It's a question that plagues us all: how can I watch Neighbours and surf the internet at the same time without dropping my attention? Many of us are now used to taking in a variety of different media simultaneously, with the internet, mobile phones, the internet on mobile phones and so on - but are our televisions really primed to be the next portal for online digitisation?Samsung Electronics could have the answer. Teaming up with popular internet company Yahoo!, Samsung is exploring ways to integrate the internet into its television sets, due for release at the end of this year.
It's not quite the exotic, simultaneous viewing/surfing dream we all want yet - the partners have decided to start us off slow by simply offering the option for viewers to include a rolling news feed on-screen while their programme runs. News items include bulletins from Yahoo!'s news, finance, shares and weather pages.
The move comes at a prime time for a new industry, as consumers become increasingly used to interactivity with media - from Big Brother eviction-style phone-ins to adding comments to blogs - so the chance to interact with television could be just what some people are looking for. Samsung believes that the key to success is to start slow rather than swamping users - many people see television as a passive activity and a sudden change could be unappealing.
However, Samsung's future vision is geared towards complete immersion and the company plans to make the television its main expansion product over the next five years. Samsung believes that television could become the heart of home entertainment, equipped with software that allows television sets to connect wirelessly to other devices automatically.
This isn't the only course Samsung is taking into the world of television interactivity. The electronics firm is also a part of the Yahoo! and Intel venture to bring internet widgets to televisions, which will see a small collection of widgets included seamlessly alongside TV programmes. As with the news feed idea, the plan is to include interactivity without being intrusive - something at which both endeavours appear quite likely to be successful.
Whether interactive television will take off is anybody's guess - but it's clear that consumers are becoming accustomed to connectivity through a variety of mediums. In many ways, it really only seems like so long before television becomes the next link in the interactive chain - and internet giant Yahoo! is making sure it's at the helm of it.
