My Cart - Have you seen ‘Back to the Future 2’? Of course you have. Everyone remembers the look of the hover boards, holographic adverts, super TVs and dehydrated insta-food. It’s not quite the 2015 Spielberg had in mind yet, but when you think about it, we’re really only missing the hover boards. I remember watching that movie, especially the scene with the huge array of TV sets, and thinking ‘the future is going to be awesome’. It’s not quite 2015 yet, but it definitely feels like I’m in a new technological age after seeing Samsung’s latest flagship product: the Samsung F8000 Smart TV. I’m still getting over the fact that we have 3D Televisions, and that even 3D TV is being nudged out of the spotlight to make way for smart TV.
Television is evolving all the time, I’m only in my early 20s and I have absolutely no idea how to use a smart TV to its full potential. Truth be told, I’ve had to spend a short while just getting to grips with the changes, and why Samsung’s latest experiment will change everything, or so they claim.
Smart TV and What It Can Do
So what is smart TV? If you want to take a look at how the new Samsung works just check out this YouTube video for a visual demonstration of the F8000.
In terms of features, there’s so much in a TV now, Spielberg wasn’t far off in 1989.
- On TV is your main viewing page, but the Samsung F8000 detects what you like to watch through your viewing habits and then recommends a list of programs for you to check out later, or during!
- Access to movie services like Blockbuster and Netflix
- A whole media centre for you to play around with, adding music, photos, videos etc.
- Over 2800 Samsung apps for your TV
- Social screen – access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+
- 4K Ultra HD TV and 120 watts sound system make the F8000 the best picture/sound quality TV on the market.
- A snap-back camera for video calling.
I’ll admit to being rather lost in these woods. With so many applications and devices, it begs the question: what will they do next? And I think that question is more valid than it appears. Entertainment is a constant, a world-wide demand, and we have developed the technology to accommodate. So what happens when developers exceed this expectation?
The Bar is Raised
We want even more. We have discovered that access to more information, sharing what we know with each other over social media sites, and compressing all our wants into one convenient TV hub, is all very possible in this age. Whether it is beneficial is subject to debate, but how could access to more information be bad? We watch approximately 44 hours of TV a week, 4.85 hours a day. It seems wrong, your mother always told you that box would rot your brain, but I think in reality, it’s the opposite.
Spielberg always had a flair for portraying dysfunctional families, and in BttF 2 we see the problem centres around the technology that’s available. I think Mr Spielberg’s ideas were ahead of their time, but his attitude to these technological wonders is a bit dated. Bring on the next viewing revolution; surely it won’t be long before we’re surfing around on hoverboards too!
