Apple and Microsoft have both made big splashes with their upcoming incursions into the TV and living-room space.
Today, Google answered with an announcement of a Google TV software update that includes simplistic search and browsing, close integration with YouTube, and the Android Market app store.
Search and Browsing
Google TV now has a customizable home screen that lets you get to your content quickly. An “all apps” folder, for example, lets you browse to you apps much like you would on an Android phone.
They Google TV team improved search by making it easy for you to browse through more than “80,000 movies and TV episodes across cable or satellite, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and many other sites.” And “If you’ve opted in to recommendations, we can better predict what you want to watch next.”
YouTube Integration
Google has made it clear that YouTube will be a big part of its television offering. The company has even begun to invest in creating its own exclusive content, which will be featured on YouTube Channels.
Today, they launched a new YouTube experience specifically built for Google TV. You can easily search YouTube like you would on the web. And you can turn any topic–like gaming or music–into a channel.
This doesn’t seem like much at the moment. But in the future, surely Google plans to air its original programming over YouTube onto your Google TV.
The Android Market App Store
The biggest announcement of the day is that developers can now tailor apps specifically for Google TV.
“We are opening up the TV to the creativity of content creators large and small through Android Market. Android developers can now bring existing mobile apps or entirely new ones to TV. Initially, the number of apps won’t be large – apps requiring a touch screen, GPS, or telephony won’t show up – but 50 developers have seeded the Market with cool and useful apps for the TV.”
The software enhancement will go out on Sony televisions next week and Logitech televisions “soon thereafter.”
