Android TV

At a meeting with investors yesterday, Logitech’s CEO Guerrino De Luca didn’t hold back while talking about how Google TV has affected their business. Luca said that Google TV ‘cost us dearly’, and that developing the set-top box was a mistake. He also dropped the bomb that Logitech will be letting their supply of Revues run out this quarter and won’t develop any more or be manufacturing a follow-up device either. Ouch.

Luca does believe, however, Google TV has a chance sometime in the future, but said it needs some work. He went as far as saying Google TV is currently like a beta.

Even with the recent 3.1 update, we’re going to have to side with Luca on this one. Google TV is still missing many key features to disrupt the television industry. It’s going to take more innovation, content deals, and devices to get the ball rolling. (via The Verge)

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From 9to5toys.com:

PC Connection offers the Sony GoogleTV BluRay Player NSZ-GT1 for $199.  9to5 coupon code 9to5Blu10 drops it $20 to $179.99, the lowest price we’ve seen.  Google just updated its TV line to 2.0 which has applications, an easier menu system, HBO co and more. It features support for the Android-based Google TV service, 1080p upscaling, 8GB of built-in storage, 802.11n wireless and Ethernet connectivity, four USB ports, HDMI output, and more.

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You have to wonder if someone is playing a a joke on the Verge.  Someone sent in a box cover that purports to hide a 6-inch Android 2.3 tablet that does double time as a remote control for your cable box.  If this isn’t a Punk’d-ing, the device is with cable company testers right now and will be used to control the cable box, GoogleTV be damned.

 The box calls it a “dedicated controller,” but it also seems to show the tablet wirelessly displaying its entire UI on the TV, so we’re guessing it can be used to watch and stream content in addition to serving as a remote control for one of Motorola’s cable boxes. (That would also explain the hardware power and volume buttons next to the display.)

We don’t know much specs-wise, but the box says the design is “optimized for low cost,” so we wouldn’t expect anything high-end inside. It also looks like it says something “OS” in the upper left, so it seems like a fairly custom version of Android. There’s also IR control and RF4CE, which is a ZigBee-based RF control protocol, as well as a high-capacity 4,000mAH battery

Of course “Corvair” is also a car that Chevy built in the early 60s that makes every “worst car ever” list and was the subject of the Ralph Nadar book, Unsafe at Any Speed.  We’re hoping that Motorola’s naming/branding department is playing a joke on us in this case.

Also, as Motorola gets folded into Google, this will likely get folded into GoogleTV, which is to say, cancelled…just like its namesake.

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From 9to5toys.com:

PC Connection Express offers the Sony Internet TV Blu-ray Disc Player with Google TV, model no. NSZ-GT1, for $199.99. Coupon code “Deal10Blu” cuts it to $179.99. With free shipping, that’s $20 under our mention from two weeks ago and the lowest total price we could find by $9, although most merchants charge $200 or more. It features support for the Android-based Google TV service, 1080p upscaling, 8GB of built-in storage, 802.11n wireless and Ethernet connectivity, four USB ports, HDMI output, and more. This device is currently being updated to the new GoogleTV 2.0 with Apps and more.

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Google is looking into offering a paid cable subscription model WSJ reported today. The move would put Google at competition with cable providers, and bring new technology to the Google TV. In September, Google brought on former cable-TV executive, Jeremy Stern, to look into adding the subscription model to the platform.

The report says that Google has already begun talking to Walt Disney, Time Warner, and Discovery Communications — but no final decisions have been made. Besides Google TV, Google also has the opportunity to incorporate cable streaming into YouTube, but that is not on the table right now says the report. Google’s fiber network would help with the delivery of the content, which is expected to roll out in Kansas in 2012. We look forward to seeing this story develop.

With the rollout of the Google TV 2.0 update bringing access to Android Market apps, Google’s Android-powered set-top box is starting to get more and more attention. GigaOM’s Janko Roettgers recently published a story regarding the potential for Kindle-fire like versions of the Google TV. In other words, the same way Amazon’s Android-powered Kindle UI and experience doesn’t resemble your typical Android device, perhaps companies will manufacture similar experiences for Google TV.

“I predict that we will eventually see one of the WDs or Netgears of the connected TV space switch to an Android code base, but without access to the Google TV ecosystem. It will be a box with a full browser, plenty of apps and access to a separate app market – the Kindle Fire of the living room.”

