 the evolution of technology in particular. From there, things go 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.400 quiet in the smart TV space for more than a decade. 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.880 But in the mid nineties, Jean Marie Gattau and Dominique 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:08.080 Batrand filed for a patent titled Television system in a 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.800 Digital or Analog Network. Now, the abstract for the patent 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.680 reads as follows. I'm just going to quote it directly, 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:19.200 quote an economic television system used in a digital or 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:24.400 analog network, incorporating at least one user identification device, at 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:28.720 least monodirectional or bidirectional connector to data systems, and at 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:33.480 least one image, sound, and data decompression and or compression element. 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:38.240 This system also comprises at least one instantaneous acquisition means 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:43.440 application to the fields of interactive multi transactions, remote monitoring, 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:49.200 simultaneous transaction, or other communications uses end quote and like 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:53.480 all patents, that's pretty wordy. It's a real, real dense 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.480 with jargon. But in other words, the patent calls for 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.000 a system that allows for a connecting a television not 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:03.480 just to a network like a computer network, but to 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.160 other components as well, including stuff like input devices such 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:12.320 as light pens and barcode readers, or output devices like printers. Essentially, 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.640 the patent is laying out the components needed to turn 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:20.440 the television from a passive display device into something more interactive. 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:25.560 Though the inclusion of monodirectional or bidirectional means you could 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.679 have a simplified version of this that's only output oriented, 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:33.720 where you can't have any sort of meaningful interaction beyond consumption. 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:38.480 So that patent dates back to Does that mean that's 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.120 when we started to get smart TVs not at all. See, 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.200 when you file a patent, the patent is supposed to 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.320 describe a technology that will work. You're not supposed to 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:49.639 be able to file patents for stuff that can't work. 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:54.040 Though that gets pretty tricky in itself. Uh. And it's 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:58.760 supposed to work using the approach that's described within the patent. However, 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.640 there is no requirement that you actually make the ding 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.879 darn thing, so you don't have to come to the 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.040 patent office with a working model. You might find out 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.600 that actually building the device ends up being more expensive 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.240 and time consuming than it would be worth. Like, you 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.600 might come up with a technology that does work, but 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:20.560 it turns out that if you try and make it 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:22.360 and then sell it, you wouldn't be able to sell 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:24.560 any because you would have to charge such a high 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.280 price to recapture your expenses, no one would ever buy it. 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.920 You might also find that you can create the hardware, 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.399 but then if you don't have content to run on 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.440 the hardware, the hardware is not very useful. I mean, 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:42.160 imagine seeing a new kind of media player, but there's 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:46.879 no actual content available on that specific medium. That wouldn't 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:48.879 do you any good. It would just take up space. 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:51.360 It would either take up physical space if it were 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:53.480 something like, you know, kind of like a VCR, or 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.240 it would take up digital storage space if it were 0:18:56.280 --> 0:19:00.320 talking about more of a virtual media player. And this 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:02.560 is a big issue we see for video game consoles. 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:06.080 They have to have compelling games available at launch, or 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.480 else there's no reason to buy them. Well, the patented 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:13.280 idea would lay dormant for another decade plus some change, 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.040 but that didn't mean you didn't have companies thinking about 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:20.480 how to deliver Internet content televisions. Let's talk about another 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.439 initiative that launched not too long after Jean Marie and 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:29.200 Dominique filed that patent in nine talking about web TV. 