Google Unveils Web TV Project
In a joint effort to bring Web and channel surfing together, Google Inc, Intel Corp, Logitech International and Sony Corp unveiled new plans for a “smart” TV on Thursday.
Google wants to turn televisions into giant monitors to allow people sitting in their living rooms watching their favorite show to be able to click a button and surf the Web. The plan hopes to make more money selling ads.
Although the company began selling ads for television programs three years ago, revenue has paled in comparison to what it rakes in with computer run ads — $24 billion last year, mostly from Internet ads.
The TVs are expected to go on sale beginning in the fall in Best Buy stores. The televisions will only be available in the US this year, and will gradually expand into other countries. Pricing won’t be announced until later in the year.
The attempt to bring Internet into living rooms has frustrated nearly every major company in the technologies industry for years. If Google and its partners can market the idea of the new “Google TV” correctly, it will make for huge successes into the $70 billion TV advertising market.
“I think this is going to be the biggest improvement to television since color,” Intel CEO Paul Otellini told The Associated Press.
Google’s main focus was to integrate an Internet-style search box into sets which could then look for video and other info on television as well as the Web. Sony will build devices to launch this fall while Intel will provide its small Atom processors to run the devices.
During a demonstration of the new technology at a Google conference for 5,000 software programmers, things didn’t go quite as Google had planned.
So many people in the audience were using the conference’s wireless access network that Google had repeated issues trying to show off how its technology supposedly toggles seamlessly between the Web and television. Google finally pleaded with attendees to disconnect their smartphones from the network during the showing.
Once it had enough bandwidth, Google was able to conduct a series of Internet searches in a drop-down box that appears at the top of TV programs. The search results showed content related to the TV program being watched.
For example, a person watching a telecast of a sporting event can shrink the program into a small “picture-in-picture” box while looking up statistics or other material about the current game on TV. Viewers can also make search requests by speaking into a remote that runs on Google’s Android operating system.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt described the potential of the Internet TV as mind-boggling, although he acknowledged it might be difficult for some consumers to understand at first. That’s one reason he said Google decided to team up with Best Buy, which offers a “Geek Squad” to deal with complex technology.
“You have to actually see (the Internet TV) to get excited about it,” Schmidt said at the news conference.
Other companies have had little success trying to turn televisions into Internet portals over the past ten years. But Google and its partners believe they have developed a system that will make Internet TV more simplified and very appealing.
Consumers who have already spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on flat-panel TVs will be able to purchase a set-top box made by Logitech or a Blu-ray player from Sony that will plug into the TV to send and receive data. Both devices will contain the same software and microprocessor as the new TV sets.
Sony will make the TV sets that will stand out from other flat-panel sets on the market, as it will be the first to use microprocessors from Intel. The Atom chip will be the brains of the operation. Google will provide the software, including Android and the Chrome Web browser. Logitech is also supplying a special remote control and wireless keyboard.
Best Buy will have exclusive rights to sell the devices and DISH Network TV will integrate its service into Google TV.
Based on the track record of past attempts to bring Internet to television, the new effort is hardly a sure thing. Although executives said previous attempts failed because they 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,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt acknowledged to the audience of developers.
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