Google TV

Most of us don’t have time in our busy schedule to watch TV on TV so we end up watching many of our favorite shows on the computer on sites like Netflix and Hulu. Google wants us to be able to watch and find all our shows on our TV rather than our small computers so they have released Google TV. What is Google TV and with big companies such as Sony, Logitech, Intel, Dish Network, and Best Buy is it worth it? Read further and find out!

First of all Google TV is not a single thing like Apple TV is, it is more of a software that can be run on many devices. As of now, you can get Google TV two different ways, through a separate box (very much like the Apple TV) that connects to your existing TV or you can spend some money and buy one of Sony's new TVs that are coming with Google TV built in. What Google TV does is it combines everything you can find on the internet with everything you can find with your existing TV service with Google's search engine.

When you turn on the TV, you will be greeted by a customizable homepage where you can set different channels to be shown through thumbnails (If you are familiar with Google Chrome, Google TV's homepage looks very similar to Chrome's). One of the most important features of Google TV is its search and its full browser. From the home screen, you can search for example, "House", this will search your TV guide for listings and if its in the future give you the option to record it (provided you are a Dish Network subscriber that already has a DVR box), search all your recorded shows on your DVR and it will also search the web. This will be the first implementation of a full browser, including the newest version of Flash, for TV. So theoretically, after searching your TV listings and DVR, and finding nothing, you can just type "House", hit web search, and then you can go watch it on Hulu.com with no hindrances. You can even be browsing the web and have a picture in picture type thing where a mini screen will be running, for example a football game.

Since Google TV is obviously made by Google, it is based off of the Android operating system that is Apple's biggest app competitor. Not only does Google TV deal with TV but it can also run almost any Android app! Obviously it wont be able to run the apps that require hardware found only in phones like cameras and accelerometers but that still leaves us with more than enough apps for to play with *cough* Angry Birds *cough*. But there will soon be apps built for Google TV. NBA already has an app out that will automatically find any upcoming games on TV and set your DVR to record them.

You can control Google TV by the remote that comes with the Sony TV which in my opinion would look really intimidating to the average consumer because of its full QWERTY keyboard. But since you will be surfing the web and the one of the main feature is searching, a keyboard is a must have feature. If the remote really scares you, you can actually use any phone that runs the android operating system, such as the multitude of Droid phones and the newer HTC phones, as the remote. If the idea of using a keyboard really scares you, even if it is on your phone, then you can always resort to voice search. Rather than typing "House" you can just say "House" right into your phones microphone and it will search just like that.

All in all I'm, this sounds like a really good idea and it has a lot of potential. We must remember though, this is what everyone said about the Apple TV and that turned out to be a failure, but if there's any company that can make this work, its Google.