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Google TV Announced With Intel, Sony, and Logitech
MojoKid writes "Google's own I/O conference in California is wrapping up today, but not before the company goes out with a serious bang. Google just announced something that has been rumored for a while now: Google TV. Basically, Google is taking the Apple TV concept, but going way overboard by introducing apps, screen customization, and channel searching. Following Google's own announcement, Intel stepped in to provide some backbone to the story. Google is obviously using the big players to move Google TV forward, with Intel, DISH Network, Best Buy, and Adobe firmly on board. Google TV itself is based on Android, runs the Google Chrome browser, and will allow users to access all of their usual TV channels as well as a world of Internet and cloud-based information and applications, including Adobe Flash-based content."
It's going to be open sourced, but I seriously hope they can include drivers for the TV hardware or even some generic drivers. Android for mobile phones being open source is useless because you cannot get drivers for any of the hardware, so you cannot actually use your modifications with your device. That defeats the purpose.
I hope it also doesn't integrate too much with Google's or anyone else's Internet services. Make it work with those, but also provide an easy way to disable all such things.
Other than that, it could be a really interesting TV. Currently I have to stream content from my PC to my PS3 which then shows it in the TV. My PS3 media center has to transcode most of the content on-the-fly. Since this is linux-based Android it means you could have xmbc-like application and everything along those lines directly on your TV, with great networking capabilities. If you can also make your own changes and builds of the Android OS for it, we can install even more suitable OS for us geeks.
Probably 90% of people on Slashdot have a computer hooked up to their TV, one way or another. But more mainstream options are still limited to things like AppleTV. Hopefully this Google offering helps make the usability level low enough that the technologically challenges masses will start to get some of the same benefits. Maybe it will hurt the entrenched content providers enough and provide enough of a market that we will be able to purchase shows ala carte at reasonable prices over the internet; without all the middle men taking our money.
Can't wait to watch grass grow on 100+ plasma/LCD's at your local big box store.
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Until I get better internet service, it is a moot point. I don't see AT&T or Comcast (Xfinity) helping Google here.
I do look forward to Google (or someone) getting fiber into my city, and to my door. Yeah, Comcast has fiber running right under my driveway, but getting it that extra 90 ft seems impossible right now.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I want Google TV streamed to my mobile device, not just the ability to use my mobile device to control Google on my TV.
This is all well and good until Apple adds the App Store to the Apple TV Platform.
But what will the TV Networks and Cable Providers do about it? Cell phone companies have slaughtered Android and TV networks/cable providers think that even though you are -paying- for TV you still need to be shown tons and tons of ads. So the question remains whether this will remain untouched or if it will be corrupted like Android has been by the TV networks and cable providers?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Boxee is not going to be happy.
War isn't about who's right. It's about who's left.
Looks like the boxes will be running on an Atom chip, so it might offer some interesting hacking opportunities.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
you lost me at "Adobe"
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
The link in the story goes to someplace called hothardware. Where's the link to google tv? Ok, here http://www.google.com/tv.
It sounds great. However, there's no mention yet about whether it will be US-only, or if/when there will be an international rollout. I can't watch Hulu in Canada, I can't use Netflix, I can't use a cablecard, and I have to presume that, at least at first, I won't be able to use Google TV.
OK, I CAN use Hulu in Canada if I trick them into thinking I'm in the US, but that's not quite the same.
www.clarke.ca
Am I the only one who thinks Google is getting too big. They've got their fingers in every pie imaginable. What's next? The Google Car?
I don't like it when one company is so powerful they have almost no competition, and in search, unfortunately, Google have no competition. When are we going to realise that we are letting corporations take over. Colour me stupid all you wish, but I'm starting to distance myself from Google and its offerings.
If not, no thanks
The radio frequencies reserved for transmitted television and the satellites used for Sat TV can be deployed to far more useful purposes once TV's deployed off to glass fibre and DSL
Like being able to watch hi-def music videos on your phone wherever in the world you are at the same time as backing up your latest phonecam shots to the cloud...
