Google has announced a $106.5 million (€73.9 million) stock purchase of On2 Technologies, a company that specialises in the compression of digitised video files, enabling the data packages to move more quickly through the internet.
The On2 client list includes Skype, Sony and Sun Microsystems, but it still lost $51 million in the last year.
The technology can be expected to be integrated into Chrome, Google’s recently launched internet browser. There are also potential synergies with YouTube, Google’s video sharing website that uses the widely distributed Flash, potentially opening up a new front in the battle with Adobe and Microsoft.
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Connected TV Forecasts NEW REPORT. The number of TV sets connected to the Internet will reach 551 million by 2016 for the 40 countries covered in this report from Digital TV Research, up from 124 million at end-2010. The report states that this translates to 20% of global TV sets by 2016, up from only 6% at end-2010. Published in November 2011, this 83-page PDF report is the most geographically comprehensive to ever be published.