Sharp and Yahoo bring the web to HDTV

Sharp Corp and Yahoo Japan Corp demonstrated a new service called Yahoo! HD for AQUOS’, at CEATEC 2007.

The service displays content from Yahoo’s Japanese portal, including maps and photos, and displays them on a 1920 x 1080 resolution LCD TV.

The service acquires data written in SVG, an XML-based language, to express 2D vector images. Software is integrated into the TV to render the images using the whole TV screen, allowing the viewer to benefit from high-quality HD images.

The service also requires an Internet browser for acTVila and a BML browser for data broadcasts.

This obtains new SVG data from the server following the user’s remote controller operations.

The service would rely on content providers, such as Yahoo, preparing the server, which returns SVG data in accordance with requirements from TVs.

This server will convert Internet contents for standard PCs into SVG data for TVs and transmit it to TVs in response to their requests.

The companies are focusing on content that could stimulate conversations between people sitting around and watching the TV.

The service has the potential to bring popular applications such as Joost or Facebook to large screen HDTV.