The year of the Internet on your TV?
This may well be the year of the Web on your television.
Now there's word that Google is looking to partner with Sony and Intel to bring Web videos and other apps to the television through a set-top box. The New York Times reports that Google plans to base the platform on its Android operating system for smartphones.
Televisions are being sold now that that can hook up to the Web and use at least some apps, such as social networking sites. There's also the set-top boxes made by Roku (I own one) and video console systems like the Xbox, Wii and PlayStation that have some Web connectivity.
Meanwhile, TechCrunch theorized that Google's entry into this area would finally spur Apple to do something more with its own offering, called Apple TV. Apple TV, which is a very closed system right now, has a long way to go because, I think, people will want variety in their TV/Web offerings (Netflix, Amazon video, etc) -- and not just a commitment to Apple's iTunes environment alone.
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Categories: Apps, Media, Web Dev & Apps
Comments
Also look at Boxee http://www.boxee.tv/ for another promising solution.
Posted by: Karl_S | March 18, 2010 9:10 AM
The playon.tv application works pretty well with the Wii to access shows over the Internet from Hulu, CBS, Comedy Central, etc. Playon then lets you watch the shows on the TV - not the best quality but definitely passable.
Posted by: Eric | March 24, 2010 6:14 PM
Here is how Google TV works;
The Logitech part of the effort is a wireless display containing Google chrome browser, you click TV objects and have the related web page display on the wireless display. The wireless display also contains the EPG. The system provides a new advertising model that takes advantage of the environment that provides both the 2 foot and the 10 foot experience. It’s smart and resolves convergence once and for all. This is the mainstream PC/STB of the future and enables Google to control most TV advertising of the future as well as the platform.
Posted by: Anonymously | April 2, 2010 4:01 PM