There is good reason to believe this might happen– the latest update brings the ability to install non-Android Market apps on Google TV (the same as Android smartphones and tablets). In fact, generic set-top boxes running Android (typically branded as Android TV) are already available on sites like Alibaba for around $100 on average.  Most claim to run Android 2.2 and offer preinstalled apps, but obviously don’t have Market access.

Google is obviously fully aware of this possibility and Mario Queiroz, Google TV vice president of product, told Roettgers, “The most important thing is to prevent fragmentation”. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine companies like Samsung and others producing Android-powered set-top boxes, especially when, unlike the tablet space, they aren’t facing an Apple dominated market, yet.  More likely, according to Roettgers, is the possibility companies like Roku and Boxee drop their current development platform and adopt an Android code base, but lacking Android Market and the native Google experience, of course. There’s also always the chance for more reputable companies to take a cue from the mostly China-based manufacturers already selling unofficial Google TV devices on Alibaba.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=y7pE9UTTfy4]

GoogleTV updates should be happening any second now.  We’ve just got the following email from Google:
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Engadget reports that the Logitech Revue has begun to ship with a new sticker touting Honeycomb preinstalled.  Honeycomb has been highly anticipated and will bring the Android Market to Google TV. We’re not sure if Honeycomb is actually under the box, or if Logitech is just prepping for an OTA coming out soon.

Google TV has been considered pretty bland without featuring apps. Now with the Market included, users will now be able to download the “optimized for Google TV” apps we spotted last month.

In Logitech’s quarterly earnings last night the company touted $7.9 million in sales of the Revue since it was introduced with its $99 price tag. If our math is correct that’s roughly 79,000 devices or more on the market being enjoyed by users. At any rate, we’re sure they’re ready for the Honeycomb update. We’ll let you know when it goes live.

Google TV might not have received a Honeycomb update as of yet, but Android developers can now at least begin porting their Android apps with the final release of the Google TV add-on for the Android SDK.

While the impending Honeycomb update will essentially run Android apps with little or no tweaking, the Google TV add-on allows devs to access to TV specific APIs such as accessing channel guides. However, as Android Community notes, the majority of apps won’t be displayed in the watered down version of the Market which will land on Google TV with Honeycomb. The scaled back Google TV Android Market will filter out any apps that rely on touchscreen controls.

As of yet there is only an emulator for Google TV available to developers running Linux, but OS X and Windows support is said to be coming. You can download the finished Google TV add-on for the Android SDK here.

A couple weeks back Google TV’s director of Content, Donagh O’Malley, claimed the update Honeycomb could come “within the next three or four weeks”.

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Citing the obligatory “people familiar with the matter”, the Wall Street Journal in a story this morning reports that Google is finalizing contracts for upcoming YouTube channels that will stream premium entertainment content on a regular basis. Google CEO Larry Page apparently wants to give people a good reason to tune into YouTube instead of television. Content owners are being “encouraged” to create schedules of programming much like traditional TV, the paper noted.

YouTube has requested some content for the channels within the next 60 days, according to one of these people, as it considers a launch in early 2012. YouTube, which media companies have long griped is too stingy cutting content deals, is paying from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million to content creators to create and curate videos for a channel, according to these people. Google recoups the original payment through ad revenue, and Google and the partner share ad revenue after that.

This could be viewed as part of Google’s broader push towards providing high-quality Hollywood entertainment on YouTube. The timely strategy ties nicely with the Google TV project, which is also about to be updated with a new software release soon. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Google’s plans to spend a hundred million dollars on premium YouTube content back in April. Google is reportedly in talks with Creative Artists Agency, William Morris Endeavor and International Creative Management over professionally produced programming on broad themes, including arts, fashion and sports.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYS8mfgiw8I]

The official announcement by Google regarding Honeycomb for Google TV is just around the corner, and more and more leaks of the OS running on Google TVs are popping up. Today’s leak (seen in the video above) even includes video of the Netflix app optimized for the big screen — score!

You’ll also notice that besides Netflix, other Honeycomb optimized apps are appearing on the Market. A search in the Market for Google TV will return results like, “Fox News for Google TV”.

If you’re feeling adventurous, instructions for installing this latest build on a Logitech Revue are posted over at GTVHacker, but please be aware that this could brick your device. But at $69, it doesn’t seem like as big of a deal. The official announcement should be coming any day now..

