Schmidt reveals big 2012 Google TV hopes
To call Google TV “slow burning” is to flatter what has so far been a bit of a lame duck for the search giants. Aimed as a revolutionary TV viewing experience, the reality turned out to be a clunky user interface and a dearth of worthwhile content to draw viewers away from a traditional TV watching experience.
That’s set to change next year though according to Google’s Eric Schmidt. Speaking at the Le Web conference in Paris, the chairman predicted far wider adoption of their platform for the new year.
“There’s a lot of people who are concerned about the future of television, so we thought ‘is there a way to integrate the internet and television in a new way’, so we took Android and Chrome….and combined them and stuck them inside a television,” said Schmidt.
“We’ve just released version 2 and, by the summer of 2012, the majority of televisions you see will have Google TV embedded in it. Again a similar strategy to what we did with Android. The price is free from Google. You will, of course, be paying for the television.”
Seeing Google’s platform installed in “the majority of televisions” as Schmidt puts it, currently seems quite a stretch of the imagination, especially considering that launch partners Logitech and Sony seem to have all-but lost interest in the service.
Considering the long-rumoured Apple TV is believed to be making its debut next year, things may in fact be set to get even tougher for Google.
