The speed of change in the world of TV can catch you out at times – the recent apparent overnight introduction of 3D TV has been breathtaking. So watch out now for the increase in web enabled and IPTV TV options.

According to the recent Interactive Scotland event (10/6/2010), hosted at BBC Scotland’s Pacific Quay home, 1 in 5 TVs will be web enabled by the year end. That shift will see the beginning of a much more important shift over a number of years to IPTV – that’s TV directly connected to the internet for accessing both TV content and supplementary content.

Google have already started their own TV agenda – though nothing too exciting as initially Google TV is simply a video friendly search engine in a Set Top Box. But the STB will also allow the Android phone to control it and share applications, so the scope for new ways to interact with your television are about to explode. You can view a few of the Google TV seminars here.

The journey to a fully fledged IPTV world will not be fast – the displacement of existing set top box equipment, the problems with limited internet bandwidth and the challenges of copyright and geographical boundaries are non trivial problems. However, IPTV is coming and various players are already defining and developing products such as companies like TiVo as well as the Project Canvas consortium headed up by the BBC which includes organisations like BT.

Canvas is expecting BBC board/trustee approval before the year end, allowing it to publish its interface and to begin the process of developing the initial trial applications. Importantly, Canvas have already ran their thoughts past the UK’s Office of Fair Trading and been given the all clear, so now it’s a license fee issue rather than a monopoly issue. With the UK already seen as a global leader when it comes to Interactive TV there is a real opportunity for the UK to accelerate things still further, so watch out for Canvas and for web enabled and ultimately IPTV in a sitting room near you soon.