Google TV: Android on your TV, Media Centre and Blu-ray Disc Player

Now that Google's keynote is over, we can take a closer look at their plans.  Apart from the official release of a new version of Android, the search giant also unveiled plans for Google TV, a system for accessing multimedia content on televisions.

To put it simply, Google TV is a special version of Android designed for TVs and Home Cinema systems, and the OS will be installed on televisions, media centres and even Blu-ray and DVD players.  Agreements have already been signed with Intel, Sony, Logitech and other manufactures.


Google TV hopes to bring several different sources of content together: conventional broadcast TV, recordings, online video, web browsing (in Chrome and with support for Flash) and apps available on Android Market.

Searching for content

Google has of course relied on its know-how for finding what users are looking for, and the built-in search engine is very powerful.  Start typing 'Lost', and you'll see trailers for the series, VOD episodes to download from Amazon or Netflix as well as upcoming episodes or previous instalments that you've recorded.


The OS supports multitasking, and you can run various tools while playing video.  You can automatically add subtitles, for instance, or have them translated on the fly.

Google has also designed a special homescreen that offers a 'new experience made for television that combines the TV you know and love with the freedom and power of the Internet. ' Interestingly, that will include the option to add apps downloaded from Android Market.


Ads: a step towards free content?

Google is also very good at providing services to advertisers, as we saw when it launched new, more interactive ways of displaying ads in Android 2.2.  We'll find the same ads on Google TV, which could well leave the door open to more content that's free for users.  The same model is already used for plenty of Android apps, which come in either a free ad-supported version or with no adds for a small fee.

Technically speaking, the new system doesn't rely on ARM processors from the world of mobile devices, but instead uses x86 processors found in desktop computers.  The first products to use the system will have an Intel Atom CE4100 CPU.  Because battery life isn't an issue here, Google was free to choose powerful chips capable of decoding HD without breaking a sweat. 

Links with smartphones and video-conferencing

The system is controlled by a TV remote, but there is no news about the option of adding a wireless keyboard and mouse.  Android smartphones will offer even more control, including the option to use voice recognition.  It remains to be seen whether Apple will allow Google TV apps in its own App Store.

Another interesting feature is the ability to video-conference using a webcam.  No details were given, but we imagine that the system will rely on Google Talk, the company's own IM client.


Finally, just like Android, Google TV will be an open system and hardware manufacturers will be able to use it with their own produces.  Sony and Logitech will unveil TVs and media centres at the end of the year, and Google TV products will become more widely available in summer 2011 at the earliest.

A giant leap forward for the ten-foot interface

Google's user interface marks a remarkable leap forward for media centres, and is light years ahead of what was available just a few years ago as well as the interface found on most IPTV devices today.  We're sure that ISPs everywhere are following the developments closely.

With so much progress, we can only hope that other big names like Apple or Microsoft start working on rival systems.  Without any competition, it's all too easy for Big Brother to keep an eye on you.

While he was presenting Android 2.2, Vic Gundotra, Google's Vice President for Engineering picked up on a phrase from Andy Rubin, head of Android about how the company saw the smartphone market a few years ago: 'if Google did not act, we faced a Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice.  That's a future we don't want.'

But if Google ends up being the only big player on TV, that could well end up looking very ironic ...


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