Sony CEO Howard Stringer stands near a TV display during a Google conference. -- PHOTO: APSAN FRANCISCO - INTERNET giant Google is out to expand its kingdom to the living room with an ambitious new service that lets people mesh television viewing with surfing the Web.
Google TV, developed in partnership with technology titans Sony, Intel and Logitech and launched here on Thursday, fuses the freedom of the Internet with television programming.
Google executives vowed their TV platform will succeed where offerings such as Apple TV have foundered.
'Google TV is a new platform that we believe will change the future of television,' Google group product manager Rishi Chandra said after unveiling the new service at a software developers conference in San Francisco. 'Users don't have to choose between TV and Web; they can have both.' Google TV, which is powered by Google's Android software and Chrome Web browser, can be accessed using upcoming Web-enabled televisions from Sony or set-top boxes from Logitech that route Web content to existing TV sets.
Sony and Logitech said the sets and boxes will be available in the United States in time for the year-end holiday shopping season and be rolled out internationally next year. Google TV, which promises to extend the Internet search and advertising giant's reach into the lucrative TV ad market, 'combines the best of what TV has to offer and the best of what the Web has to offer,' Mr Chandra said.
'The transition from TV to Web is totally seamless,' he said during the demonstration for thousands of developers which featured a few technical glitches. 'To the user it doesn't matter where I get my content, whether it be live TV, DVR, or the Web. They just want access to it,' Mr Chandra said. -- AFP
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