The Evolution of Television is a book written in 2057 by Emmett Webster. It chronicles the evolution of television technology from its conception in the late 19th century to the interactive "eye-box" technology of the mid-21st century.
Excerpts
"Commercial television as it was known in the 1980s and '90s disappeared with the application of superconductive transmission technology to the then-existent cable television systems."
"With systems offering 500, then 1000, and eventually 5000 channels, it became economically infeasible for advertisers to support mainstream dramatic programming. Sonn, instead of hundreds of thousands of viewers, audience shares were calculated in the tens."
"With the dissolution of the FCC, cable access was open to all persuasions. In a resurgence similar to that see during the mid-1908s, religious programming became a television staple, outnumbering non-doctrinal programs nearly 100 to 1."
"With so many programs to choose from, viewer perceptions changed. Much as the fast-cut visual styles of the '90s were defined by 5, then 2 second commercials, the style of the mid-century programming was changed with the introduction of the retinal switch, or 'eye-box.'"
"The 'eye-box' was designed to detect minute changes in the capillaries of the retina, initiating random channel changes based on involuntary blood pressure fluctuations. To hold audiences, programmers were forced to devise new styles of programming that would not 'trip' the eye-box switcher."
Trivia
- The fictitious The Evolution of Television by Emmett Webster is one of a number of in-universe books or articles that have been mentioned in various Aliens media, including "Theory of Alien Propagation" by Waidslaw Orona (from Aliens: Outbreak), Cyberantics by Stanislaw Mayakovsky (from Aliens: Harvest) and Space Beast by Robert Morse (from Alien: The Weyland-Yutani Report).
