Sony: 3-D sweep, Wi-Fi remote, netbox but still no Google TV

NEW YORK – Sony opened on Broadway Wednesday (Aug. 25) but left Barbra Streisand – Google TV, that is – backstage.

Sony’s  media spectacle, at its headquarters, debuted a host of new products including a series of digital cameras with 3-D sweep panorama mode; a new lineup of 3-D LCD TVs with LED backlighting; Android-based Xperia smartphones; Netbox, a small set-top to enable your TV to get connected with walled garden Internet video services; and more. But conspicuously absent was Google TV.

Of course, let’s be fair. Google TV is scheduled for launch “this fall,” and this is still August.

But come on. The blog StuffWeLike had already scooped the rest of the media by showing snippets of what Google TV does. This was possible because Google demonstrated it late last month at -- among all places -- Comic-Con, a comic book and popular arts convention held in San Diego.

So, wasn’t it reasonable for the invited media to expect something from Sony about Google TV?

Google has been working with Sony (TV sets and Blu-ray integrated with Google TV), Logitech (Google TV add-on for regular TVs) and other partners such as Dish Network (Google TV-integrated DVR).

Does this mean other vendors could beat Sony, coming out with Google TV-enabled gadgets first? To this impertinent question, Michael Patton, Sony’s TV marketing product manager, said, “Sony has been working with Google for months. Hardware may be ready, but I can assure you that Google TV software isn’t.”

As a long-time skeptic of Internet TV (sometimes I regret I’ve been in this business too long to remember all the failed efforts in the past), I’ve been struggling to “get” the allure of Google TV.

Sony’s Patton, however, clarified one thing for me. “Google is a search-engine company, right?” he said. “Google TV enables you to do what you expect in search – on TV.”

In short, Google TV isn’t about bringing Internet to TV at all. It’s about bringing a search function to TV.

That means, in theory, I can find -- quickly and effortlessly -- what I want to watch now, regardless of whether it’s live broadcast TV, online video, podcast or DVR content. It doesn’t matter where the content resides.

Now, that’s pretty cool.

But I have no idea how Google TV (a new Google TV set-top by Logitech, for example) could seamlessly work with devices I already have at home today, including my Cablevision set-top box; DVD (not Blu-ray) player; LCD TV; and MAC at home. Well, most likely it won’t, because none of my old stuff (although I bought them all in the last three years!) has WiFi (except for MAC); and there are no other means of digitally connecting them in the dread futurama of “home networking.”

My problem won’t stop there. When do you think my cable operator will start talking to Google so that my next DVR will come with Google TV? Well, hope springs eternal.

That said, let’s concede that Google TV is taking a step in the right direction: It’s focused on the very function many of us want -- such as universal search.

Sony’s Netbox, on the other hand, belongs to a very different product category from Google TV. Yes, the tiny set-top allows your TV to get connected to Sony’s Bravia Internet video, including Crackle, YouTube, Netflix and others. But its mission is in bringing to TV new content from the walled garden audio/video services available on the Internet. It’s not designed to let you venture out in the Wild West alone, to seek thrills on the World Wide Web. If you could get that, it’d be a pretty useful machine.

Sony also demonstrated a range of Sony-Ericsson’s Android phones, named Xperia, which is now finally available in the U.S. market via AT&T. Android Market – equivalent to Apple’s App Store – lets Xperia phone users download apps including different types of keyboards, desktop panels and even a Blu-ray disk remote control. 

Once you download on your phone a “remote control,” which is a free app by the way, according to Steve Medina, product manager at Sony’s information technology product division, your phone becomes a remote control unit for Sony’s Blu-ray players or TV sets.

Because it’s WiFi-based, not infra-red, it doesn’t require a line of sight. In other words, I can be in the next room to change the Red Sox game my husband’s watching on our flat panel TV in the living room to one of my favorite movies like ”My Cousin Vinny” on our Blu-ray.

Call me mean.

But of course, I forgot. We don’t own Sony’s Blu-ray player, controllable with an Android phone. For that matter, I don’t have an Android phone, either. Oh, well. I can dream on, can’t I?