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Back in April, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google was spending a hundred million dollars to commission premium YouTube content from the likes of Creative Artists Agency, William Morris Endeavor and International Creative Management, to name a few. But the search monster’s agenda is likely much, much bigger, per research note issued to clients by William Blair & Company. The research firm believes that “Google is silently buying/licensing hundreds of millions of dollars of professional Hollywood content”. Think $100-$200 million for rights to premium Hollywood content:

Google has the resources and infrastructure to be a big player in Hollywood content. Becoming a major player in the premium-content industry requires a com- bination of capital and technology resources that few have. Google fits the bill, how- ever, with $39 billion in cash, annual free cash flow of $9.4 billion, Android, Chrome, YouTube, Google TV, the world’s largest advertising platform, and Motorola Mobility’s set-top-box business. Lastly, Google has made several key Hollywood hires over the past year to understand content rights.

Hollywood studios could consider going to bed with Google should it subsidize their wholesale fees and at least partially monetize the movies through advertising. Consumers would be given the choice of either watching a pricier, ad-free version or rent ad-supported titles for a lower fee. Stakes are high in this game. The market is worth an estimated $65 billion and just advertising on digital home entertainment is a billion dollar business (see the table after the break).

Google, of course, is facing fierce competition from the likes of Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, in addition to traditional retailers such as Best Buy (CinemaNow) and Wal-Mart (Vudu). Weighing in on Amazon, Google and Apple, William Blair summed it up nicely:

We believe Amazon’s digital agenda is to gain Prime customers, Apple’s strategy is to sell devices, and Google’s focus is to build a bigger ad footprint.

Now, if Google has in fact been quietly licensing studio content left and right, prudent watchers should expect a splashy announcement alongside GoogleTV 2.0, which is due end of summer, as in any day now. If Google can leverage their pending Motorola acquisition, which makes millions of set-top boxes for other IPTV players, Google could quickly establish an end-to-end Hollywood entertainment delivery platform that even Apple might find difficult to crack. In all, Google has likely found its new $65 billion market, the research note reasons:

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The Logitech Google TV console has just dropped to $90 at Tiger Direct (New, free shipping).  Interestingly, this box will be upgradable to GoogleTV 2.0, due out in the next month or so.  Why is Google/Logitech in such a hurry to get rid of these?  Certainly when GoogleTV 2 comes out, they will be worth more to the consumer, won’t they?

I think this also hints that the second round of GoogleTVs will be much cheaper than the first.
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Engadget has posted Sony showing off an updated Google TV set-top box running Honeycomb. We’ve been expecting Honeycomb to hit the platform all summer after seeing it leak, but this demo shows a much more stable version ready for release. As you can see above, Android apps are running on a Google TV.

Last month, Google released the SDK for developers to begin optimizing apps for bigger television screens. Apps have seem to been Google TV’s number one requested feature, which would give the platform a lot more functionality. We’re hopping this hits as soon as possible! Read more at Engadget

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AllThingsD is reporting that along with Amazon, Yahoo, and Dish Network, Google has made a bid for the free video streaming service Hulu. AllThingsD doesn’t provide any details quite yet, but we can imagine Google’s bid is in the range of $1.5 – $2 billion — just like the other three companies are offering. AllThingsD can’t confirm if Google has made a definitive bid, or is just offering a sum of money.

Google chariman Eric Schmidt said at a conference in Europe last month that Google isn’t ready to give up on Google TV. He cites possible Google TV downfall is due to the scarce amount of set-top boxes rather than full television sets.

The acquisition of Hulu would sure be a break through for Google TV. Currently, almost every large television network is blocking streaming to Google TV, making the content lineup almost non-existent. With Hulu and its partners, Google could open up a whole new realm of content to the service.

AllThingsD has indictated that Google has made clear to Hulu that they are ready to offer a large sum of cash for the product, and we know they’re not scared to do it. Hulu isn’t exactly sure what their stance is on selling quite yet, but we’re sure to hear more in the coming weeks.

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Reuters is reporting that during the Edinburgh television festival, Eric Schmidt said Google is bringing on more partners to help expand their Google TV platform. Schmidt explained the company’s commitment to the platform, and that bring on more manufacturers would solve problems.

Schmidt sourced the scant availability of a set-top box version to be the reason why Google TV isn’t selling well. He said at the moment, Google TV is designed into televisions, which consumers replace around every 5 years. What about the Logitech Revue, Mr. Schmidt?