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I listened to the Google I/O keynote this morning, and i didn't really hear about any compelling features that couldn't be reproduced by a good A/V switch and a line in from my PC to the TV. They did make some crack about how previous attempts at internet TV failed as soon as they required the user to switch inputs since most of them didn't know how to get back to regular TV (certainly a rather cynical view) but i'm not sure how it will benefit anyone who's technically proficient enough to handle normal input switching.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
How is this different from the hundreds of millions of installed Java embeded hardware platforms already in the market?
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Wouldn't you prefer this.
"His name was James Damore."
Failing at the art of subtlety :)
for over the air TV. I had to get cable at my new place because the tuners in the TV's don't pick up most broadcast over rabbit ears. My Sharp Aquos has the worst reception. EyeTV dongle the best.
You never see tuner quality mentioned in the reviews.
Best Slashdot Co
the "Porn TV"
Google stated today that too many people are having trouble deciding what to watch. Wrong.
People are watching "monkees washing cats" videos on You Tube because that's more intriguing than the crap on broadcast TV.
So now all the phones and TVs have IP addresses and we still aren't running out.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Is this Web TV (MSN TV) done right?
Is get it on Blu-ray players. That is the way thing seems to be going for the mass market now. It is uncommon to see a Blu-ray player without a net connection since they need firmware updates for retarded copy protection reasons and BD-Live needs net access. Well, the companies figured out that since their players can decode video and get on the net, they could also play video from the net. You can get Netflix, Vudu and such right to your Blu-ray player.
If Google can get on that, it'll be a real win for them. Someone goes and buys the small-disc movie player (since Blu-ray players also play DVDs) and it comes with Google. People like Google, so they use it.
They're all pushing for Flash, even Google.
It looks like the networks will still schedule all the shows I like at the same time on the same night, forcing me to choose which ones to ignore. Don't be stupid. Let me decide what to watch and when; then we can talk.
How about this? Schedule first-run when your generic focus groups tell you, then leave it available so real people can watch whenever we get around to it. I have better things to do than schedule my life around you.
So how does open source work with HDMI?
See the video. Is the /. community now accepting HDMI when it's from Google?
Best Buy
I instantly thought this was a horrible idea right here. I can't trust anything they do. After all of the Internet horror stories, stories from my relatives, and even in my own family about the terrible things that can happen when Best Buy is involved, I can't trust them with this.
Best Buy employee: This is the all new Google TV. It allows real-time web 2.0 synergy between your living room and the Internet. ...Say what?
Me: Um... what?
Employee: It's like TV but combined with the Internet with apps and stuff.
Me: Awesome! How much does it cost?
Employee: We sell the regular model by itself for X dollars, but that isn't certified with us.
Me: Oh, it isn't?
Employee: Yeah, it might not work with your TV unless you pay $150 more for our Geek Squad(tm) service. They set it up, put apps on it for you, and make sure everything works.
Me: I'm a computer nerd, I can set it up myself. Thanks anyways!
Employee: If you buy it without our service then you don't get [insert feature here]. You either have to use Geek Squad(tm) or buy this $100 gold-plated cable.
Me: *looks at box* But the box says that I get that feature without having to buy anything.
Employee: Yeah, but you need these cables to have it look decent.
Me: I have some old ones at home I can use. Thank you for helping!
Employee: We're out of regular Google TVs.
Me:
Employee: We only have our pre-specialized models. They have everything already set up by Geek Squad(tm) so you don't have to bother.
Me: I'd much rather bother.
Employee: Trust me, it's horrible without our service. Are you sure?
Me: *sigh* Fine, I'll buy it.
Employee: Thank you for shopping at Best Buy!
*I get home and set it up*
Me: Okay, ready to try out my new Google TV! Wait... what's this? The box never said anything about "free trials" to all of these programs. Why is the interface so slow? Oh, it's all of these other things that came pre-installed. Of course. Why is this acting all weird? *looks in settings* These settings aren't what the defaults were in the manual! Ugh... *Google TV crashes* What the crap! Okay, screw this, I'm returning it.
