The mighty New York Times describes the morass of techniques and incompatible standards that constitutes interactive TV today. What a bloody disaster. We have read about interactive TV for nearly 20 years. (Yes, that long: We recall old Popular Science articles, and the ancient Canadian videotext system, Telidon, was billed as a Line 21 captioning–killer and a Gateway to the Future.) We are very interested in seeing someone get it right: Television without additional features isn’t television as far as we are concerned.
But still, even now, no one is getting it right. The use of TV Crossover Links for a home game of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is a pleasingly low-tech approach. More of this, if you would. (Fun homework assignment: Set your television to Text2 to watch the Crossover Link URLs stream by!)
See our previous coverage in MogulWatch: Megalomania and the Failure of Convergence and opening up accessibility. And why haven’t we updated MogulWatch lately? Thanks for reminding us.
Posted on 2000-10-18