Google TV-powered devices for consumers will be around many places at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
Google TV partners include CE manufacturers LG, Samsung and Vizio, who join Sony with their own Google TV hardware.
Samsung will bring Google-TV powered Samsung devices to the US market in 2012. LG will showcase a new line of TVs featuring Google TV running on their own L9 chipset.
Last year Google announced its partnership with Vizio at CES. This year Vizio will hold private demos at CES showcasing their new line of Google TV-powered products.
Sony will unveil new devices for the US at CES and plans to offer Google TV products in several countries around the world in 2012.
Google TV also announced its new chipset partners, replacing the Intel X86 chip used in the first batch of devices.
Last October, Google TV released its first update, Google TV 2.0, and the company said it has seen its activation rate more than double.
There are now more than 150 apps which developers have specifically built for TV, with thousands more Android apps from the mobile world available.
Last December, Google TV added the CNBC Real-Time app, which not only gives users access to real-time stock quotes, before, during and after market hours, directly from both the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ Marketplace, but also allows them to personalise stock watch lists and view related news clips on their stocks.
Broadband TV Views. Google seems determined to make Google TV a success. Until now, it has been hard work with little result. The good news is that Google is now adding the most important TV manufacturers in the US market, but progress on the content side is still lagging behind.
At the moment, Google has to take on content-rich competitors Netflix, Amazon and Hulu (Plus). While Google’s YouTube might be the best watched online video destination on the internet, it has so far not managed to translate its success to the TV screen.
Meanwhile, rumours about Apple TV’s push into the connected television market make improvements to Google TV even more urgent.
