It was not so long ago when the sign consisted of a digital TV and VHS decks and DVD players. In what looks like a flash, tube televisions are passe and VHS players are beginning to look something like antiques.
Driven largely by the overwhelming popularity of HDTV in the U.S. (recent research from Leichtman Research Group finds the high-def sets are now in two-thirds of American homes), flat panel displays are the result of achieving. Along the way, they changed the look and appeal of digital signage.
As impressive as that change was, digital signs appear on the track to see equally dramatic changes in the next few years, re-launches consumer television sets. At the recently concluded 2012 International CES in Las Vegas, several TV vendors threw their vision of what "smart" TV should look like.
Among them were Samsung, LG, Sony and Lenovo, each with their own versions of smart TVs. Google has already taken a turn in the market, and Apple has long been rumored to be working on your TV with a smart consumer interface similar to Siri and his personal assistant for iPhone 4S that would let owners control their TV with their voice. Samsung is also reportedly at work on adding voice and motion control to new television.
The interactive digital signage industry, and new smart televisions will open doors to greater opportunities for digital sign based on the interactivity still reshaping consumer expectations. How long will it be before we see digital signs that allow guests not only look for a list of available restaurants in the digital sign in the lobby, but also made simply saying to the screen?
In addition to voice interaction with smart TV, which would other benefits, this new generation of television to bring interactivity to digital signage? Perhaps, this TV will lead to easier synchronization with a personal smart phones and tablets provided by Public Interactive to bring out the character. Or, it might be possible to move digital signage experience outside the home in the living room, a sort of offshoot of the TV Everywhere concept is promoted these days is to pay TV operators such as cable TV companies.
To be sure, my crystal ball is no clearer than anyone else. However, it seems obvious that this is a new generation of television technology will open new and exciting opportunities for those who communicate through interactive mobile devices. I'm not suggesting these employment opportunities greater degree of interactivity will be available at short notice. But when they come, which means to communicate with the digital sign will undergo a dramatic transformation.
Where we are today and where we might be headed in the not too distant future with this new technology can be as stark as the difference of the difference between Tom Hanks feverishly connecting the microcomputer numbers early in his role as astronaut James Lovell in "Apollo 13" and Leonard Nimoy Spock as saying from his science station aboard the USS Enterprise, "the computer, calculating the last digit of the value of pi" and the computer replies: "You're kidding, right"
Little David is a charter member of the Digital Screenmedia Association with 20 years of experience helping professionals use technology to communicate effectively.
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