User:Tom1edison/Two-way television

Two-way television is a developing theory that would allow the viewer at home in front of their own TV to communicate back to the person appearing on TV. Built-in cameras would make the interaction possible. Special considerations of privacy discriminate two-way television from the more generic interactive TV. Users of two-way television may bypass normal TV operation by using the handheld remote to dial telephone numbers on the same keypad presently reserved for channel-changing. In this capacity, the remote's keypad would in effect double as a cell phone's. A picture call results when the call is answered with two - or even three or four - people in split-screen communicating from their homes.

Two-way television involves a re-arrangement of our thinking about present-day TV as it puts the viewer in the picture. Frightening to many, exciting to others, two-way television remains in the early stages of development.