A smart TV, also known as a connected TV (CTV), is a traditional

television set A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...

with integrated

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

and interactive Web 2.0 features, which allows users to stream music and videos, browse the internet, and view photos. Smart TVs are a

technological convergence Technological convergence is the tendency for technology, technologies that were originally unrelated to become more closely integrated and even unified as they develop and advance. For example, watches, telephones, television, computers, and so ...

of computers,

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication Media (communication), medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of Transmission (telecommunications), television tra ...

s, and

digital media player A digital media player (also sometimes known as a streaming device or streaming box) is a type of consumer electronics device designed for the storage, playback, or viewing of digital media content. They are typically designed to be integr ...

s. Besides the traditional functions of television sets provided through traditional

broadcasting Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

media, these devices can provide access to

over-the-top media service An over-the-top (OTT) media service is a Media (communications), media service offered Direct-to-consumer, directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses Cable television, cable, broadcast television, broadcast, and satellite television platf ...

s such as

streaming television Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet. Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air ae ...

and

internet radio Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitte ...

, along with

home network A home network or home area network (HAN) is a type of computer network that facilitates communication among devices within the close vicinity of a home. Devices capable of participating in this network, for example, smart devices such as netw ...

ing access. Smart TV should not be confused with Internet TV,

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded med ...

, or

. ''Internet TV'' refers to receiving television content over the Internet instead of traditional systems such as terrestrial, cable, and satellite, regardless of how the Internet is delivered. IPTV is one of the Internet television technology standards for use by television broadcasters. ''Streaming television'' is a term used for programs created by many producers for showing on Internet TV. In smart TVs, the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

is preloaded into the television set's

firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide ...

, which provides access to apps and other

digital content Digital content is any content that exists in the form of digital data. Also known as digital media, digital content is stored on digital or analog storage in specific formats. Forms of digital content include information that is digitally broa ...

. In contrast, traditional televisions primarily act as

display Display may refer to: Technology * Display device, output device for presenting information, including: ** Cathode ray tube, video display that provides a quality picture, but can be very heavy and deep ** Electronic visual display, output dev ...

s and are limited to vendor-specific customization. The

software application Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

s can be preloaded into the device or updated or installed on demand via an application store or marketplace, in a similar manner to how applications are integrated into modern

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

s. The technology that enables smart TVs is also incorporated in external devices such as

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of si ...

es and some

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of s ...

players,

game console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...

s, hotel television systems, smartphones, and other network-connected interactive devices that utilize television-type display outputs.Intel and Smart TV
intel.com. Retrieved on November 11, 2010. These devices allow viewers to find and play videos, movies, TV shows, photos, and other content from the Web, cable or satellite TV channels, or a local storage device.

Definition

A ''Smart TV'' device is either a television set with integrated Internet capabilities or a set-top box for television that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic television set. A Smart TVs is an

information appliance An information appliance (IA) is an appliance that is designed to easily perform a specific electronic function such as playing music, photography, or editing text. Typical examples are smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Inf ...

and may be thought of as the

computer system A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

of a

mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...

integrated with a television set unit. A Smart TV runs a complete

mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablet computer, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal computing, personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typical laptops are "mobi ...

that may provide a platform for application developers. Thus, a Smart TV often allows the user to install and run more advanced applications or plugins/addons based on its specific platform. A Smart TV platform has a public

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific ...

(SDK) or native development kit (NDK) with which third-party developers can develop applications for it, and an app store so end-users can install and uninstall apps. The public SDK enables third-party application developers to write applications once and see them run successfully on any device that supports the Smart TV platform architecture it was written for, regardless of the hardware manufacturer. Smart TVs deliver content (such as photos, movies and music) from other computers or network attached storage devices on a network using either a Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) / Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) media server or similar service program like

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as ...

Network-attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level (as opposed to block-level storage) computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. The term "NAS" can refer to both the techn ...

(NAS), or via iTunes. It also provides access to Internet-based services including traditional broadcast TV channels, catch-up services,

video-on-demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

(VOD),

electronic program guide Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information for ...

, interactive advertising, personalisation, voting, games,

social networking A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for a ...

, and other multimedia applications. Smart TV enables access to movies, shows, video games, apps and more. Some of those apps include

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...

Hulu Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television seri ...

