By Chris Lee

The connected TV market – essentially televisions with Internet access - is growing rapidly, with 118 million shipments of connected TVs expected by 2014, according to display market researcher DisplaySearch

This means that many consumers will soon have multiple devices connected in their living room, including TVs, Blu-ray players, set-top-boxes and games consoles, among others. The vast amount of content being streamed through these devices, coupled with the growth of next-generation services leaves the traditional “up, down, left, right” remote control struggling to keep up and viewers bored of scrolling, according to Navin Natoewal, general manager of the uWand venture, a new TV interface from technology firm Philips.

“Up until now, the current TV user interface (UI) has served its purpose well but we’re now entering into the next generation of TV and the traditional UI and remote will be unable to satisfy the user’s need to experience all of this rich content at once,” Natoewal told NMK in an exclusive interview. “Add to that the increasing interest in playing simple games on TV and set-top box platforms, and the need for a new way to interact with TV only increases.”

The third dimension

uWand is a new class of ‘remote touch’ technology. When embedded in remote controls it gives users fluid and accurate direct pointing and 3D gesture control on multiple electronic devices. Natoewal claims that homes equipped with remotes embedded with uWand technology have shown a return on investment of 204 per cent for service providers through the increased use of premium services.

So just what does connected TV or a 3D user interface add to the viewer’s experience anyway?

“Essentially, the 3D user interface adds a level of interactivity that just isn’t possible with a 2D UI,” Natoewal explained. “3D UI is made up of layers of 2D options through which viewers can navigate to get to the section they want to view. 3D UI is about navigating through layers of content and options.”

Users now have the ability to view and interact with two pieces of content at the same time, Natoewal added.

“A 3D UI is just one type of interface that can be described as a ‘connected TV UI’,” he said. “These are UIs which enable the TV to become more than just a screen to watch soaps on, and instead more of an entertainment centre where you can simultaneously update Twitter and catch up on Mad Men, without having to sit with a laptop on your lap.”

Public opinion

Given that we’re only just seeing the migration towards digital TV with a switch-off of analogue in 2012, how can Natoewal convince the public to invest in more entertainment technology at a time of tightened budgets?

“In our opinion, it’s not a case of convincing people to make the move towards the 3D UI. But rather, this type of interface will become an absolute necessity,” he said. “TV is changing; new types of content – Internet TV, video-on-demand and catch-up platforms – ways of accessing content – mobile devices and PCs - and quality differentiators such as high-definition (HD) and 3DTV are making viewing much more complex.  Eventually, TVs are going to become entertainment hubs where people store and share photos, network with friends on Facebook and possibly interact with ads on their TVs.”

When this happens, Natoewal added, the way that viewers interact with the content will have to change quite significantly from how we do it today.

“Quite simply, a flat 2D UI will not be able to cope with the quantity and variety of content that needs to be displayed on a screen,” he concluded. “To access what you want to watch, you already have to scroll through many channels and types of content. Imagine the problems we will come up against when people expect to be able to chat to friends on Facebook and watch TV at the same time. How will a 2D UI cope? Ultimately, people will come to expect more and more from their TVs and the interface needs to change to keep up.”