Television, or TV for short, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome (black-and-white) or colored, with or without accompanying sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television program, or television transmission.As one of the greatest inventions in the 20th century, television’s development can date back to the end of 19th century. And at the beginning of television history there were two distinct paths of technology experimented with by researchers.the earlier one is Mechanical Television, and the other is Electronic Television. Early inventors attempted to either build a mechanical television system based on the technology of Paul Nipkow's rotating disks; or they attempted to build an electronic television system using a cathode ray tube developed independently in 1907 by English inventor A.A. Campbell-Swinton and Russian scientist Boris Rosing.German, Paul Nipkow developed a rotating-disc technology to transmit pictures over wire in 1884 called the Nipkow disk. Paul Nipkow was the first person to discover television's scanning principle, in which the light intensities of small portions of an image are successively analyzed and transmitted. In the 1920's, John Logie Baird patented the idea of using arrays of transparent rods to transmit images for television.Charles Jenkins invented a mechanical television system called radiovision and claimed to have transmitted the earliest moving silhouette images on June 14, 1923.Using a Nipkow disk, Scottish inventor John Logie Baird succeeded in demonstrating the transmission of moving silhouette images in London in 1925,[8] and of moving, monochromatic images in 1926. Baird's scanning disk produced an image of 30 lines resolution, just enough to discern a human face, from a double spiral of Photographic lenses.[9] This demonstration by Baird is generally agreed to be the world's first true demonstration of television, albeit a mechanical form of television no longer in use. Remarkably, in 1927, Baird also invented the world's first video recording system, "Phonovision": by modulating the output signal of his TV camera down to the audio range, he was able to capture the signal on a 10-inch wax audio disc using conventional audio recording technology.Electronic television is based on the development of the cathode ray tube, which is the picture tube found in modern TV sets. German scientist, Karl Braun invented the cathode ray tube oscilloscope (CRT) in 1897.In 1926, Hungarian engineer designed a television system utilizing fully electronic scanning and display elements, and employing the principle of "charge storage" within the scanning (or "camera") tube.On 25 December 1926, Kenjiro Takayanagi demonstrated a television system with a 40-line resolution that employed a CRT display at Hamamatsu Industrial High School in Japan.[15] This was the first working example of a fully electronic television receiver.By 1927, Russian inventor Léon Theremin developed a mirror-drum-based television system which used interlacing to achieve an image resolution of 100 lines.in 1927, Philo Farnsworth made the world's first working television system with electronicscanning of both the pickup and display devices,[18] which he first demonstrated to the press on 1 September 1928.Russian inventor, Vladimir Zworykin invented an improved cathode-ray tube called the kinescope in 1929. The kinescope tube was sorely needed for television. Zworykin was one of the first to demonstrate a television system with all the features of modern picture tubes.At the Berlin Radio Show in August 1931, Manfred von Ardenne gave the world's first public demonstration of a television system using a cathode ray tube for both transmission and reception. The world's first electronically scanned television service then started in Berlin in 1935. In August 1936, the Olympic Games in Berlin were carried by cable to television stations in Berlin and Leipzig where the public could view the games live.In 1935, the German firm of Fernseh A.G. and the United States firm Farnsworth Television owned by Philo Farnsworth signed an agreement to exchange their television patents and technology to speed development of television transmitters and stations in their respective countries.On 2 November 1936, the BBC began transmitting the world's first public regular high-definition service from the Victorian Alexandra Palace in north London.[23] It therefore claims to be the birthplace of television broadcasting as we know it today.In 1936, Kálmán Tihanyi described the principle of plasma display, the first flat panel display system.Although television became more familiar in the United States with the general public at the 1939 World's Fair, the outbreak of World War II prevented it from being manufactured on a large scale until after the end of the war. True regular commercial television network programming did not begin in the U.S. until 1948. Since the 1950s, television has been the main medium for molding public opinion.And in 1964 the world’s first Plasma Display Panel was invented, and it was used to be PLATO graphoscope at that time. In 1970s, the world’s first Liquid crystal display device was produced. And up to now, smart TV, cloud TV and network television have been invented.Next, I will talk about the TV’s features and functions. As one of the greatest inventions in the 20th century, Television is a leap in the human material culture. It has several advantages of the different medias. First, it has wide coverage. There are all kinds of news on the TV,and we can watch what we want to see. Second, it has strong timeliness. All we watch on the TV happen recently or are still happening. So we can catch up with the world’s change.Third, it has Strong sense of the scene. Some TV programs can giveus a feeling that we are just on the scene as well as the people who are present. And then I will talk about TV’s function or influences. Television has played a pivotal role in the socialization of the 20th and 21st centuries. Because of the invention of TV, we ordinary people can know what is happening or has happened in the outside world. We can know what we don’t know and what other people do in the same period. Also, the use of the television for video games, especially games such as the Wii, has contributed to a growing kin aesthetic connection between television and viewers. What’s more, television is a tool of entertainment. We can kill our dull spare time on watching TV shows or TV series. And it makes our lives become more colorful and interesting. It enrich our spiritual lives. But at the same time, here comes some drawbacks of TV shows. As the rapid development of television, the TV stations are becoming more and more utilitarian（功利化的）There are too many advertisements during the TV shows. When we are waiting for a TV show, but before it starts, there are a lot of ads before it. That is annoying. I think this is the biggest shortcoming of the television.Finally I will talk about the development of TV in the future. Along with the time progress, technology is constantly updated. People will not satisfy the current situation in the visual enjoyment, and where is the road of TV development in the future. Some people say that TV will be replaced to be eliminated. I think television is the most important part of the household appliances and will not be "abandoned". But with the development of science and technology progress, more and more to meet people's needs and feelings. And what will the future TV look like? There are some assumption: Personal smart TV, Split type television(分体式电视), Three dimensional holographic television(三维全息图像电视), organic light emitting diode(透明有机发光二极体)and so on. And what is the tend of TV’s development? I think future TV will pursue integration and lightweight,High intelligence, multi-function, combination多功能、组合化, Wall type.璧型化, Projection投影化and so on.。