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

, and

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

History

In the early 1980s, "intelligent" television receivers were introduced in Japan. The addition of an

LSI LSI may refer to: Science and technology * Large-scale integration, integrated circuits with tens of thousands of transistors * Latent semantic indexing, a technique in natural language processing * LSI-11, an early large-scale integration com ...

chip with memory and a character generator to a television receiver enabled Japanese viewers to receive a mix of programming and information transmitted over spare lines of the broadcast television signal. A patent was filed in 1994 (and extended the following year) for an "intelligent" television system, linked with data processing systems, by means of a digital or analog network. Apart from being linked to data networks, one key point is its ability to automatically download necessary software routines, according to a user's demand, and process their needs. However, descriptions of the elements of a smart television can be found in public discourse from the beginning of the 1980s, if not earlier, with the introduction of

videotex Videotex (or interactive videotex) was one of the earliest implementations of an end-user information system. From the late 1970s to early 2010s, it was used to deliver information (usually pages of text) to a user in computer-like format, typi ...

services, particularly

teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...

information for reception by television sets, leading commentators to consider that televisions and accessories would evolve to encompass a range of related activities. In the words of one commentator: "In the long run, this machine is likely to develop into a multi-purpose receiver, for electronic mail, dealing with the bank, calculations, remote information - and '

Not the nine o'clock news ''Not the Nine O'Clock News'' is a British television sketch comedy show which was broadcast on BBC2 from 1979 to 1982. Originally shown as a comedy alternative to the '' Nine O'Clock News'' on BBC1, it features satirical sketches on then-curren ...

' or ' Casablanca' on video." The mass acceptance of digital television in the mid-late 2000s and early 2010s greatly improved Smart TVs. Major TV manufacturers have announced production of Smart TVs only for their middle-end to high-end TVs in 2015. Smart TVs became the dominant form of television during the late 2010s. At the beginning of 2016, Nielsen reported that 29 percent of those with incomes over $75,000 a year had a Smart TV.

Typical features

Smart TV devices also provide access to

user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion ...

(either stored on an external

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

or in

cloud storage Cloud storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, said to be on "the cloud". The physical storage spans multiple servers (sometimes in multiple locations), and the physical environment is ty ...

) and to interactive services and Internet applications, such as

, many using

HTTP Live Streaming HTTP Live Streaming (also known as HLS) is an HTTP-based adaptive bitrate streaming communications protocol developed by Apple Inc. and released in 2009. Support for the protocol is widespread in media players, web browsers, mobile devices, and ...

(also known as HLS) adaptive streaming. Smart TV devices facilitate the curation of traditional content by combining information from the Internet with content from TV providers. Services offer users a means to track and receive reminders about shows or sporting events, as well as the ability to change channels for immediate viewing. Some devices feature additional interactive

organic user interface In human–computer interaction, an organic user interface (OUI) is defined as a user interface with a non-flat display. After Engelbart and Sutherland's graphical user interface (GUI), which was based on the cathode ray tube (CRT), and Kay and ...

/ natural user interface technologies for

navigation controls In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fr ...

and other human interaction with a Smart TV, with such as second screen companion devices, spatial

gestures A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or ot ...

input like with Xbox Kinect, and even for

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ma ...

for natural language user interface. Smart TV develops new features to satisfy consumers and companies, such as new payment processes. LG and PaymentWall have collaborated to allow consumers to access purchased apps, movies, games, and more using a remote control, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. This is intended for an easier and more convenient way for checkout.

Platforms

Smart TV technology and software is still evolving, with both proprietary and

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

software framework In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software, providing generic functionality, can be selectively changed by additional user-written code, thus providing application-specific software. It provides a standard ...

s already available. These can run applications (sometimes available via an 'app store'

digital distribution Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and othe ...

platform Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system ...

), play

over-the-top media services An over-the-top (OTT) media service is a media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms: the types of companies that traditionally act as controllers or distributors ...

and interactive on-demand media, personalized communications, and have social networking features. Android TV, Boxee,

Firefox OS Firefox OS (project name: ''Boot to Gecko'', also known as ''B2G'') is a discontinued open-source operating system made for smartphones, tablet computers, smart TVs, and dongles designed by Mozilla and external contributors. It is based on the ...

, Frog, Google TV, Horizon TV,

Inview Inview Technology (Inview Technology Ltd or simply Inview) is a UK-based digital TV software company. It specialises in advanced EPGs, broadcast, interactive broadcast, Internet Protocol, IP services and solutions for Pay television, Pay-TV and ...

, Kodi Entertainment Center,

Mediaroom Mediaroom is a collection of software for operators to deliver IPTV (IPTV) subscription services, including content-protected, live, digital video recorder, video on demand, multiscreen, and applications. These services can be delivered via a rang ...

