Google expands to TV, partners with Sony, Dish, Intel

Google expands to TV, partners with Sony, Dish, Intel

MUMBAI: The internet giant Google is targeting 4 billion television users worldwide in partnership with Sony, Logitech, Dish Network and Intel.

Google TV will not generate their content, rather the company is looking to capitalise on the advertising revenue potentially generated from almost two-thirds of the world‘s population.

Google has its eyes on the largest consumer market on the planet. Computer users number 1 billion, mobile users number 2 billion, but TV trumps both of those with 4 billion users around the world.
Donning the tagline, "TV Meets Web, Web Meets TV", Google TV will help users find programmes that can be watched and recorded from across various cable and satellite channels.
 
Google TV proposes to give users a search box on their television sets, via which they can use Google‘s search engine to look for live programmes, DVR recordings, YouTube videos, and video-on-demand from Amazon. Users can then see a short list of results displayed on their TV, from which they can select and view the desired video with the push of a button.

This technology will be built into TV sets, set top boxes, Blu-ray players and other electronic devices. All the three, partners Sony, Logitech and Dish all plan to have their Google TV enabled products ready by this fall.

Sony will have a TV and a set-top box with Google‘s Android-based technology. 
 
Dish Network, on the other hand, plans to have the Google TV devices plugged into their network receivers over HDMI, enabling the Google TV to search for content on the web and save it to their Dish DVR.

Logitech, meanwhile, will launch the "companion box" by fall, which will run Google TV. This device is like a set-top box and can be connected to any HDTV, allowing the user to use Google TV with any other channel service set-top box. The box comes with a controller that is a small keyboard, remote control, and a touch pad for navigating the service.
 
Logitech also plans to launch a camera that will let users make video calls from the TV, and an application that will let any smart phone act like a Google TV controller.

The companies will initially launch these products in the US in the fall of 2010 and then gradually roll out into other global markets.