Google TV set to launch later this year
Google-powered TVs with navigation that will combine traditional television channels with the likes of YouTube will be on sale within months, the company today revealed.
In an announcement on the Google blog, the search giant said it was working with Sony and Logitech on TVs that would be available in the northern autumn. Google TV will have an integrated Google Chrome browser to allow for easy web browsing from the television too. It said:
“What if we helped people experience the best of TV and the best of the web in one seamless experience? Imagine turning on the TV and getting all the channels and shows you normally watch and all of the websites you browse all day — including your favorite video, music and photo sites. We’re excited to announce that we’ve done just that.
“Google TV is a new experience for television that combines the TV that you already know with the freedom and power of the Internet. With Google Chrome built in, you can access all of your favorite websites and easily move between television and the web. This opens up your TV from a few hundred channels to millions of channels of entertainment across TV and the web. Your television is also no longer confined to showing just video. With the entire Internet in your living room, your TV becomes more than a TV — it can be a photo slideshow viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more.”
And the announcement revealed: “We’ve already started building strategic alliances with a number of companies — like Jinni.com. Jinni.com is a next-generation TV application working to provide semantic search, personalized recommendation and social features for Google TV across all sources of premium content available to the user.”
There will also be a seperate box available to integrate Google TV with existing TV sets.
The move by Google is a similar principle to that of the Apple TV digital receiver.
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This has enormous potential, particularly if it comes as standard built into new sets.
The idea of TV, the web, magazines and radio somehow being separate media channels is fast becoming a quaint old fashioned notion, particularly as innovations such as Google TV are developed in parallel with mobile and ever richer media experiences.
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Just another way Google can capture information about users to add to their giant pool of evilness!
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look forward to filing this alongside the other Google “gamechangers” … Wave, Buzz, Chat, their radio ads idea, their print/newspapers thing, orkut, google video, google answers, the google comparison shopping site, feedburner, google books etc etc
if any other company had so many flops they’d be a laughing stock. oh wait – that’s yahoo.
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Its interesting that some criticise Google for experimenting with new ways. Some will be successful, others will not. But as a multi-billion company that’s barely 10 years old, no one can question their success which has come from their commitment to innovation. If they’re a ‘lauging stock’ as some on this post suggest, then they’re the kind of laughing stock I’d be happy to have a share in.
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