Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Google Coming To Panasonic TVs
By Tony Ruscoe

Google TV rumors have been circulating for a long time, each one speculating about the different incarnations Google TV could take, and even inspiring some to create hoax videos.

News released yesterday reveals that Matsushita, the world’s largest consumer electronics manufacturer who produces Panasonic TVs, expects to start shipping Internet-enabled plasma TVs capable of viewing YouTube and Picasa Web Albums this spring.

Back in March 2006, Philipp posted about someone who’d heard Google were thinking about a service “not like Google Video, but rather some kind of integration with set-top boxes or digital video recorders.” Around that time, they were also looking for an Interactive TV Product Manager. Perhaps this is the result of their hard work.

From the stories I’ve read, it’s unclear what technologies these TVs will be using to receive these services or if it will be possible to browse other websites. TVs and set-top boxes with inbuilt web browsers that connect to the Internet via phone lines have been around for years – like MSN TV for example – but none have ever really been that successful. I occasionally use my Wii to browse the Internet and that’s pretty good, but it still requires a broadband connection, so it will be interesting to see what makes these new TVs different and whether Google can make it work.

[Thanks DPic! Original image by CyberAndy with some rights reserved.]

Google Coming To Panasoni ... by Tony Ruscoe | Comments (3+5)

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