Video: Sony Internet TV – first HDTV with Google TV

Sony has become the first HDTV manufacturer to create a HDTV with the forthcoming Google TV service built-in. Google TV looks set to revolutionize TV in the same way that Apple’s iPhone revolutionzed the mobile phone market with the concept of touch as an interface.

It’s not touch that’s Google TV’s revolutionary feature, though – it’s Google itself.

Allow me to explain!

Internet-equipped TVs and Set Top Boxes have been around years, but they’ve largely been rubbish, offering only a browser and a crude QWERTY-equipped remote control to type in your URL.

Unsurprisingly, they never caught on. They nearly did last year, with a raft of Internet-equipped TVs being launched that featured Yahoo! widgets (a series of simple apps such YouTube), but there was one problem with these TVs – you were largely stuck with the widgets that came with the set.

it was also very much a case of an Internet experience and a TV experience – there was no connection between the two, meaning that you were essentially paying for a browser on your TV.

Enter Google TV!

Google TV changes all that. Rather than tacking a browser onto a TV, they’ve integrated TV into a browser, and made the whole thing seamless.

For example, suppose you want to Tweet with your mates. Call up Twitter.com, read and send Tweets, and all the while, you can watch TV, as it appears as a little window in the corner.

More impressively, searching for content lets you search across TV channels and YouTube in the same listing. That’s what I mean by tightly coupling the Web and TV experiences – there is no differrence between the two. It’s the same interface, the same way of viewing the content – everything.

Extending Google TV

Now here’s the really cool part. Google TV will have an app store. So no longer are you stuck with the widgets and apps that come with the TV – you can download as many as you like.

Quite what these apps will be is anyone’s guess, but it’s going to be fascinating to see what will be prodcued.

A seamless sea of Google

Now here’s where it gets really interesting. Ten year ago, we got used to seeing Google when we were searching for things on the Web. Fast forward to 2007, and we were used to seeing Google when we searched, looked for places to go, watched videos and checked our email.

Two years ago, Google moved onto the desktop (with the Chrome browser) and into your hands (with Android).

So when I say a seamless sea of Google, that’s exactly what I mean – we see the company everywhere, and use it for many different things.

So now when see Google on our TV, we know what to expect, and the whole things feels so natural, it’s almost a wonder that all TVs don’t have Google TV.

Video of Sony’s Internet TV

If you don’t believe me, check out the video below of Sony’s new HDTV, which incorporates Google TV. See what I mean? Utterly natural!

Google TV will be hitting the shops before Christmas, but won’t really get started until next year. Which, coincidentally, is around the same time that the new Google tablets will start getting seriously popular!

The future of entertainment, it seems, is Google. Not bad for a search engine!

[Source: Engadget]