Engadget is Live from the Google I/O conference, today. Google TV was announced, merging the web and TV, with a focus on search and personalization. According to Google, “video should be consumed on the biggest, best, and brightest screen in your house, and that’s the TV.”
Users can seamlessly switch between watching a video from anywhere on the web and watching a live TV broadcast. Users can also simultaneously visit a website, while watching a broadcast. A “quick search box” that lets users quickly look up TV listings and web content. Sony will be first out of the gate with Google TV powered devices this fall. Sony’s Google TV will incorporate a Logitech remote, Intel CE4100 Atom processor, and run Android 2.1 with Chrome browser support.
Google TV wants to deliver it all. Google says there are four billion TV viewers worldwide, making it the biggest market in the world. It’s a $70 billion ad market in the US alone, says the company.
Boxee unveiled its own set-top box last year, called the Boxee Box.
While the Boxee software platform may not necessarily be competing with Google TV, the Boxee Box certainly is, says Venture Beat. It’s being manufactured by D-Link, and will feature a remote with an integrated keyboard (something Logitech is developing for Google TV as well).
Google TV will bring together web video from a variety of sites, like Hulu, Netflix, and broadcast networks — but most importantly it integrates the web content directly with your standard television channels. Instead of being a separate device that handles web content alone, Google’s goal is to make it a key part of your normal TV-watching experience. That’s a big step beyond what Boxee is offering.
Google just announced Android 2.2 “Froyo” at I/O, with a just-in-time compiler bringing a 2-5x speed boost to the system and Flash support.
Certain devices like the Nexus One can be turned into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot that can be shared with up to 8 devices. PC World was able to turn a T-Mobile Nexus One into a mobile hotspot without any issue. Tethering also worked without any problem, but how the carriers will deal with this is still not clear.
General availability of Flash 10.1 is expected on June 17. But Adobe warns “not all targeted platforms will be ready with Flash Player support at the same time.” The targeted platforms, FWIW: Windows, Mac, Android, WebOS, Symbian, Windows Phone and BlackBerry.
There are also 20 new enterprise features, including better Exchange integration. Here’s a list of everything they’ve included in Android 2.2.
Google sells more than 100,000 new Android-based handsets everyday, and there are now more than 180,000 active Android developers who have contributed more than 50,000 apps now available in Android Market—up 12,000 since last month alone!
A Chrome web app store was also announced. It will be available for both the Chrome browser and Chrome OS whenever it is released. It’s essentially an app gallery featuring apps for magazines, productivity tools and games. Apps in the store support Adobe’s Flash software and other standard Web technologies. Chrome OS is expected to run on netbooks from Acer, Asus, Hewlett-Packard and other computer makers in the latter half of 2010.
Google hopes to roll out a new, open source, royalty free format called WebM. But will Apple ever support it? Things don’t look great, says Gizmodo.
