There was good news announced last Wednesday for consumers and, that’s right, Church leaders!
LG Electronics and TP Vision (which makes a lot of the Philips smart TV sets) announced the formation of a Smart TV Alliance.
It’s goal?
To create an industry standard for the development of Internet-connected TV apps.
There are two exciting things about this move. The first is the benefit we will receive as consumers of electronic media in terms of better content and more user-friendly apps. Regardless of whether you currently have a Smart TV, there will come a time in the future where you will. Soon all new televisions, DVD/Blu-Ray players, game systems, and other television-connected devices will offer Smart TV technology of some kind. By creating this alliance, manufacturers ensure app developers will have an easier time creating apps that just “work” across a great diversity of devices.
And that brings us to the second exciting thing: the benefit to you as Church leader.
Church Leaders & Smart TV
Earlier, we ran a post about learning HTML and CSS basics, called “Don’t Fear the Internet“. I’m of the opinion that seminaries should be at least offering electives in basic web design and other technology training. But regardless of whether it’s the pastor, a paid staff person, or a web guru volunteer in the church, somebody should be paying attention to Smart TV apps.
Fortunately, this alliance simplifies the complexities of web design a great deal. From the Alliance webpage, we read:
“A simple yet great looking interface and content define a Smart TV app with the only aim: to give the perfect connected device experience. All products that support the Smart TV Alliance’s specifications will be able to run your App.”
To do this, they have created a full software development kit available free of charge for immediate download.
Dev Kit
The software development kit consists of:
- Manual
- Other documentation regarding the Smart TV Alliance ecosystem: guidelines and requirements, API reference and platform specification
- SDK software, a package for one of the supported operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux, Ubuntu)
- Example Apps, which show a wide range of possibilities
This is good news, as the possibilities for expanding Church-related communications and interactivity are great. It may be a while yet before everyone in your church is able to run apps from their living room; but a great number probably already can.
If you haven’t already considered creating a church app for TV platforms, now is the time!
Learn more on the Smart TV Alliance website.
[via Smart TV Alliance]
[…] on churchm.ag Be Sociable, Share! […]