Google TV update adds Voice Search & ‘PrimeTime’ TV & Movies app, hits LG devices this week

Jordan Kahn

Yesterday, we told you about the updated YouTube apps for Google TV and Android that bring a new synced experience, but today Google announced two other big new features for Google TV: Voice Search and PrimeTime.

On the Official Google TV blog, Google walked us through the new features that will roll out to LG devices first starting this week. The most notable new feature is the addition of voice search, allowing users to not only perform Google searches with their voice, but also open apps, press play on a YouTube video, or speak a command, such as “CNN”, to navigate directly to a channel.

Google also explained that questions, such as “how to tie a bow tie,” would bring up instructional videos on YouTube. Part of the new voice search experience is a new visual search results page:

Try “search movies with Jeff Bridges” and see results in our new, more visual search results page.

Google is also introducing a new app called “PrimeTime” in the update that is essentially a rebranding of the old TV & Movies app it added last year: Read more

Music and movies coming to Google TV in the UK, Germany, France, Canada, & Australia Nov.13

Jordan Kahn

Google is not slowing down in bringing more content to new countries through Google Play. This time, Google TV users will get access to more content starting with a handful of new countries next week. Earlier this month, Google introduced an update to Google TV users that allows purchases and rentals of Google Play content including movies, music, and TV shows. Today, Google announced that it would roll out the Google Play music and movies to new countries starting Nov. 13. Google made the announcement on the Google TV Google+ page:

Starting November 13th, +Google Play music and movies will now be available on your #GoogleTV in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Canada, and Australia.

First porn app to hit GoogleTV, probably not the last

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Google TV is all grown up: Adult video-subscription service FyreTV announced the launch of its first porn app for Google TV today.

As first reported by GigaOm, the app is not available through Google Play. Google does not permit adult content on its store, but it is allowed as a native third-party app. FyreTV’s website has a direct download for Google TV devices.

A Fryer representative told GigaOm:

“We saw how Android went from last to first in terms of mobile market share and we are expecting a similar result here. Plus with their international rollout it allows our users from a wider range of countries to experience FyreTV the way it was meant to be experienced, on the TV.”

FyreTV’s app offers subscription packages of adult content. It is not the first porn company to launch on Google’s TV platform, though, as adult studio Vivid released an HTML 5-optimized website just last year. FyreTV is working on an HTML 5 version, too.

“We do see HTML5 as an important factor in providing FyreTV access to a wider user base, particularly on TV devices that would never allow us to go native,” the representative confirmed to GigaOm.

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Nexus Q now in stock and shipping from Google Play in 3-5 days

Jordan Kahn

We knew the U.S.-made streaming device would ship sometime in July to those who preordered, but today Nexus Q is officially in stock on the Google Play store. It is shipping in “3-5 business days” to U.S. customers. Nexus 7 certainly had a good start. It sold out at several retailers, but many are skeptical the $299 media streamer will do as well.
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iFixit tears down Google’s US-made Nexus Q media streamer

Jordan Kahn

The folks at iFixit recently took a look inside Google’s Nexus 7 tablet, and today they are ripping apart another new Nexus device: the Nexus Q media streaming, Apple TV competitor. We already told you all about Google’s reasoning behind manufacturing the device just 15 minutes away from its United States headquarters, but iFixit wanted to find out exactly what parts came from where.

There was nothing too shocking in the teardown, but iFixit was able to identify the origin of many components. As noted in the report, “it’s nearly impossible to have a truly American-made electronic device.” Here is what it found:

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