Google is set to move into the living room with a computer operating system that will bring the internet to home televisions. The company is working with the chipmaker Intel and Sony, the electronics giant, to introduce Google TV this week at a conference for 3,000 Google software developers in San Francisco. The aim is to get them to create new and innovative applications in the same way that outside developers have created new software programs for smartphones. The aim now is to put the web on to televisions via a new generation of television sets and set-top boxes, further blurring the line between home entertainment and computing.
Many TV set-makers already offer the internet in some form on integrated systems or through set-top boxes via cable or satellite. Yahoo! has been pushing its Connected TV widgets platform, which gives users access to certain websites such as eBay and Facebook and provides movies and TV shows streamed over the internet. But the market has yet to take off.
Read more at the London Times.
