Google launches Google TV

You are right.

Apple TV should have been this product, if it was open and allowed you to browse any website and ran flash, it didn't.

Boxee would be this product if it had shipped a box that worked with the TV. (Yeah, I know about the boxee box). The difference is Google has the muscle to close the loop on this one.

The others are all closed at various levels or lack developer traction.

Boxee is the closest in terms of being open, I was hoping to replace my apple tv (had it from day 1 and use it for my videos and photos)

If you have the dish network google TV can interface with the scheduler and your dvr. Hopefully more providers will come along as this develops.

Android apps on the TV has the potential to be huge particularly if the build these Google TV systems with a decent video chipset (like that Tegra chipset Nvidia's been demo'ing on a prototype Android tablet). Particularly with Logitech, long time maker of TV remotes and game controllers, on board, this could challenge Wii for home gaming, possibly even challenge the Xbox 360 and PS3.

I'm not counting Apple out yet. We don't know what's happening behind the scenes with Apple TV. It wouldn't surprise me if they had something waiting in the wings. Apple has a pretty good track record of keeping a big project secret, announcing it and shipping it before their competitors have established any fortified position. If you were to combine together all these devices -- Apple TV, Roku, Popcorn Hour, etc there's a pretty big market there. No one has quite figured it out yet. An Apple TV Rev 2 running iPhone OS with an SDK running on cheap ARM hardware sold at a low margin could be hugely successful very quickly.

Can you provide a link to the demo?

Yeah, but in all reality they had 4,000 people trying to use bluetooth (which only has 79 channels). Perhaps it was dumb of them to not use a WIRED keyboard. I didn't see many problems besides the keyboard issue.

Seems like it would be pretty straightforward. Just update the AppleTV OS with an App Store and BlueTooth+expanded IR capabilities, and let the 3rd party developers bring the internet stuff and advanced input options to it. It seems that Google TV doesn't leverage my local media, so my iTunes/media library is still isolated from my living room, unless I'm missing something and it turns out to be an Android OS variant (supports native 3rd party app development) and developers can implement that sort of functionality with it.

It's a beta presentation, relax. You can find on youtube many failures that happened on Steve Jobs presentations too. I'm sure the final version will work just fine, just like any google product.

They asked everyone to please turn off our phones because the wifi was interfering. I'm pretty sure they said "wifi" and not "bluetooth." I thought that was strange because you'd expect a keyboard/remote to be bluetooth.

Theory as to what went wrong: they pushed out an update to the GoogleIO conference Android app earlier this morning. I'd already upgraded before the keynote started; some of the people I was there with got it & some didn't. The app now uses wifi for inside geolocation. I wonder if a lot of wifi devices coming on swamped the system a bit?

I wonder if Apple will react by updating AppleTV and turning into what everybody was hoping it would be from the beginning..

I think they left a few things out, like playing back local media. This appears to be built on android, though, so maybe that means that functionality like this can be enabled later. I wonder if it will support hardware decoding for H.264 and WebM.

The difference being boxee never got it shipped with a box (yeah I know about the boxee box which hasn't shipped yet). Google with its muscle can get it done. Built into Sony Tv, logitech box, built into dish network - done.

BTW, boxee can't mix and match TV programs and web - this can. You can't do a google search when watching TV through boxee.

This takes the integration to the next level, IMHO.

Computers are huge.

Also the interface in general is bad for TVs. Media centre front ends such as XBMC can solve this issue, but that's not a consumer friendly "out of the box" solution.

Cost. Ease of use. Remotes. Integration with existing AV equipment.

All available in a PC connected to your TV, but requiring of effort and understanding.

Plugging in a computer to your TV hasn't been easy until very recently. Most computers do not have the hi-def outputs that TVs require. The only standard port you can use from a laptop is probably S-Video. Then there is the problem of appropriate resolution, refresh rates, zoom-levels, and audio quality.

I've had many different computers connected to my TV for almost a decade now. The most annoying part has always been the input device (remote vs. keyboard/mouse vs. Boxee's iPhone app). I have a DVR. I hit "Guide" and instantly the guide shows up. If I have a computer hooked up playing VLC, it's not as simple. You can run MythTV, Windows Media Center, or a bunch of other apps but none of them work as smoothly and nicely as my Verizon FiOS DVR. I even bought a Panasonic ShowCenter ( http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1911939,00.asp ) and while it played nearly everything, it just didn't work well all the time. It crashed, caused audio-sync issues, and I had to keep reentering my wifi info everytime I restarted it.

Right now my solution is to have a small hidden netbook connected to the TV. I VNC into the netbook using my laptop while I sit on the sofa and play it however I want. So far this has been my most favorite option.

Plugging your computer to your TV is not an option unless you have a dedicated computer plugged to your TV. Then you want the computer to be quiet, small and not FUGLY.

You want the computer to be operated by a small keyboard and a remote rather than a mouse.

And you want your computer to have digial out, handle 7.1 surround and have appropriate software to handle GPU encoding etc. When you add that up, the cost goes high.

