I’d been wondering what Sony planned to do with the PS2 chip in a TV, but image manipulation was not on my radar…
TOKYO — Fighting to show that it still has its innovative edge, Sony Corp. unveiled technology that lets television viewers play with the images broadcast to their screens, letting them zoom into and pan around the picture as well as sharpen the resolution.
Some of the features will be included in a new line of television sets Sony plans to unveil next week, as it hails what it hopes will be its latest additions to its decades-old string of hits, including the Walkman and the Trinitron TV set.
“Up to now, TV has been passive,” said Tetsujiro Kondo, chief developer of the technology, which Sony has dubbed Digital Reality Creation. “We’re introducing an active element — like binoculars.”
In addition to sets featuring the technology unveiled today, the TVs to be shown next week also will include a model that has the look and feel of a videogame machine and runs on the super-fast microprocessor that powers Sony’s PlayStation 2 game console, people familiar with Sony’s plans said. This new model will follow Sony’s PSX — a videogame-playing DVD recorder available only in Japan — in marrying game technology with consumer electronics. It will feature the PSX’s fast response time and distinctive cross-bar menu, the people said. [WSJ.com]
Do you think that the culture of blogging and individual commentary will also translate into the new ‘participatory’ or active television technologies?
Certainly possible… I know in the UK they use SMS to send in messages like in a call-in show. Viewers can see their message pass-by on screen. Have to see what happens when it’s all happening through the same screen, rather than a 2 screen experience.