Monday, May 29, 2006

Google TV Search?

Whoever said Google doesn’t pre-announce its products? (Oh yeah, I think that was Larry Page.) Well, here’s a sort of announcement from Eric Schmidt, via Sunday’s Business Online:

[Google] is planning a new ­version of its search engine – designed for TV screens – that the company’s co-founder and its chief executive believe will rival traditional broadcasting.

Chief executive Eric Schmidt told The Business: “At the most people currently have access to only around 500 television channels,” said Schmidt. “They should have access to everything – that is where we are heading.” (...)

“You have to look at what an electronic programme guide is. It is just a search engine and that is what Google does best,” said Schmidt.

Here’s what I want to see. I speak the words “Bruce Willis-like 80s action movie, under two hours, in English” into a microphone integrated into my remote control. The movie search engine will then offer me a selection of about a dozen pay-per-view movies from content providers around the world (my credit card details have been previously stored in Google Wallet, so I don’t need to enter any). I then need to make a selection among the suggestions, or if I say “I’m feeling lucky,” the best hit will be start playing after 5 minutes of download buffering. Of course Google TV knows my program history, so I won’t get yesterday’s 80s action movie again (let’s ignore the fact that most 80s action movies follow the same formula anyway...).

[Thanks TomHTML. Original photo courtesy of CyberAndy, some rights reserved.]

Google TV Search? by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (3)

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