Hence, something like the logitech box or the boxee box (appropriately priced)will do the job without another computer. (I own an apple tv)

AppleTv got it right - other than the closed / crippled part.

For the same reason Boxee is coming out with a dedicated box. Plugging a PC into your TV, setting up a remote, setting up software, etc. is easy for computer geeks like us, but most of America (and I assume the world?) is still baffled on how to set the clock on their DVD player or microwave.

Not to mention most PC's are surprisingly loud when you leave them running in the living room (or bedroom) 24x7.

They already get a lot of this data. Set-top box analytics are far more accurate than Nielsen: http://www.google.com/adwords/tvads/

Nielsen's value lies in their ability to know exactly who is watching TV (or using the computer, now that they can monitor internet usage).

Members of a household log in to a Nielsen box when they watch TV, and Nielsen knows precise demographic information about each member of the households they monitor.

Google's not going to be able to tell you a Hispanic, thirteen-year-old male watched Ninja Turtles (online) from 8-8:15.

Lots of new tvs are Internet enabled already with YouTube support and other stuff. And if your tv isn't, then there are bluesy players that do it, not to mention ps3s and xboxes. However the one thing usually missing is July, so if google can bring that then it's awesome

oh, for the demo they showed a keyboard and an android phone as well. The input device / controller is going to vary based on provider. I can imagine there will be many remotes with built in keyboards something like this:

http://www.productwiki.com/upload/images/d_link_boxee_box_re...

Bluetooth keyboard that talks directly to the TV/set top box, which is why they had trouble with interference issues.

Media Center took the approach of replacing the DVR, while Google is supplementing it.

While I love the Media Center DVR, its web browsing sucks (there's no TV-focused browser). If Media Center fixed that problem, and fixed the issue with extenders being able to play all content (including Flash) then it would be a compelling device. Now it's hard for me to justify not using my Comcast DVR. Sure not as good, but I get tons of OnDemand content, and its a small quiet device with no upfront cost.

I'm not quite familiar with WMC story/ecosystem even though I am using it with W7 these days.

One thing I noticed is that the missing good/solid hardware from big companies (i.e. Sony). Right now I'm using W7 with my computer and its screen, not a separate device that I can hook-up to my TV.

AppleTV sort of did that half-ass (pardon me). AFAIK AppleTV cannot work with my Cable provider: it only streams content from the internet.

Microsoft just keeps missing the mark with Media Center (MCE). It's been around since 2002-2003, but has never gained any significant traction.

It's actually a pretty nice product. The UI works well and is pretty simple to use; if someone can use a Tivo, they can figure out MCE's interface.

The problem has always been the hardware and the marketing. When it first came out, you needed a dedicated PC to run it (unless you wanted to watch it on your monitor, thereby missing the point of the whole application), which was expensive (if you wanted it quiet) and painful for the lay-person to set up, especially considering Wifi wasn't quite up to the task (802.11b was what was primarily out there).

To get around this, MS had a good idea with the Extenders, but again, the execution was horribly flawed. You still likely needed a spare PC and a fast network connection to stream data to the Extender. Additionally, the companies that made extenders tended to be Linksys and D-Link... not exactly companies busrting with consumer friendly/simple UIs. Plus they were another $200-300 addition. Plus, Extenders were never marketed well either because the manufacturers didn't have the money, or they just didn't care.

Fortunately, MS did also build Extender functionality into the Xbox. But again, it is still some separate, hard to find mode on the Xbox. You have to pair it to a PC like you would a bluetooth device, and can be confusing for a non-techie. And once you have that done, now your Xbox has two different ways of playing music/video: One with the MCE mode and UI, and one with the native Xbox dashboard UI. Plus the Extender has to "connect" to your PC every time you want to use it.

Perhaps the most damning experience I've had with it came when I showed it to a friend of mine. He's about as enthusiastic about technology as you can get, but didn't know about MCE. Back in 2007ish, after looking at it for 5 minutes he said:

"This looks awesome, why haven't I ever seen this before? Good job Microsoft."

Hindsight is 20/20, but they really should have made it 100% native on the Xbox, or released a similar device that didn't require a PC sync.

I think if Microsoft had made a silent low power box with MCE on it and marketed it as a DVR they could have had this whole market. I still don't understand why I can't walk into retailers and see such things on the shelf. I don't understand why it isn't built into the standard xbox. They have a device - it's in the living room already and it's even already connected to the TV. But it doesn't run their DVR software. There's something very inexplicable about it all.

I get what you're saying but in this case I'm not sure I agree. I think Google's looking to extend Android to any embedded device that will run it. I think this is much more an extension of android then a whole new product direction.

It's open source. :-) Hopefully you'll be able to get plenty of devices that use it. Logitech is creating a companion device. They said it should be available worldwide.

Yes sir. This is a HUGE problem. Any American TV Network websites aren't available to Canada. Silly really.

Not quite; Google makes the software but the boxes will be sold by Sony, Logitech, etc.