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dsahota
Move On. Wireless. I connect using N and stream 1080p videos just fine.
Charles.Desassure
“Worldwide three quarters of homes have a TV. Only two million are connected to ...
Google TV turns on Android, Web apps
Rick Merritt
5/12/2011 1:45 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Google is turning to its developer community to stoke interest in Google TV, its Android-based software platform for connected televisions. The company described tools and plans at its annual Google I/O developer conference here, enabling any Android or Web developer to release apps for the TV environment.
Google will create this summer a version 2.0 of Google TV based on the 3.1 version of Android, an upgrade of the Honeycomb version of Android for tablets. Developers who build apps for that platform will for the first time be able get access to a new Google TV area coming this summer to the Android Market, an online applications store.
Developers can use an existing Honeycomb emulator to test Google TV apps today. Google said it will release a Google TV emulator for the PC soon. The company also announced a program called Fishtank to provide starting this summer a limited number of hardware emulators for Google TV 2.0 to select Android developers.
In a separate session, Google described software libraries it is making available for Web developers to write code for TV apps. Developers packed into both Android and Web sessions where Google provided guidelines for writing apps for a growing category of connected TVs.
"Eighty percent of US homes have a PC, 90 percent have a cellphone but 99 percent have at least one TV," said Chris Wilson, a Google presenter at the Web session.
Worldwide three quarters of homes have a TV. Only two million are connected to the Web today, but that is expected to grow to as much as 43 million by 2018, Wilson said. In the US, TVs are viewed three times as much as PCs, he added.
The Internet giant announced Google TV with much fanfare at Google I/O a year ago. So far only two set-top boxes and one TV from initial partners Logitech and Sony are shipping with the software. Samsung and Vizio have Google TV products in the works, and other partners are in the pipeline, said Google TV developers here.
A session on Android apps for Google TV drew an estimated 750 developers with a long overflow line of others waiting to get in. A separate session for Web-based developers garnered a smaller but still substantial crowd. Google hopes increased developer interest will spark more interest in the platform from TV makers.
Yahoo beat Google to market with a connected TV platform, now used by a number of TV makers including LG, Samsung, Sony and Vizio.
The Android session showed how developers such as Pandora and CNBC reused code from smartphone apps for Google TV. It also reviewed the significant differences between existing Android apps and the Google TV environment including the larger display and lack of support for touch, GPS and telephony on the TV software. One developer also noted the lack of plug-and-play support for devices such as USB Web cameras.
Google released applications for creating a virtual TV remote control on an Android or Apple iPhone. The company will release the source code for the Android application under an Apache 2 license, said Google developer Christian Kurzke, drawing enthusiastic applause from the crowd.
The company also plans to create a program that maintains a database of broadcast TV channels that developers can use as a resource in their apps. "There's a lot of other cool and interesting things we can do with the TV feed an in future, so we will expose more TV functionality into a TV library," said Kurzke.
"This is a really exciting time because we are enabling a market for apps on the TV for the first time," he added.
About 750 developers packed a session on Android apps for Google TV.
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Luis Sanchez
5/12/2011 4:59 PM EDT
This is very interesting.
This has been brewing since about 5 or more years ago. But I think Google has all what it takes now to enable this! I think the libraries will be on Java language. But... does this mean that the TV's will have to be connected to the internet through DSL and RJ-45 connectors? How about bi-directional cable? what ever happened to that? Like thru2way?
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Frank Eory
5/13/2011 11:45 AM EDT
tru2way is a cable industry thing and it is very much alive. But that is a completely different ecosystem beyond things like Google TV and Apple TV.
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dsahota
5/27/2011 12:43 AM EDT
Move On. Wireless. I connect using N and stream 1080p videos just fine.
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mranderson
5/12/2011 6:56 PM EDT
Google is having a significant impact on the tech industry by becoming a software supplier and challenging Apple, Microsoft and others in this domain. It is good to see a healthy level of competition exists in the tech industry.
Another interesting breaking story on CNN and other news networks is Facebook has been caught privately hiring pr firms (Burson-Marsteller, etc.) to raise privacy concerns about how Google and other companies handle user data with journalists. So Facebook is the funding behind most of the questions being raised about smart phone user privacy in the media recently and their intent was not altruistic.
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selinz
5/13/2011 4:28 PM EDT
I see TV's getting more and more smarts. The PS3 changed the game a bit by providing so much horsepower to your TV display and focussing more on media capabilities. They have really done a pretty poor job leveraging it but it's getting better. I really don't see a need for yet another device for TV.
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rick.merritt
5/13/2011 4:38 PM EDT
People have been trying to marry the Internet and TV for years, since Web TV Networks. It ain't easy but we'll get there eventually--but not via the walled garden of cable cos' tru2way.
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goafrit
5/13/2011 9:01 PM EDT
It is going to take extra 5 years for this technology to sync. It is on the way but none of the players will solve it. Someone not there is the owner of the idea. These ideas are old tied processes that never worked
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hm
5/13/2011 9:43 PM EDT
Was there a special interest group from Cable TV service provider? Are they interested in Google TV concept? If they do, chances of Google TV becoming successful are high.
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rick.merritt
5/14/2011 2:55 AM EDT
No cable cos anywhere in sight. I think they still have their head in the sand about connected TV. I think they still hope to offer a walled garden.
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lifewingmate
5/14/2011 6:38 AM EDT
Can you tell us which study "In the US, TVs are viewed three times as much as PCs" is from? In addition, will USB 3.0 play a part in this? Google TV seems to be moving in the right direction since sites such as Netflix and Hulu allow on demand TV watching. In addition, will these apps allow you to enhance your Google TV experience? Finally, there are no mentions about how the apps will be tested. Glad that developers are invited and interested, but will Google open up this opportunity for Tech Comm and other folks to take part?
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kinnar
5/14/2011 11:35 PM EDT
The essence of the article is Google TV is now open for application developers to design, test and install their application. On the other hand what the article is describing about the TV over Internet is still very far from realization in a practical situation as the TV over Internet is inferior compared to conventional TV today. But still lets hope best for the Google TV.
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DrQuine
5/15/2011 3:42 PM EDT
What is the mechanism to prevent the introduction of malware into these interconnected systems? The tightly controlled (iPhone) Apple App store has the advantage that it provides a barrier of entry to malware in comparison to open systems.
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rick.merritt
5/16/2011 1:13 AM EDT
@lifewingmate: Google just announced it is supporting USB 2.0 on Android but has no plans for USB 3.0.
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KB3001
5/16/2011 7:33 AM EDT
I worry about the security of such open systems.
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goafrit
5/16/2011 8:23 PM EDT
There is no major difference between open and closed. It is still the same people that do it. Security is not an issue.
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Charles.Desassure
5/21/2011 9:46 AM EDT
“Worldwide three quarters of homes have a TV. Only two million are connected to the Web today, but that is expected to grow to as much as 43 million by 2018, Wilson said. In the US, TVs are viewed three times as much as PCs, he added.” Now this sounds very good, but when the price of a good big screen TV (55 to 65 inches) drop to under $1000, these figures are going to change. We still live in a digital divided computer world. How can people gain Internet access when some people cannot purchase a PC? At the college level, there are some students that do have a PC at home or Internet access because they cannot afford it. It is wonderful if you are a student and stay on campus. I heard figures like this during the “Internet Rush” years of the 1990’s. By the way, 2018 is only seven years away…think about.
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