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:33.399 I actually knew a guy who had web TV. I 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:35.560 only saw it in action a little bit. I thought 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.920 it was charming and odd and slow. But web tv 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.480 was a startup company and it was co founded by 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.720 a former Apple engineer, the guy who actually developed the 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:50.760 QuickTime technology, Steve Perlman. He unveiled this idea in nineteen 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:54.320 nineties six and I would say the web TV concept 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.320 was kind of like video texts from two decades earlier, 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.280 but it had been updated for the Internet age. So 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.320 instead of a set top box that would connect to 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:07.920 a specific company's services, this was a set top box 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:10.919 that would let you use your television to browse the 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:16.320 World Wide Web. So why even do that? Well, we're 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:21.440 gonna jump into some stereotypes for a moment. One stereotype 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:27.399 is that older people have trouble grasping younger technology. And 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:31.480 as a rapidly older person myself, I can at least 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.359 anecdotally vouch for this. You should see the look on 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:36.920 my face when I have to dive into our project 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:41.080 management tools. Tar knows. We've emailed about it. It's not 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.439 that the tools are bad, it's just I'm old and 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:47.000 I do not learn new things very well, which is 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.680 a good thing that I run a tech podcast. Huh well, 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:54.520 self deprecating humor aside, there was this perceived untapped market 0:20:55.119 --> 0:21:02.200 of older television owners, uh that weren't owners of computers. 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:06.000 That these are people that we could access if we 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.120 could find a way to get them online. So these 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:12.040 were users who were less inclined to purchase a computer 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.040 for the purposes of going online, simply because that was 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:19.679 a big expense. It was unfamiliar technology, so there was 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:24.120 there were barriers to entry. So why television's well, everyone 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:27.439 knows how to work at television. They've been around for decades. 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:30.600 So selling a device that you could just hook up 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:33.520 to your television, like a VCR, which was another technology 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:35.479 that had been around for a couple of decades, that 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.080 was an easier sell, at least so it was thought 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:40.960 at the time. Web TV was positioned as a technology 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:43.360 that could bring the world of the web to your 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.040 living room and it wouldn't require anyone to learn how 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.119 to operate one of those gosh darn computers. But the 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.199 challenge of bringing online content like web pages to a 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:57.399 television spanned beyond the technical While the technology needed to 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:02.159 do that was relatively straightforward, essentially meant building a purpose 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.359 built computer that was a set top box and it 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:07.800 had a built in modem that could send signals to 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:12.520 the television, getting it to be a good experience was 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.879 more challenging. The Web was not designed to be viewed 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:20.040 from a distance. The assumption every web designer was making 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.040 in the nineties is that their visitors were going to 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.320 be sitting at a computer they might be at most 0:22:26.720 --> 0:22:31.000 two feet away from the screen. All the layouts and fonts, 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:36.280 everything that was in web design was aimed at that experience, 0:22:36.480 --> 0:22:39.919 the assumption that the person who was consuming the website 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.360 was on a computer not far from a screen. If 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:46.240 you're sitting on your living room couch and your several 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:50.080 feet away from your TV screen, that experience isn't going 0:22:50.119 --> 0:22:52.320 to work for you. You won't be able to read anything. 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:54.760 The print would be way too small, and it would 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:56.880 be difficult to navigate the pages. It would be hard 0:22:56.920 --> 0:22:59.159 to click on links because you wouldn't be able to 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.760 see which link to what. So Perlman and his team 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.879 focus not just on the technical requirements to make this 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:10.639 connectivity possible, but also on the user experience and the 0:23:10.680 --> 0:23:13.960 display settings so that once you were online, you could 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:16.640 actually see what you were doing. That would mean doing 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:20.120 stuff like having to increase font sizes and figuring out 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:23.520 how to get around the layouts of web designers and stuff. 0:23:23.920 --> 0:23:26.680 And the font size thing was a relatively straightforward solution, 0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:30.000 but navigating pages what ended up being slow and cumbersome. 0:23:30.560 --> 0:23:32.520 It wasn't bad if you just need to check on 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:34.959 a page for a moment, like maybe just check your email, 0:23:35.400 --> 0:23:37.360 but it was not a satisfying experience if you really 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:42.119 wanted to and pardon my oldness here, Surf the web, 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:45.640 as we used to say, web TV didn't get enough 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:50.000 consumer support to really get the initiative or to get 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:54.040 any real leverage. And that's interesting because a decade later 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:57.960 we would see a transformation in the way people consumed 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:02.400 web content that did force web designers to change how 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:06.359 they worked. Web TV failed, right, web TV was not 0:24:06.480 --> 0:24:10.160 popular enough. If it had become popular, then there would 0:24:10.160 --> 0:24:13.159