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YouTube adds live streaming as Google bets big on TV

Ian McGurren — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 22:29:34 +0000

Taking internet video the next logical step, YouTube are to begin streaming live content under the “Live on YouTube” banner. Initially a test of their live streaming platform, this heralds a major shift in YouTube’s content with on-demand video being joined in the future by a raft of ‘channels’.

At present the content is only from YouTube partners Young Hollywood, Howcast, Rocketboom and Next New Networks, but this isn’t to say in the future YouTube Live Streaming won’t offer channels from major broadcasters.

There’s no plans at present to offer the live broadcast facility to the public at large – lets face it, it would be a nightmare to censor the variety of oddities that would no doubt be on show. However if the trial is a success, YouTube has ambitious plans to roll it out to more partners.

Of course this is great news for those with you with web-enabled TVs like the excellent Panasonic TX-P42G20B plasma and media devices like the cracking LG HB405SU Blu-Ray surround system – with them already having YouTube built-in, they can begin playing the channels right now.

With this development YouTube, and by extension Google, can become major players in the fledgling IPTV world, with YouTube bringing the content and soon Google bringing the Google TV hardware plus the requisite piles and piles of cash.

More details of Google Music reveals Xmas launch

Ian McGurren — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:19:19 +0000

Maybe Steve Jobs stole Larry Page or Sergey Brin’s sweets as small children or something, ‘cos Google sure want a big bit of Apple’s action. Not content with overpowering iOS with Android (it’ll happen, it’s inevitable) and taking on Apple TV with the impressive Google TV, those canny searchmongers are rumoured to be in talks with major record companies for a pre-Xmas launch of Google Music.

The main parts of the system are the rumoured iTunes-like music store for the usual preview and buying of digital music – not much new here. The other, clever part though is the idea of a cloud-based ‘digital locker’ for your other music.

Here you can upload tracks you already have and listen to them combined with your Google Music purchases anywhere you can gain access to the service. One of these places with most certainly be via an Android device, with this being the first cloud based service with user uploading – potentially extremely popular.

Apple could certainly replicate this, and to some degree will when it puts LaLa to work with streaming media, but it would go against their locked-in ethos and would require a large revamp of iTunes to accommodate uploading tracks to a user’s space.

Of course, Google’s reach is far further than Android, so we can expect to see this system on the various means of social interaction with Google (music recommendations through Buzz or screensavers while playing from Flickr for example or maybe even playing youtube as a part of your Google Music playlists), plus devices like the forthcoming Google TV will bring it into the front room.

Apple has had it quite easy for a while, with any challenges to their successful brands often falling by the wayside. But, as Android shows, when Google put their minds and their dollars to something, they can easily match the Infinity Loop inhabitants. I certainly wouldn’t want to be their rivals.

Google's Set Top Boxes offer Android TV

Mike Evans — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:55:45 +0000

Google have recently begun expanding beyond the world of the Web to the more portable world of the mobile phone, with their imminent new platform called Android. Designed to compete with Windows Mobile, Symbian and Apple’s iPhone platforms, Android is part of Google’s strategy to expand the Web beyond its current desktop-bound existence.

However, it seems that mobile phones aren’t the limit of Google’s ambitions. According to new rumours, the search engine company is working on extending Android to all manner of devices, including Set Top Boxes, MP3 players, and any other device that could potentially connect to the Internet.

The rumour about Android being more than just mobile phones has been around for a while, but it was always seen as pure speculation. It stemmed from a talk that Vint Cerf (Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist) gave back in 2006, in which he said:

“In an internet enabled world, there is no reason that a projector could not be online and downloading images, maybe using the Blackberry as a control device.

Surrounded by networked equipment that is reachable anywhere, devices harnessed on a temporary basis to do something for you and then released. I am predicting that during this decade, we will see more systems interacting with other systems like this

Google's latest application connects PC to TV

admin — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:54:11 +0000

We all know that Google likes to have its fingers in all the pies, well they are now sticking their hands into an area of the home entertainment market coveted by Microsoft and Apple. Google really are taking no survivors; it would seem their company motto isn’t only “Don’t be evil” but also “World domination is a must”.

The Google Media Server can connect a PC to any device that supports Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), a set of computer network protocols that enable devices to share data across a home network. The server uses the Desktop Search to locate media files on the PC and on the Web. So basically all you need is a windows PC running Google Desktop and a UPnP-enabled device (e.g. video-game consoles PlayStation 3 from Sony and Xbox 360 from Microsoft, as well as Hewlett-Packard’s MediaSmart high-definition televisions). Once you have those you can then:

Access videos, music, and photos stored on your PC
View online picture albums
Play your favorite YouTube videos as well as other online videos

I can hear Microsoft quaking in their boots (whether that is from fear or anger I can’t tell).

[Source:Google Blog]