MeeGo MeeGo is a discontinued Linux distribution hosted by the Linux Foundation, using source code from the operating systems Moblin (produced by Intel) and Maemo (produced by Nokia). Primarily targeted at mobile devices and information appliances ...

OpenTV Open TV, formerly Epsilontv, is a Greek free-to-air television station, based in Paiania, East Attica. History It belonged to Radio-television S.A. which was sold from Communist Party of Greece to the Cypriot offshore company A-Orizon Media ...

, Plex, RDK (Reference Development Kit),

Roku Roku ( ) is a brand of hardware digital media players manufactured by American company Roku, Inc. They offer access to streaming media content from online services. The first Roku model, developed in collaboration with Netflix, was introduce ...

, Smart TV Alliance, ToFu Media Platform, Ubuntu TV, Vewd, and Yahoo! Smart TV are framework platforms managed by individual companies. HbbTV, provided by the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV association, CE-HTML, part of Web4CE, OIPF, part of HbbTV, and Tru2way are framework platforms managed by technology businesses. Current Smart TV platforms used by vendors are

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ances ...

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

Haier Haier Group Corporation () is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational home appliances and consumer electronics company headquartered in Qingdao, Shandong. It designs, develops, manufactures and sells products including refrigerators ...

Hisense Hisense Group is a Chinese multinational major appliance and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China. Televisions are the main products of Hisense, and it is the largest TV manufacturer in China by market ...

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

Insignia An insignia () is a sign or mark distinguishing a group, grade, rank, or function. It can be a symbol of personal power or that of an official group or governing body. On its own, an insignia is a sign of a specific or general authority and is ...

, LG,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

, Netgear,

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

, Sharp,

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

, TCL,

TiVO TiVo ( ) is a digital video recorder (DVR) developed and marketed by Xperi (previously by TiVo Corporation and TiVo Inc.) and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose fe ...

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems ...

Sling Media Sling Media Inc. is an American technology company that develops placeshifting and Smart TV solutions for consumers, multiple-system operators and set top box manufacturers. The company is based in Foster City, California, and was a subsidiary of ...

, and

Western Digital Western Digital Corporation (WDC, commonly known as Western Digital or WD) is an American computer drive manufacturer and data storage company, headquartered in San Jose, California. It designs, manufactures and sells data technology products ...

. Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, LG, and

Roku TV Roku ( ) is a brand of hardware digital media players manufactured by American company Roku, Inc. They offer access to streaming media content from online services. The first Roku model, developed in collaboration with Netflix, was introduced ...

are some platforms ranked under the best Smart TV platforms.

Sales

According to a report from research group NPD In-Stat, in 2012 only about 12 million U.S. households had their Web-capable TVs connected to the Internet, although an estimated 25 million households owned a set with the built-in network capability. In-Stat predicted that by 2016, 100 million homes in North America and western Europe would be using television sets blending traditional programming with internet content. By the end of 2019, the number of installed Connect TVs reached 1.26 billion worldwide. The number of households using over-the-top television services has rapidly increased over the years. In 2015, 52% of U.S. households subscribed to

Amazon Prime Amazon Prime is a paid subscription service from Amazon which is available in various countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services include same, one ...

, or Hulu Plus; 43% of pay-TV subscribers also used Netflix, and 43% of adults used some streaming

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...

service at least monthly. Additionally, 19% of Netflix subscribers shared their subscription with people outside of their households. Ten percent of adults at the time showed interest in HBO Now.

Use

Social networking

Some Smart TV platforms come prepackaged or can be optionally extended, with social networking technology capabilities. The addition of social networking synchronization to Smart TV and HTPC platforms may provide an interaction both with on-screen content and with other viewers than is currently available to most televisions, while simultaneously providing a much more cinematic experience of the content than is currently available with most computers.

Advertising

Some Smart TV platforms also support interactive advertising ( companion ads),

addressable advertising Targeted advertising is a form of advertising, including online advertising, that is directed towards an audience with certain traits, based on the product or person the advertiser is promoting. These traits can either be demographic with a foc ...

with local advertising insertion and targeted advertising, and other advanced advertising features such as ad telescoping using VOD and DVR, enhanced TV for consumer call-to-action, and

audience measurement Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites. Some ...

solutions for ad campaign effectiveness. The marketing and trading possibilities offered by Smart TVs are sometimes summarized by the term t-commerce. Taken together, this bidirectional data flow means Smart TVs can be and are used for clandestine observation of the owners. Even in sets that are not configured off-the-shelf to do so, default security measures are often weak and will allow hackers to easily break into the TV. 2019 research, "Watching You Watch: The Tracking Ecosystem of Over-the-Top TV Streaming Devices", conducted at

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

and

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

, demonstrated that a majority of streaming devices will covertly collect and transmit personal user data, including captured screen images, to a wide network of advertising and analytics companies, raising privacy concerns.

