Google Plans To Plug Into TV Audience
submitted by markodonoghue on 16 June 2010
Google is making a play for TV supremacy, through a link-up between television and the internet.
The new service will bring the web onto the small screen either through internet-enabled televisions or digital set-top boxes that route online content to existing TV sets.
Experts say the key to Google TV is an on-screen search box in the same style as the one for the website. That would allow the television to look through the search engine for live programmes, DVD recordings and the web - and all at the push of a button.
"Video should be consumed on the biggest, best and brightest screen in the house. And that's a TV. It's not a PC or a phone or anything else in between," said Google's Rishi Chandra.
"It's much harder to marry a 50-year-old technology and a brand new technology than those of us in the brand new technology industry thought."
Eric Schmidt, Google CEO
A merger between television and computer is already known to be difficult, with Apple having already failed to come up with something to tempt its customers.
Web surfers prefer to stay online while TV audiences keep their remote controls close to their side, with neither side showing any interest in seeing what the other side is up to.
Google executives admitted previous efforts had failed because they had dumbed down the web for television, were closed to participation by others, and made people choose between using the web or television.
"It's much harder to marry a 50-year-old technology and a brand new technology than those of us in the brand new technology industry thought," said Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Technology is a difficult match-up and Google techies showed that at their launch in San Francisco when they had to ask the audience to turn off their mobiles because they were interfering with the TV remote controls. Bit of an Apple De-Ja-Vu there.
Google is working on the project with technology giants Sony, Intel and Logitech. Sony will build the devices and the group is hoping to have the first boxes on sale in the US by Christmas.
For more information about Google TV, visit their website here : http://www.google.com/tv/
Submitted by:
Mark O'Donoghue
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http://http://bit.ly/bFC4MI
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