Advent of Smart TV Possible Within a Decade
By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
A couch potato watches a pizza commercial on a brand-new TV and realizes the sweet smell of smoke assails his nostrils, a new advertisement format dubbed ``sniffing ads.''
Instigated by the tantalizing smell, he activates a motion-cognitive sensor of the TV to order a pizza for delivery through the smart TV, which is linked to an ultra-fast Internet line.
The Samsung Economic Research Institute (SERI), one of leading private think tanks here, said Wednesday that these futuristic scenes could be possible in about a decade.
``Obviously, TV is going through a set of major evolutions from just a dummy box to a sophisticated two-way platform connected to the Web,'' SERI researcher Jang Sung-won said.
``Web-enabled TV is already available. Sniffing ads would become a reality in about a decade together with a host of other innovations for TV,'' he said.
In addition, Jang expects that next-generation TVs will feature such functionalities of flexibility as ultra-thin monitors or super high-definition three-dimensional displays.
Indeed, global TV manufacturers including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics or Sony have competed to come up with flexible displays over the past few years.
``If sophisticated TV sets start to recognize the movements of folks, then the remote control will disappear. All these evolutions are now underway at a faster pace than everyone expects,'' Jang said.
SERI, an affiliate of the country's top chaebol Samsung Group, said that Korea can take a lead in the smart TV era as it did for the flat-panel digital TV sets.
The entity predicted that Korea would nudge past Japan this year in terms of the amount of TV sales for the first time ever.
``Japanese producers combined to carve out up to 40 percent of the international TV market last year in comparison to 34 percent for Korean competitors,'' Jang said.
``The gap was neared over the first quarter of this year as Korean companies undercut their Japanese rivals by 35 versus 37. In the overall performances for 2009, Korea is likely to outpace Japan,'' he said.
Jang said the Korean feats are impressive because Asia's fourth-largest economy has merely a couple of big players in the market ― Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.
By contrast, Japan has a total of seven big TV makers such as Sony, Sharp and Panasonic.