Digital marketing Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development dur ...

research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness t ...

firm

eMarketer eMarketer is a subscription-based market research company that provides insights and trends related to digital marketing, media, and commerce. History eMarketer was founded in 1996, and is headquartered in New York City. 93 percent of the co ...

reported a 38 percent surgeto close to $7billion, a 10 percent

television advertising A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

market sharein advertising on connected TV like

and

, to be underway in 2019, with market indicators that the figure would surpass $10billion in 2021.

Security

There is evidence that a Smart TV is vulnerable to attacks. Some serious

security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...

bugs have been discovered, and some successful attempts to run

malicious code Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depr ...

to get unauthorized access were documented on video. There is evidence that it is possible to gain root access to the device, install malicious software, access and modify configuration information for a

remote control In electronics, a remote control (also known as a remote or clicker) is an electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operate devices such as ...

, remotely access and modify files on TV and attached USB drives, access camera and microphone. There have also been concerns that

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

s may be able to remotely turn on the microphone or webcam on a smart TV, being able to eavesdrop on private conversations. A common

loop antenna A loop antenna is a radio antenna consisting of a loop or coil of wire, tubing, or other electrical conductor, that is usually fed by a balanced source or feeding a balanced load. Within this physical description there are two (possibly three) ...

may be set for a ''bi''directional transmission channel, capable of uploading data rather than only receiving. Since 2012, security researchers discovered a similar vulnerability present in more series of Smart TVs, which allows hackers to get an external root access on the device. Anticipating growing demand for an antivirus for a Smart TV, some security software companies are already working with partners in the digital TV field on the solution. It seems like there is only one antivirus for Smart TVs available: "Neptune", a cloud-based antimalware system developed by Ocean Blue Software in partnership with

Sophos Sophos Group plc is a British based security software and hardware company. Sophos develops products for communication endpoint, encryption, network security, email security, mobile security and unified threat management. Sophos is primari ...

. However, antivirus company Avira has joined forces with digital TV testing company Labwise to work on software to protect against potential attacks. The privacy policy for Samsung's Smart TVs has been called

Orwellian "Orwellian" is an adjective describing a situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free and open society. It denotes an attitude and a brutal policy of draconian control by pr ...

(a reference to

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalita ...

and the dystopian world of constant surveillance he depicted in ''

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeast As ...

''), and compared to

Telescreen Telescreens are devices that operate simultaneously as televisions, security cameras, and microphones. They are featured in George Orwell's dystopian 1949 novel '' Nineteen Eighty-Four'' as well as all film adaptations of the novel. In the nove ...

s because of eavesdropping concerns. Hackers have misused Smart TV's abilities such as operating source codes for applications and its unsecured connection to the Internet. Passwords, IP address data, and credit card information can be accessed by hackers and even companies for advertisement. A company caught in the act is

Vizio Vizio Inc. (stylized as VIZIO) is an American publicly traded company that designs and sells televisions, sound bars, viewer data, and advertising. The company was founded in 2002 and is based in Irvine, California.Lawton, Christopher, Iwatani ...

. The confidential documents, codenamed

Vault 7 Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, detailing the activities and capabilities of the United States Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dating f ...

and dated from 2013 to 2016, include details on

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise Smart TVs.

Restriction of access

Internet websites can block Smart TV access to content at will or tailor the content that will be received by each platform. Google TV-enabled devices were blocked by

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...

, ABC, CBS, and

from accessing their Web content since the launch of Google TV in October 2010. Google TV devices were also blocked from accessing any programs offered by Viacom’s subsidiaries.

Reliability

In 2017, high-end

Smart TVs stopped working for at least seven days after a software update. Application providers are rarely upgrading Smart TV apps to the latest version; for example, Netflix does not support older TV versions with new Netflix upgrades.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Digital television Film and video technology Information appliances Interactive television Internet broadcasting Internet of things Streaming television Japanese inventions Multimedia Streaming media systems Television technology Television terminology Video on demand