Google announces Google TV: “TV meets web. Web meets TV”

Declaring that it will “change the future of television,” Google has announced Google TV, a new Android powered application which lets users search for content from their television, DVR and the web.

The new platform will let users search for TV related content – just like they use Google’s current search engine – with the results viewable on their TVs or computers.

There’ll also be voice recognition, so users can bark the name of a show or other content and have it appear onscreen.

Installed on TVs

Future TVs will optionally come with Google TV installed, and there’ll be the ability to add a box to your current tele.

In a nutshell:

Google TV will allow you to watch TV as normal plus:

* Browse the full Web
* Search the Web, TV programming and DVR’d shows
* One touch DVR capabilities
* Customizable and personalized media dashboard
* Bookmark TV, Web and media
* Download or buy Android Apps from the Android Market and support for web apps
* Control the TV as a remote with Android 2.2+ phones (multiple phones as remotes are supported)
* Send webpages and voice searches from phone to TV (for example say “Conan O’Brien” into your Android phone’s voice search and the TV shows television, web, DVR results)
* New YouTube Leanback channel that compiles YouTube content for you based off search habits or social sharing with friends
* Closed-caption translation into many languages in real-time via Google Translate service

Beer!

We’re off down the pub now so we haven’t time to analyse the announcement further, but here’s an introductory video to explain the concept further followed by Google’s full press release.

Announcing Google TV: TV meets web. Web meets TV.
5/20/2010 10:00:00 AM
If there’s one entertainment device that people know and love, it’s the television. In fact, 4 billion people across the world watch TV and the average American spends five hours per day in front of one*. Recently, however, an increasing amount of our entertainment experience is coming from our phones and computers. One reason is that these devices have something that the TV lacks: the web. With the web, finding and accessing interesting content is fast and often as easy as a search. But the web still lacks many of the great features and the high-quality viewing experience that the TV offers.

So that got us thinking…what if we helped people experience the best of TV and the best of the web in one seamless experience? Imagine turning on the TV and getting all the channels and shows you normally watch and all of the websites you browse all day — including your favorite video, music and photo sites. We’re excited to announce that we’ve done just that.

Google TV is a new experience for television that combines the TV that you already know with the freedom and power of the Internet. With Google Chrome built in, you can access all of your favorite websites and easily move between television and the web. This opens up your TV from a few hundred channels to millions of channels of entertainment across TV and the web. Your television is also no longer confined to showing just video. With the entire Internet in your living room, your TV becomes more than a TV — it can be a photo slideshow viewer, a gaming console, a music player and much more.

Google TV uses search to give you an easy and fast way to navigate to television channels, websites, apps, shows and movies. For example, already know the channel or program you want to watch? Just type in the name and you’re there. Want to check out that funny YouTube video on your 48” flat screen? It’s just a quick search away. If you know what you want to watch, but you’re not sure where to find it, just type in what you’re looking for and Google TV will help you find it on the web or on one of your many TV channels. If you’d rather browse than search, you can use your standard program guide, your DVR or the Google TV home screen, which provides quick access to all of your favorite entertainment so you’re always within reach of the content you love most.

Because Google TV is built on open platforms like Android and Google Chrome, these features are just a fraction of what Google TV can do. In our announcement today at Google I/O, we challenged web developers to start coming up with the next great web and Android apps designed specifically for the TV experience. Developers can start optimizing their websites for Google TV today. Soon after launch, we’ll release the Google TV SDK and web APIs for TV so that developers can build even richer applications and distribute them through Android Market. We’re looking forward to seeing all of the ways developers will use this new platform.

We’re working together with Sony and Logitech to put Google TV inside of televisions, Blu-ray players and companion boxes. These devices will go on sale this fall, and will be available at Best Buy stores nationwide. You can sign up here to get updates on Google TV availability.

This is an incredibly exciting time — for TV watchers, for developers and for the entire TV ecosystem. By giving people the power to experience what they love on TV and on the web on a single screen, Google TV turns the living room into a new platform for innovation. We’re excited about what’s coming. We hope you are too.

[Google]

[Via]