*goes back to best buy*
Me: Excuse me, I'd like to return this obviously faulty Google TV.
Employee: Did you install it?
Me: Yes, how else would I know it is faulty?
Employee: It seems you used unqualified cables. I'm afraid you can't return it.
Me: Unqualifi- No, no, no! You can't void my ability to return this because I didn't use those $100 cables! That doesn't make sense!
Employee: Rules are rules, sir. Have a nice day.
I could go on but you can imagine the horror.
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
can anyone tell me the likelihood that I'll be able to get this working on my ipad...?
I have had a theory. Apple TV didn't take off like the iPod as people instantly saw the additional prices and the lack of backward compatibility, AKA a tuner and DVR. The iPod, people think they are going to rip their existing CDs and so the only price they saw at first is the iPod price, then they see what all they can buy and start to buy more. Apple TV had no backwards compatibility, and thus people had to look for where their shows were going to come from and saw the additional price before the purchase, that along with the lack of a tuner for local TV and DVR at least meant most people did not want to adopt it. Google sounds like they might be doing it semi right. We can only hope.
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
And the first of these is by getting in bed with the major cable networks and offering an ala carte subscription service. I can get the big 4 over the air. If I can stream Comedy Central, Sci Fi, Cartoon Network, and Discovery I'd gladly pay them a little of the money that I was paying for hundreds of channels I didn't care about with cable. What do you say, Google? You're the only one who has the backbone to even attempt this. I'll even buy a stupidly overpriced box to buy into it. My only concern is that they'll pack so much content into this that I'll never want to turn off my Plasma...and that would get kinda pricey.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Bandwidth is really all I need now.
Part of this initiative (IMHO) serves the purpose of fucking with Apple: it will be Flash based, hence out.of-limits to iPod, iPhone and iPad.
If Google TV becomes hugely popular, the joke's on Apple.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Pretty much anything you want from the first three is already online for free. Why would you pay for it?
How does this service fix the problem that Bruce Springsteen first complained about 20 years ago?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
So now when you use Chrome to shop the web for a new refridgerator you're going to see whirlpool ads during your favorite shows. Seems smooth to me. Wonder how risque they'll get with their allowed advertisers ;)
Great, another thing Canadians won't be able to buy in this country. Seriously the moment any device offers the ability to purchase or watch TV content, the big-wigs at Rogers and Bell come out of their holes and throw some money at the CRTC to keep these devices out of Canada. Canadian TV technology is stuck in the stone-age because of an obvious and blatant monopoly owned by big-telco and the inability for the impotent CRTC to recognize or do anything about it.
And while the Apple TV might be available in Canada, its content is strictly regulated so that much of the stuff you can buy from iTunes is the Canadian garbage our taxes pay for that many of us won't even watch on TV.
They make the 3d mouse that I use at work; I could see that being a very useful way to interact with or manage certain types of entertainment ...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
there are a number of applications for computers that do exactly that sort of thing, especially if you're using your computer with a tuner card.
But only for over the air. If you try to tune in any digital channels from some cable or satellite providers, you might find that only over-the-air channels are clear QAM, and only over-the-air channels are free of 5C encryption on the FireWire output. Or to put it another way: "Comcast's action prevented me from living where I wanted to live."
Define "a computer."
The consensus in recent articles about iPad and Splashtop is that one way to tell the difference between a "computer" and an "appliance" is that a computer can run a compiler. This includes desktops, laptops, and servers but excludes an iPad and a cable box.
Most DVRs contain pretty much all the components of a modern day computer
Dedicated DVRs made by TiVo also contain one component that makes them not a computer: verification of the digitally signed boot loader.
The radio frequencies reserved for transmitted television and the satellites used for Sat TV can be deployed to far more useful purposes once TV's deployed off to glass fibre and DSL
That won't happen any time soon. The excuse is that deploying "glass fibre and DSL" to the farmers who grow the food you eat is so expensive that it would take a government initiative analogous to the Rural Electrification Act. They even get their Internet over satellite.
