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2. Intercast Technology: The PC in the Home
Personal computers are rapidly becoming as essential in homes as they are in businesses. Powerful, popular, and a rich source of information and entertainment, the home PC is well on its way to becoming as ubiquitous a fixture as the TV and the telephone. In fact, the growth of PC sales to home consumers is quickly outpacing the growth in sales of television sets (AIM Report, 1996), and statistics reveal that 37 percent of all U.S. households own at least one PC (International Data Corp., 1995).
A parallel trend is evident in the explosive growth of the Internet and the increasing number of consumers who have access to the array of information and entertainment it offers. Worldwide, the growth in Internet users is expected to reach 140 million by 1998 (MIDS, 1996). In the United States alone, 44 million households are projected to have access to the Internet's World Wide Web by 1999 (Jupiter, 1996).
Statistics such as these make it clear that consumers, who already rely on the home PC for communication, education and fun, are also harnessing its power to explore the widening avenues of information open to them.
Indeed, the latest market research reveals that consumer behavior is changing dramatically as alternative technologies emerge for delivering entertainment and information to the home. For example, a recent national study shows that U.S. consumers used their home PCs for personal purposes an average of 11.4 hours per week in 1996, compared to 8.5 hours in 1995 (Odyssey, L.P., 1996). Further analysis of this research indicates that U.S. households with access to the Internet and online services are the most likely to take time away from television to use their home computers.
This convergence around the PC motivated Intel Corp. to develop Intercast technology. Simply stated, Intercast technology lets broadcasters combine web pages with their existing television programming to create an integrated TV and Internet experience that is delivered through the broadcast signal to home PCs. The broadcast web pages are viewed on the PC along with the associated television programming, providing consumers with more meaningful and immediate access to information and entertainment. Because the broadcast pages are created using HTML (HyperText Markup Language), the authoring language of the World Wide Web, they can also include hyperlinks to the Web, offering additional information to consumers who have Internet access.
Built on prevailing broadcast and Internet standards and designed for the existing infrastructure, Intercast technology enables a dynamic and inexpensive new digital medium for home "infotainment" that consumers of all ages will find engaging.
Figure 1. The number of U.S. households with PCs and the number of U.S. households with Web access are rising sharply.
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