Teching up the TV
"Television is a space where there's a real opportunity for innovation," according to Intel anthropologist, Genevieve Bell, an Intel Fellow and director of the firm's user experience group within the digital home group.
She currently conducts comparative, qualitative and quantitative research worldwide, in an attempt to lead Intel's new product strategy whilst championing consumer-centric innovation and thinking across the company.
Bell, who joined Intel in 1998 as a researcher for its corporate technology group, told HEXUS the firm was keenly looking into the possibilities to expand on the average home television set, noting "there is work to be done and there are possibilities there."
Describing the television as "the hub of the home," Bell - who currently leads an R&D team of social scientists, interaction designers and human factors engineers to drive consumer-centric product innovation in Intel's consumer electronics business - explained that the idea of somehow merging the TV with the Internet was slowly starting to take off.
Bell pointed to the progress being made in the field of IPTV and noted that the number of people who watch an entire TV show on their laptops has tripled of late.
"People used to think the only innovation possible for TV was in terms of content," Bell told HEXUS, adding that this was no longer the case. For one thing, "When we talk to people about things they might want to do with their TVs, the issue of social networking comes up time and again," says Bell.