90% or more of internet video (99.999% if you count porn) would be unusable without Adobe on board.
Most Flash video is H.264, and plenty of devices support H.264. Only the front end would have to change from Flash to HTML5, and possibly a remux if it was in an FLV container. Or are you talking about the legacy On2 codec (which is free now thanks to Google) or the legacy Sorenson H.263 codec?
That is all.
And the first of these is by getting in bed with the major cable networks and offering an ala carte subscription service. I can get the big 4 over the air. If I can stream Comedy Central, Sci Fi, Cartoon Network, and Discovery I'd gladly pay them a little of the money that I was paying for hundreds of channels I didn't care about with cable
Ala carte channels is an obsolete idea already even though it never existed. It only made sense after digital cable but before widespread On Demand. The same reasons you reject bundling of channels can be extended to why I should reject bundling of shows into channels. If I'm streaming, the whole notion of "channel" is an artificial construct.
Look at hulu for example, you can browse by channel, but it's rare that you'd want to.
Don't see it mentioned anywhere. Can the Logitch device stream local content? Will this box essentially replace all those devices like Popcorn Hour, Western Digital TV, Patriot Box Office, Popbox, Boxee Box, and all those other devices in that market? If this can do open source apps along with streaming, seems like it would be the best of both worlds.....
Cable co's have specific licensing with their upsteam content providers. Although what you propose is possible, it also means re-negotiating the contract's, etc.. Red tape is annoying and ultimately this has to come down to the bottom line: Does adding this service (minus the rollout costs) make me more money?
Bye!
Channels need to go away and you make a good point. A la cart without a cable box would still be nice. I am not going to pay to rent equipment they need to show me their stuff. I do not pay a separate rental for the line cards in their Universal Broadband Router either.
1) First and foremost, the quality of most streaming video is crap. Even the "HD" stuff, when viewed on an HDTV, looks like junk even on a 10mbps connection. Then you have buffering issues during peak hours. Google could do better.
2) There's a chance you could subscribe to HBO, Showtime, etc. without cable service. Major plus for some people.
3) There's also still novelty to being able to turn on the tv and just watch what's playing. When I used to have cable, I could turn on the tv to any of those channels I listed and watch indefinitely, more or less regardless of content. That has a real worth to me. First run tv is a nice novelty as well.
4) Google is an advertisement firm. They're smart, too. I'm sure they could sell networks on an advertisment structure for on-demand content that would be much more smooth and less invasive than what everyone is currently using.
5) I'm not a fan of loading time. Current online tv has loading time. The advertisement even has loading time. Google could make this instant.
I don't mind paying for a quality product. Current online tv is not a quality product. Not to mention most, if not all, streaming options are clunky.
To each their own. Like most gadgets we talk about around here, this is a luxury product. The service I want is a luxury service. I can understand if others wouldn't want it, but people have been begging for ala carte tv for years and I'm one of them.
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
1. I watch it on my HDTV, looks fine. Easily as good as the over compressed cable that is the alternative.
2. This is a good point. I use netflix for this, but some folks do not want to wait.
3. I never did do that.
4. probably quite true
5. the load time is a couple seconds, barely longer than it takes to change channels on the digital cable box I used to have. I do admit that is was a POS scientific atlanta box though.
I would pay for tv if it has no ads, any ads and I refuse to pay. I would love it too, if it had no advertising.
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/
clearly discusses why Digital Rights Management(DRM) is not good for society and everyone's DIGITAL FREEDOMS.
Lately, GOOGLE seems to be associating itself with all sorts of DRM-infected companies. DRM suppresses every user's Digital Freedoms.
DRM RADAR ALERT #1: Sony is notorious for this if you've been reading about Sony taking about the ability to use Linux on PS3. Has everyone already forgotten about the Sony CD-Writer installing a ROOTKIT on everyone's PC? That was a form of DRM.
