Samsung has been selling Smart TVs like the one above for years.
Samsung and other players have been selling high-definition television sets based on the Smart TV platform for years. The South Korean maker of consumer electronics sold just shy of 20 million units and announced in June that their Smart TVs topped two million app downloads. Samsung also announced a Blu-ray player and Google TV companion box back in January, but that product failed to materialize.
Reuters reports the company could be doubling down on the Google TV initiative. Their head of television division Yoon Boo-keun confirmed that his company “is in last-stage talks with Google to roll out Google TV”. Interestingly, the executive hinted Samsung’s Google TV offering “would differ” from those of competitors.
It makes sense. Samsung has had tremendous success with Android-driven smartphones and tablets. The company is keen on exploring future Android devices, including mobile devices with flexible displays. And because Google TV is basically a Honeycomb device with a big screen, Samsung can tap its experience and expertise building Honeycomb devices for the Google TV project.
As for the chips, Samsung could simply use Intel’s reference Atom platform found in other Smart TVs or use the rumored quad-core processor code-named Exynos 4412 said to debut in the Galaxy S III at Mobile World Congress in February 2012. Economies of scale would benefit Samsung if it were to use its own chips in a similar fashion Apple benefits from deploying its A-series of chips across the tens of millions of iOS devices they sell each quarter.
Recently Sony CEO Howard Stringer dropped hints in a Wall Street Journal interview that his company is developing a “different kind of TV”. Sony currently sells television sets with Google TV functionality built-in. Apple too is rumored to be developing a networked television set with Siri personal assistant and other features.
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