Lateley I've been seeing ads on TV for "Smart TVs". It made me comment to my partner that our TV must not be smart. On reflection, I wondered what was so dumb about it? It's a perfectly good 80cm Sony television. It has a great picture. I use it to watch TV and cable, record using Foxtel IQ, watching DVDs and even movies on demand if I want. If I had one, I could plug a Playstation or Xbox or Wii or whatever into it. I can plug my iPhone into it and watch stuff I've downloaded. There's even a VCR connected but that has a video cassette stuck in it and won't turn on anymore, oh well. I have the whole collection of Northern Exposure on video tape but can't be bothered fixing up that VCR for now. The one thing I didn't mention is that my TV is CRT. And not High Definition or digital. And it weighs about 85kgs. Is this a crime?
Now, years ago when plasma first came out we were amazed. We saw the first one in our lives (a Philips I think) for sale in a department store for $33,000. Yes, I really mean $33,000. Are you serious? Around the same time, one of my students (I did a stint teaching IT at business college) was bragging that his dad bought one of those overhead projection units for $12,000 so they could project the thing onto their whole rumpus room wall. Wow! I later learned that the bulbs were only about $3,000 to replace, so that was a bargain! I wonder whether you can still buy those bulbs? Maybe on ebay, but I don't care because I don't need them.
The TV has been very good to us - must have had a gizillion hours of use over about 7 years and never missed a beat (and certainly not a pixel). I guess one of these days we'll dump the Sony and go with something smarter and well, lighter. But right now I have more internet connectivity than I need, I don't need to teach my TV to recognise my voice in order to change channels (is this possible?), I don't need to share my viewing experiences with Facebook friends, and frankly anything in 3D makes me feel queasy. For now, we'll leave the beast at rest.
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