Communications and Technology Industry Research

The push for online video and social communities in the living room has resulted in ever-increasing interest in HTML and other web-based technologies on consumer TVs.

 

A new ABI Research (News - Alert) study, “Web-Based Living Room User Interface Overview,” examines the different standards involved, and explores vendors’ efforts to integrate Web-based technologies into various user interfaces, as well as tracking the increasing adoption of Web browsers for consumer living room surfing.

 

“ABI Research sees a strong push by some in the consumer electronics industry to explore the integration of HTML and browser engines into existing user interface platforms, and the use of the browser as a primary rendering engine for user interfaces,” Research Director Michael Wolf said. “We also see growth in the living room consumer-usable browser segment, where the primary use-case would be Web surfing in the living room or on a portable consumer electronic device.”

 

The consumer-usable living room browser market today is led by a few companies, such as Opera and ACCESS, while other companies, such as OpenTV (News - Alert), Oregan Networks and ANT Software are active in selling their browser products as part of a Web-based UI rendering solution.

 

Nokia (News - Alert)-owned Trolltech recently integrated Webkit into its “Qt” platform to allow CE developers to create mixed Web and native user interfaces. And, the Consumer Electronics Association has developed the CE-2014 standard that leverages HTML to render user-interfaces in a connected living room.

 

HTML, Adobe’s Flash/AIR, and Java are the three main contenders for the next-generation of user interfaces. While there will be many other advances in consumer user-interfaces, one inevitable trend will be the continued integration of Web content and Web technologies as more online services connect to the living room.

 

The report, which forms part of the firm’s Home Networking Research Service, answers the questions: How will the user interface for the Internet connected consumer electronics devices utilize Web and other UI platforms; What are the major competing user interface platform technologies for Internet-connected consumer electronics; How do Java and Flash fit into the world of Web-enabled consumer electronics; and How will the Web browser be adopted in the living room.

 

ABI is a market research firm focused on the impact of emerging technologies on global consumer and business markets.