I'm looking forward to the merger of TV and internet for a while now. While current solutions just provide a faint display of possibilities, Google TV seems to head in the right direction.
Finally the marketing campaigns for Google TV and Logitech Revue have been launched. Below I added some links to give you a jump start into the topic.
I'm sure that "3D" won't have a big impact on TV for the next two to three years, because the technology still isn't mature (lots of flickering) and there's simply no 3D content available! At this moment only three 3D Blue Ray movies are sold in Germany/Switzerland - and hardware prices are still very high. 3D is fun at the movies and that's where we will consume that form of motion picture in the coming days.
But there's
a lot of media available on the internet already! I care much much more about accessing media on the net and most of it is free of charge.
We all know that YouTube is muuuch better than MTV for music and that our kids love video search results from "Tom and Jerry" or "Mister Bean Animated" > it all plays without commercial breaks, episodes you don't like can be skipped with one click.
We already watch a lot of YouTube on our Sony Bravia TVs and it works surprisingly well (
KDL-40EX710). But I miss a keyboard, YouTube HD support and a normal web browser ... and that's where the new products will hopefully jump in. And nope, our excellent
WD TV Live can't fill the gap. More about that later.
Google TV -
Quick Tour
Logitech Revue -
explained on the US site $300
Google TV
hands on video, also showing controls through iphone / android app
Logitech Revue getting
mixed reviews
Mixed Reviews? Yes the market is getting crowded but come on, apple tv? Apple is evil! Nope I won't explain myself. It's not really the Logitech Revue I'm looking forward to, but Google TV instead. I think the concept points to the right direction, so let's keep track with the coming product announcements. That's all we Europeans can do for now :-)
BTW: a Filet-O-Fish costs $5.50 where I live, so we ain't no penny pinchers.
BTW > the device is driven by a Intel Atom CE4100, supports wireless 802.11a/b/g/n, ethernet 10/100 Base-T and uses Logitech Unifying wireless technology
(image source: logitech en-us press)
And what's about Sony's version of Google TV? They'll release a TV and a Blu-Ray Ray Player with built-in processors and RAM. Check out their site for some impressions