Along with new partners, Schmidt said Friday that Google TV would make its way to Europe in the next six months. It looks like Schmidt, and company, are committed to improving Google TV for the long haul.

Google has not had much luck with the Google TV project, which failed to gain market traction thus far. Nevertheless, the search company is adamant to bring Google TV to international markets, reports The Telegraph, adding that the service, compatible set-top boxes and TV sets with Google TV built-in (such as Sony’s Internet TV) will become available in the country in the next six months. Daily Mail corroborated the report, adding you’ll be able to “watch material from catch-up services like the BBC iPlayer and ITV Player” on your TV set. Voice searching and remote apps for iOS and Android are also highlighted in the reports. The official announcement is expected by Eric Schmidt in a lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival later today.

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Honeycomb ported to the Logitech Revue 

Google has announced the release of the Android SDK add-on for Google TV. This SDK will allow developers to begin to build/optimize their apps for larger displayes, and more importantly emulate Google TV to see how the apps look on the big screen. As seen above, Honeycomb has already been ported to the Logitech Revue — making us very excited.

Along with the SDK add-on, Google has released a few UI Guidelines. Google says some apps will work, while some might need tweaking:

Depending on the design and use case, an existing Android app may work well on Google TV as is, or it may require fixes. With the add-on you can test your apps to determine if they would be a good fit for TV and whether any tweaks are required.

There’s no word on when Honeycomb will hit Google TV, but this SDK release and the I/O promise of “late sumer” sure makes it sound like it will be soon. Google says the initial number of app available on Google TV will be small, but we’re certainly looking forward to it nonetheless.

The latest rumor out of the mill is that Google is developing multiple online “Celebrity Themed” online TV channels. It is unclear exactly where these channels will be located, whether it’s YouTube or a part of a bigger plan to bolster Google TV. A source said yesterday that such celebrities as Robert Pattinson, Cameron Diaz and Deepak Chopra are just a few of the celebrities that will take part in this project.

This news would not be surprising as Google has recently been adding additional services to its YouTube platform in hopes of monetizing the service further. Combine this with their fledgling Google TV service, Google may see an opportunity that other streaming services are currently not taking part in. Would this be a good opportunity to snap up a Logitech Revue on the ($99)cheap?
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The smoke has cleared on Google’s $12.5B purchase of Chicago-based Motorola and now that almost everyone has had a chance to speak, I think we’re starting to understand what went down.

Google purchased Motorola (MMI) for $12.5B, a 63% premium over its weekend closing price.  Motorola, however, has around $3B in cash and securities, which makes the real purchase a slightly more reasonable $9.5B for Google.  For instance, if Google wanted to slice and dice Motorola, they’d take the cash and patents and sell off the cable box and device divisions for a couple billion dollars each and come away with about what they would have paid for Nortel – and get double to triple the patents. On sheer numbers of patents alone, it seems like a good buy. Obviously some patents are worth more than others.

If the deal doesn’t go through, Google owes Motorola $2.5B for the trouble, so Google is dead serious about this play.

But back to what Motorola does: They have IP, they make smartphones, they make tablets and they make cable top boxes.  It seems like almost too good a setup for Andy Rubin’s Android to just want to sell off piecemeal.

But did Google want to pick up a hardware company?  I reported earlier this year that the Android Hardware division that Andy Rubin had started up with former Danger Co-founders had intentions to build physical devices, not just Operating Systems.

That scale is what attracted and the former Danger founders to get the band back together, with their goal being to build the hardware and features they want to see show up in new Android devices. It’s not enough for Google to just provide Android software to carrier — now they hope to influence what handset makers build, too.

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While we’re not quite sure how they did it, the boys from GTVhacker have ported Honeycomb to their Google TV. Photographed above is Honeycomb running on a $99 Logitech Revue, where you can see the Market is now available. In their forum post, user zenofex says they’ll have more information in the next few days. Also discovered — Google TVs are now showing up in device listings on the Market website (photo after the break). We’ll let you know when there is more information.

As you may know from our twitter, we now have a way to run Honeycomb (Android 3.1) on ANY Logitech Revue. Heres a screenshot of the market/dashboard, we’ll have more info in the next few days.

New update includes:
Adbd
Android Market
Improved Media Player

via Phandroid

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