Japan’s biggest TV manufacturers have agreed to establish a new common standard for internet access via TVs. Sony and Matsushita, along with Sharp, Toshiba and Hitachi have set up a joint venture company called the TV Portal Service Group, which will establish control protocols and an infrastructure that will allow easy access to internet delivered TV and data services, without the need for a keyboard or mouse, directly through a new generation of internet-ready TVs.
The new sets will utilize a Linux rather than Microsoft OS designed to permit fast-booting in order to give a seamless TV-like experience for users.
Viewers will be able to hop from broadcast TV to internet content at the push of a button. The first of this new breed of Smart TV could appear as early as next year, reports suggest. The group is predicting sales of between 10 and 20 million of its net-TVs by 2011, the date currently set aside for Japan’s transition to an all-digital TV service.
