Android-based Google TV to come in this fall

We had reported in March about Google’s ambitious TV project. Well today Google has announced that its TV efforts at Google I/O. “Video should be consumed on the biggest, best and the brightest screen in your house, and that’s the TV”, said Google’s senior product manager Rishi Chandra. Google TV is to combine the web and TV-viewing experience in the ways never done before.

Google TV will come either in a set-top box or will be built into certain select TVs which include research partners Sony and logitech and also Intel. Google TV will be based on Android and will come with a built-in Google Chrome browser which does include a Flash plugin.

Google plans the sale of the TVs by fall 2010 and the source code for the TV will be open for developers to work on a custom API that Google will introduce shortly.

How the whole thing works is quite simple. Users can search for what ever they desire to watch and get results from the Web. Users can also bookmark their favorite videos and place them on the homescreen of the Google TV.

Developers can write custom Android based apps and can be loaded on to the Google TV. It is reported that Netflix and Amazon Video already have their apps ready for Google TV.

It is interesting to note that Youtube has been optimized to sit on a TV and is called “Youtube Leanback”. It will be released beta weeks before Google TV will be out.

The whole idea of having a TV built with all the features of Google TV would be great, especially when it can eliminate the need for a bulky set-top box and also can have custom apps built on it.

With Google tieing up with Sony, Intel and Logitech, the end product sure is promising.