DRM RADAR ALERT #2:The Intel SOC is full of security stuff to clearly support the DRM. I certainly am pessimistic that the security api was developed to protect everyone's privacy. It was clearly developed to protect multinationals' interest to ensure they protect their intellectual property.
Does anyone else foresee Google infecting their core web search web page with DRM?
Connecting the dots, notice this google tv event also coincides with the introduction of ipv6 everywhere which introduces new so-called security api's. We should rename these to ipv6 DRM api's.
I'll be using ipv4 for a while. I'll be avoiding google tv. The schtick and the hype don't work on me. Go find some other suckers.
I can't wait until someone is watching TV and then ads which are based upon Google analyzing every email/IM/purchase/chat that user has ever made appear on their TV... ...In front of their wife...
A rather cynical view might be that Google is doing for the TV what Apple did for the phone.
I know Sony makes TV's but the PS3 already does some of this stuff already. About the only thing the PS3 can't do is Hulu and that only because HULU blocks the PS3's web browser. It can even be used as a DVR in Europe with PlayTV Sony has yet to offer "apps" for the PS3, though EyeCreate, the Photo Gallery download and AdHoc Party come close.
To get it in TV quality on an appliance hooked up to a TV. There's little a Tivo does that can't be done with a computer too, but plenty of people have those.
Learn to love Alaska
I was thinking that WiMAX-IPTV would be the future of television, along with other 4g type services. Apple is probably waiting to make televisions for AT&T's network.
Yes and no. From what I've seen, they have to pay for ESPN2 to provide someone with ESPN, but there's no reason they can't block ESPN2. They play the "look at the number of channels" game, rather than the "look at the quality" game, so they don't. There is no need to renegotiate any contract to be able to provide a la carte channels. It would just be harder to make it a viable product.
If someone did it, I think they'd be surprised at the number of people willing to pay $40 a month for 15 channels they want, rather than $50 a month for 200 channels that have those 15 in there plus 185 unwanted channels. Some will still want them all (QVC? Really? But I know people that leave that on all day long unless there's something else they specifically wanted), but most just want the ones that have what they want and don't care to be able to flip past Oxygen or whatever they never watch.
And, once someone starts doing it that way, the next time their Disney/ESPN contract is up, they can get ESPN without Disney or Disney without ESPN. And if they can't, then the FTC should get involved regarding the antitrust bundling.
Learn to love Alaska
This is admittedly a bit OT, but I was just curious: Why do people refer to Android as if it was a distinct OS from Linux? To me that's like saying "I use SUSE OS" or something. Just a pet peave of mine. It's not as if it's a new OS. It's a variant of Linux just like countless other variants of Linux that we call Linux.
... tabbed channels?
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
There are lots of ways to pay for "digital content", but let's hope google's way - purely advertising - prevails.
In pursuit of this model they release open source operating systems, browsers, codecs, etc. They provide free content-hosting and delivery. They do all this because DRM, patents, etc are all barriers to delivering us more content on which they can place ads.
This is sure to clash on many fronts with proponents of the other model - pay-per-use content delivery on closed platforms with closed formats - and fortunately google have the resources to fight such battles competently.
Both sides are trying to make a profit, neither are doing it for our benefit, but we benefit more from google's model which is less evil.
It should be noted that content-creators make money from advertising as well, so it's not like one model favours distributors/indexers and the other favours creators. They're just two very different ways of making money from things that people want to read, see or hear.
Sony. Wow. Now we'll get a free root kit with every TV.
Shame on slashdot. Google will be studying your viewing habits and not one concern about it. Not one issue?
I'm really starting to think that most of the people here work for the Google Corporation.
Google TV: it's like a big-ass iPad that's nailed to the wall. Really this has the potential to become a real iPad killer, I mean think of it: (1) you can use it for more then 30s without it breaking your hands, (2) has flash, (3) linux-based, open source
Sony is involved? No thanks I will take a pass.
Fool me once...
It uses SD cards - 32gigs right there. And if I'm not mistaken someone was working on terabyte SD cards.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating