For the Technophobic: Internet TV?

It is possible to access the Internet via your good old fashioned television set--albeit with some limitations. An Internet-enabled TV--I'll call it a Net TV for short--allows many information sources on the World Wide Web to be displayed via your TV set. You could think of this as a sort of highly sophisticated and improved version of the old teletext service. A Net TV can also allow access to e-mail, the other main Internet service--although this is a little more difficult (a TV doesn't usually come with a keyboard!).

Net TVs might be sold as all-in-one packaged units in the future, but for the moment they generally come in the form of a separate ``black box'' to be plugged into your existing TV--somewhat like satellite TV decoders.

A Net TV must have some way of establishing communication with the Internet. This can't be done using conventional TV channels. TV signals are ``broadcast''--sent only one-way, from the TV transmitter to the TV receivers. Internet communication is two-way, so a Net TV needs a separate mechanism for sending information back. This can be done via cable TV networks, but needs the whole network to be upgraded to support it. Alternatively, it can use a telephone connection in addition to the ``normal'' TV connection.

One drawback of the Net TV idea is that TVs are relatively low quality display devices, compared to standard computer screens. This means that information with fine visual detail, such as text, is either difficult to read, or must be displayed in relatively large type, and thus in small sections at a time. More seriously, Net TV's tend to be ``closed'' or proprietary systems. This means that the most recent software programmes for accessing Internet resources may not be available for them--which in turn may impose some significant limitations on what services or sites can be reached with such a device.

Nonetheless, by not looking like a computer, and by being relatively easy to set up and operate, a Net TV may be an attractive option for many people, certainly as an initial introduction to the Internet.