Topic 2

Topic 2 - Home Entertainment

• Interactive TV
• Gaming
• Digital photography
• Webcam services
• Social networking
• Music and Sound
• Mobile phones

Interactive TV - Interactive TV features include:

• sending in comments
• viewing extra new stories or sporting activities
• booking cinema tickets
• playing games
• shopping
• email
• voting in programmes
• weather forecasts

Disadvantages

• cost of subscription
• bad weather disrupting the satellite signals
• faulty equipment
• freezing equipment

Pay-to-view Service - Services include:

• satellite channels and other services
• cable TV and other services
• digital terrestial TV and other services (like ordinary TV, but with an encrypted signal)

Online Betting

Advantages

• can do it at home (elderly or disabled)
• better deals online
• quick and easy collection (money sent straight to credit card)
• don't need to travel so easier and quicker

Disadvantages

• need a credit card (you need to create an account with a card before you can bet)
• can become addictive
• will gamble more because they are not handing over the money and cannot see how much they are playing with

Dating - Many people choose to date this way because it is convienient. By looking at people's pictures and interests you may know more about them rather than just meeting at a bar.

Advantages

• Some people are shy so this helps to meet people
• They are very busy and don't have time to go about and meet people
• you can get to know them before you decide to meet them

Disadvantages

• Need to be careful, they might be lying
• They could have a fake picture
• They may be meeting lots of other people - Untrustworthy

Online Voting - Examples: The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent, The Voice, etc.

Advantages

• Encourages more people to vote
• Cheaper because people are not needed to count the votes
• Results would be obtained faster
• People who are away can vote

Disadvantages

• Not everyone has internet
• Would have high initial cost

Online gaming - Games can be educational. For fast action games it is necessary to use:

• a fast processor
• a large screen
• a large amount of RAM
• good security systems
• a disk drive with plenty of storage capacity
• a high quality graphics card
• a high quality sound card
• large powerful speakers
• specialist input devices such as joysticks, game controllers, steering wheels, etc.

Advantages

• Young children can learn from them
• they can make learning fun
• some are played online as a team so it encourages teamwork
• they can lead to well payed employments such as a game designer, programmer etc.

Disadvantages

• they can be addictive
• they are often sedentary activity where little physical activity takes place and this can lead to obesity
• they can be violent and some people think this can cause teenagers to act violently
• they waste time - school work can suffer through the time spent playing games
• health problems - repeated use of input devices such as a joystick  mouse can lead to repetitive strain injury (RSI), also…