Sony HDTVs To Come With Google TV Interface

adeelarshad82 writes "Even though Google recently announced its own Google TV, seems like their partnership with Sony is going to make it obsolete. Google has partnered up with Sony to launch four HDTVs loaded with the Google TV interface, as well as a Google TV Blu-ray player. The company's Google TV products will be called Sony Internet TV. With the Google TV, Sony aims to provide a clean and easy way to browse the Web, watch TV, and run applications all on your HDTV. Google TV uses the true Chrome Web browser with Flash 10.1. Unfortunately though, at the moment it only has a handful of apps available but Sony said the OS will be updated in early 2011 to include the Android Market app with more options."

Comments

Terrible summary.

[Facegarden]

Paraphrasing since copy-paste isn't working (did slashdot do that on purpose or is my computer on crack?)

"Even though google annouced their own google tv... their partnership with sony will make it obsolete..."

Anyway.. whaaaa? Did the person writing this even read about Google TV? Google didn't announce a TV... the announced a software platform called Google TV, which sony is using. So the partnership isn't going to make it obsolete... it's USING Google TV!

Such a terrible summary its actually weird. Also, nice random semicolon.
-Taylor

Re:Terrible summary.

[Lunix Nutcase]

Such a terrible summary its actually weird.

One word: sampenzus.

No, Google did not announce it's own Google TV

[cmiller173]

Google did not announce it's own Google TV, Google announced Google TV products from partners Sony and Logitech. Which is what they were saying all along. May: http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/05/20/198242/Google-TV-Announced-With-Intel-Sony-and-Logitech

Re:Reasons this Will Fail:

[Facegarden]

No one cares about the current and planned IPTV offerings.
Cable/satellite companies will never let them mature into anything worthwhile.
Sony.

Reasons Slashdot will shit on this:
Flash.

Its not so much IPTV like AT&T U-Verse, that requires everyone to agree on how it works, its just web TV, like Hulu. I already use Hulu as my main source of TV, and don't have cable, just internet, with a media center hooked up to the TV.

Plenty of people would do that too if it were built into to their TV already.

Summary is bizarrely wrong

[DragonWriter]

Even though Google recently announced its own Google TV, seems like their partnership with Sony is going to make it obsolete

Wrong.

What Google announced was the GoogleTV platform. In the Google announcement, they announced a series of hardware manufacturer partners that would be developing devices incorporating the platform on TVs, Blu-Ray players, and standalone settop boxes. Sony was one of those.

Now Sony has announced some of the specific initial products that it will be making that incorporate the GoogleTV platform.

Unfortunately though, at the moment it only has a handful of apps available but Sony said the OS will be updated in early 2011 to include the Android Market app with more options.

Which is exactly what Google said when they announced GoogleTV.

Reasons parent comment fails

[DragonWriter]

No one cares about the current and planned IPTV offerings.

This isn't an IPTV offering. Its simply a Web + TV offering. It does incorporate access to existing Web video sources, but primarily the TV (content) part comes from whatever normal TV signal source you have.

Cable/satellite companies will never let them mature into anything worthwhile.

Which is probably why GoogleTV is designed primarily (for now) to bring existing Web content to your TV screen and enhance rather than replace traditional cable/satellite (or, AFAIK, broadcast) TV.

Sony.

Sony hasn't really been all that bad at selling TVs and other media products, so as much as some people may be upset about some things Sony has done in the past, I don't think that's a reason that the product will fail.

Re:Reasons parent comment fails

[DragonWriter]

Web + TV, you say?
Why, I could make billions if it was 1994

Yes, nothing that has ever been, in generally similar terms, tried once and failed has ever been commercialized successfully later after technology has advanced and details of the approach were changed.

For instance, Apple isn't currently doing a brisk business in selling tablet computers despite the weak success of previous attempts of other companies to do that.

Re:Reasons parent comment fails

[91degrees]

Things have changed a little since 1994. Mainly that we have streaming video. It's an application that actually makes sense for a television.

Re:Good idea

[OldeTimeGeek]

Who wouldn't want that, and what reason could you argue not to have it?

Because the components will become outdated long before the TV portion does and the only way to update will be to replace the entire thing. Or do you actually think it will be based on an open architecture that will allow replacement of components and still remain in warranty? Sorry, not for me.

Wrong question.

[srussia]

All I want to know is if my new Sony TV will come with a free root kit pre-installed at the factory?

TV, Sony or not, is already a rootkit to your mind.

Re:Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't limited to Sony. Virtually all Blu-ray/TV manufacturers artificially limit updates and open access to their devices. In fact, Sony is one of the better ones in this area (for their higher-end products). If you purchased a Netflix/YouTube/Pandora/Hulu-capable Blu-ray player 5 months ago, it probably hasn't received substantial updates since, with the newer software features only appearing in later product versions... even though earlier versions have the same hardware.

Re:Good idea

[adolf]

Good news!

Luckily enough, the announcement of Sony using Google TV in some of their newest HDTVs did not also include an announcement of the discontinuation of other models which do not include Google TV!

That's right: You'll still be able to buy a TV without all of this gee-wizardry, and it will cost less than than the newfangled kit described in TFA!

If you want to keep things this way, then just keep voting with your wallet and companies will keep making simple TVs that folks like you (and I) like. It's easy, it's fun, and it saves money!

(My own 52" Samsung LCD is nearly as brain-dead as can be. It simply displays video, and occasionally does a little bit of video switching. It doesn't handle audio, it doesn't view Netflix, it doesn't have a built-in Blu-Ray player, and it certainly doesn't fucking run Google TV. And nor will its replacement. It does, however, do a fine job of displaying video. I have other toys for those those other sorts of roles, and want as little co-dependence between them as possible. And I'll keep buying things in such a fashion as to support the ongoing manufacture of stuff that allows doing stuff in this way.)

Re:How long until Sony starts subtracting features

[wowbagger]

Actually, yes, I did have Linux on my PS3. I had it to experiment with the CBE as a signal processing engine, since that's what I do for a living.

And not only am I shut out of PSN, I am shut out of any recent games, any new hardware such as Move, potentially out of new Blu-Ray disks, etc. - which I do because all work and no fun makes Wowbagger a dull boy.

So yes, I DID lose (sorry, loose - I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable) something when Sony took away a feature that they had advertised, that was a part of our sales contract, and that was a part of why I did business with them.