Google TV Taking on Apple TV

Seems like everyone’s playing catch up lately, right? First Microsoft’s Surface tablet is announced, and now Google TV looks like it’s getting an update that’s sure to put a little heat on Apple’s own hobby initiative.
Apple refrained from mentioning its TV product during the World Wide Developer Conference last week. According to Fox News, an announcement about an update to Google TV is coming at Google’s own developer conference this week, Google I/O. What will it include, we wonder?

Apparently, one of the demos scheduled this week is planned to show how Google TV will combine listings, Netflix, and DVR capabilities in one Google-flavored place. Users will be able to use a smartphone app (any guess as to what OS it will be for?) to access and play the shows.
Other manufacturers plan to get users streaming their videos from Android-powered phones, just like AirPlay on the Apple TV/iOS ecosystem. The Google developer support pages also show some topics for conference sessions that fit right in with this new focus. Two examples include “Bring Your App to the Big Screen,” and “Command and Control in Your Living Room: Building Second Screen Apps for Google TV.”
Seems like the clash of the technology titans continue on this week. It will be interesting to see if Google can effectively match the AppleTV in terms of features and popularity, or if they might be able to leapfrog it a bit – a sure win for fans of competition.
Source: Fox News via TechnoBuffalo

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One in five U.S. households have Internet-enabled TVs [Research]

New research studies are trying to prove how our homes have gone hi-tech. According to ABI Research, approximately 27 million households in the U.S. have either an Internet-ready TV, game console, Blu-ray player, or smart set-top box connected to a home network – that’s more than one in five U.S. households. Based on the research, gaming consoles are the most likely to be connected to the Internet taking 80% of the chart.
Internet TVs cover 27% of the pie while Blue-ray players (standalone) are up at 24%. Smart set-top boxes come in last with just 13% of them wired to the web. Surprisingly, the research also showed that a large number of customers, mostly those who have Internet-ready TVs, have not connected their devices to their home network. But ABI research thinks that the numbers will increase by 60% in 2017, painting the idea of how much wired we will become anytime soon

Source-Google TV

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Google TV Lands In Europe In September

Google TV has been available in the US for a while now, and we have been waiting to find out when it will be available in the UK and Europe, and according to a recent report by French publication Les Echos, the first Google TV devices will land in Europe this September.

It looks like Sony France told Les Echos that they will start selling Google TV devices in France in September, which include a set top box which will retail for 200 Euros and an Google TV enabled Blu-Ray player which will retail for 300 Euros.
According to the report, as well as launching in France in September, Sony will also launch the two devices in other European countries at the same time which will include the UK, Spain and Germany.

We suspect the two devices will be European versions of the Sony Google TV set top Box and Blu-ray player that Sony showed off at CES in January.

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Google TV Update Rolling Out Now For Sony Blu-Ray Players

The official Google TV Twitter account tweeted just moments ago that a software update for Sony Blu-ray players has begun rolling out. The 260MB update will bring about the ability for the players to now playback Blu-rays in the 3rd dimension and much needed speed enhancements to the Chrome browser. Lord knows, my Revue browser could perform a hell-of-a-lot quicker. If you haven’t received the update just yet, you can pull it manually by jumping into your System Settings > About > System Updates.

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