31 July 2008

Online Video In The Home Will Bring In Web Based Technology

As online video enters the home, user interfaces will begin a transition to web based technologies, according to a study.

The push for online video and social communities in the living room has resulted in ever-increasing interest in HTML and other web-based technologies on consumer TVs, according to a study by market research company ABI Research.

“We are seeing a strong push by some in the consumer electronics industry to explore the integration of HTML and browser engines into existing user interface platforms, and the use of the browser as a primary rendering engine for user interfaces,” explained ABI’s research director Michael Wolf. “We also see growth in the living room consumer-usable browser segment, where the primary use-case would be Web surfing in the living room or on a portable consumer electronic device.”

HTML, Adobe’s Flash/AIR, and Java are the three main contenders for the next-generation of user interfaces, according to ABI Research. While there will be many other advances in consumer user-interfaces such as 3D rendering using hardware acceleration, one of the inevitable trends will be the continued integration of Web content and Web technologies as the more online services connect to the living room, the study concluded.