Interactive television: opportunities for new information services Available to Purchase

Interactive television is something that is becoming quite widely talked about these days. In the United States they are going to have 500 television channels but not all of them will be interactive. I understand that there is one called the fish channel, or fish net, or something like this, and it just consists of fish swimming round in front of your eyes for nearly 24 hours out of 24; so it might be very relaxing but I do not know if you can really interact with them much, unless you just open your mouth in the same way they do. Our speakers are going to talk about interactive television. They are going to tell us what it is exactly. They are going to tell us about the transmission technologies that you are able to use, how you actually interact with the programmes. They are going to talk about who is involved in interactive television, and why, and they are going to talk about potential services that one can have available with these devices. Our very first speaker is going to tell us about what interactive television is — Judith Jeffcoate. She is an independent consultant specialising in new markets for information technology, she was the lead author on a report by Ovum on interactive television multimedia, and she has just written a book on introduction to multimedia technology and applications.