How the Web improves Human Television Interaction

Yuichi Yagawa (yagawa@sdl.hitachi.co.jp)
Hitachi, Ltd., Systems Development Laboratory

Hitachi, Ltd., has both a consumer electronics division and a computer division, each of which is one of the major vender in Japan. In this company, Systems Development Laboratory (SDL) has a responsibility for R&D of system and software technologies, and we have been studying Human Television Interaction, service system, and software architecture for digital TV.

The followings are the examples of our interest in the workshop. Some are related to our past or current research schemes.

We have studied how the web controls consumer electronics such as a television, a video recorder, and so on. We call this concept as a Control Link. A user can control a television on a web page which include Control Links. An image of human-television interaction by using Control Links is presented in Fig.1. A user controls a television by using a handheld device, on which not only the user sees web pages related to TV programs, but also the user can control the television by selecting Control Links. TV programs are shown in the television (Dual Device User Interface[1]). In this case, the examples of Control Links are:

• TV program guides in which each program title or thumbnail corresponds to a real TV program. If the user selects one of them, the television changes a channel to the appropriate TV program.
• The user can control functions of the television, such as volume level, by using Control Links.

We have developed the prototype system and implemented this concept. Fig.2 shows the system image of our prototype. We believe that this concept can be expanded to other consumer electronics products, such as a video recorder, an audio player, and so on.

Fig.1: Human Television Interaction by using Control Links

We have studied how the Web pages synchronize with TV contents. We call this concept as a Scenario Link. The Web pages, which contain Scenario Links, switch Web pages automatically synchronized with video. Scenario Links integrates a set of multimedia objects (video and Web pages) into a synchronized and interactive multimedia presentation. Scenario Link is very similar concept to SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) for televisions. We have developed a prototype by using VOD system (Content: Tourist Information of Nara Prefecture). Now we are developing an authoring tool in which a user can define a scenario and embed controls into web pages.

Unlike the Fig.1, We have developed another prototype system, which integrates TV contents, and Web pages on a television screen (Single Device User Interface). We have designed several kinds of User Interface, such as Picture in Graphics, Graphics in Picture, and so on. Also, we think that how these display designs shift each other is important, too.

We are interested in Software Agent on a television or a video recorder. One example of applications which adopt Software Agent is customized EPG (Electronic Program Guides) Service for consumers. We have developed a TV program planning agent, which analyzes a history of a users program selection, and giving the user some recommendations of possibly interesting programs. This technology would be also applicable to automatic recording function in digital video recorders. We have been studying Software Agent within FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents).

We are also interested in interactive services. What kinds of services will become major when the seamless integration of Television and the Web is successfully done. The followings are some concepts:

• Home Shopping
• Home Banking
• Home Education
• Turbo Internet Access (Email, WWW)
• Satellite Education/Training
• Information Service (Electronic Newspaper)
• Public Service
• Data Download to PC
• Others?