Google inside your living room?
p2pnet view P2P | Advertising:- With the collusion of Intel, Google and Sony hope soon to invade the homes of people everywhere.
The three want to develop Google TV “to bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes”, says the New York Times.
You can’t trust Sony or Google online. So why would you want to trust them in your living room with free access to everything you watch, when and for how long?
That’s priceless advertising targetting information, the kind of data Google in particular has been trying to get online.
“Google is expected to deliver a toolkit to outside programmers within the next couple of months, and products based on the software could appear as soon as this summer” says the story.
It’s a “pre-emptive” move to allow Google to “get a foothold in the living room as more consumers start exploring ways to bring Web content to their television sets”, says the NYT, observing, “Google wants to aggressively ensure that its services, in particular its search and advertising systems, play a central role.
“Google wants to be everywhere the Internet is so they can put ads there”, the story has “one of the people with knowledge of the project” saying.
Google has built a prototype set-top box, but the technology may be incorporated directly into TVs or other devices, it states, going on >>>
The partners will face a crowded field. In addition to the makers of traditional cable and satellite set-top boxes, Cisco Systems and Motorola, many others have entered the game, including Microsoft, Apple, TiVo and start-up companies like Roku and Boxee, which already stream video from Netflix, MLB.com and other Web sites directly to television sets. Yahoo is also promoting a TV platform that uses small software programs called widgets to use certain Web services.
Anthony Wood, founder and chief executive of Roku, said that a browser-based Google TV box would require an expensive chip and would probably cost $200 or more, compared with a cheaper alternative, like Roku’s $80 device. The device streams content from more than a dozen sites, including Netflix, Blip.TV and Amazon.com. Moreover, ‘on the TV, people want specific TV apps, not a browser experience,’ he said.
For Intel, the effort represents a way to get its line of energy-efficient Atom chips, currently found in laptops, into TVs. Intel executives have talked for a couple of years about creating PC-like TVs, contending that it will take the horsepower of a mainstream chip to play high-definition movies well on bigger screens. Any success with TVs would help Intel get into a new, high-volume market and possibly offset some of the pressure the company now feels from rivals creeping up into computers.
The Google TV software will be open source at its core, meaning that device and TV makers should have broad access to it.
“Sony, however, hopes to gain an edge over competitors by bringing out the first appliances and possibly TVs running the software, perhaps under a new brand”, says the NYT, adding:
“The Japanese consumer electronics giant, which owns Sony Pictures, is not expected to put its movie content directly on the devices but will probably have a link to a digital store.”
..… and identi.ca
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
New York Times – Google and Partners Seek TV Foothold, March 17, 2010
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March 22nd, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Didn’t MS already try and fail with “web TV”?
March 22nd, 2010 at 2:53 pm
^^ Yup.
Cheers!
March 22nd, 2010 at 3:31 pm
That was then, this is now with Canadian IP-TV and new TV’s coming out internet ready with integrated memory & storage to put software on.
They know who you are, where you live, what you search for on the web. Now they need to know when the TV is turned on, off, what you watch, which member of the family, and when.
Of course they will sell ad spots and sell the “anonymous” data to business targeting certain sectors in the city you are in.
Watching Holmes-on-homes? Home-Depot will pay for the right to know and target you, your house, your family and even see that wooden balcony that needs to be redone via streetview.
You watched a home movie by your relative who lives in Iran? CSIS will know and have time lines to show what you watched and when. :p
Feel the bulls-eye on your forehead yet?