Guiding elderly TV viewers
SAID (Social Aid Interactive Developments) has set out to provide basic social services for currently existing demands as well as those that are likely to arise with the developments in the future. The two areas they focused on were basic care services and making IST obtainable for the elderly. The first objective stemming from this idea was realized in the achievement of an open platform based on Digital TV. The efforts were on integrating a set of varied services within the realm of Digital TV using an STB/TV set combination. The system has the capability of incorporating a complete set of advanced performances for amateur users at home. Digital TV developments will be supported by new standard DVB-MHP on the rise. Two methods are employed by the system in order to transmit information to the user. One of them is through automatic suggestions by way of pop up messages across TV programming. The other is via an interactive search tool, which can automatically streamline the list of TV programs to suit the user's tastes. Thus, only the content that users may find interesting will be exhibited. The full list will be able to be shown according to user specifications and the user may also request suggestions from the system. Catering to elderly TV viewers in such a way is a means of providing them with basic social services, and a way of making their solitary lives more enjoyable.
