Google Inc. will make an ambitious bid to extend its reach into the living room when it debuts its Internet television software this week.
Through a joint initiative with other prominent technology and consumer electronics companies, the Web search giant is expected to showcase technology that TV viewers can use to flip seamlessly among familiar shows, YouTube videos and home videos on their sets.
Called Smart TV, the software is expected to be built into Internet- connected TVs, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes. It has not been disclosed when the first of these devices will be available to consumers.
Google and partners Sony Corp, Intel Corp. and Logitech International will unveil the new television platform at a conference in San Francisco for 3,000 software programmers in hopes of generating a flurry of independent development.
Before the product becomes available to consumers, Google will release development tools for it in hopes that third-party software creators will build applications for Smart TV the same way they did for smart phones.
“The revolution we're about to go through is the biggest single change in television since it went color," Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini told analysts last week.
Google isn't the first online company to make a grab for the TV. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year, manufacturers displayed a plethora of televisions, Blu-ray players and set-top boxes with Internet services, including online photo delivery, music streaming, news reports, weather forecasts and stock quotes.
Yahoo Inc. was among the first technology companies to make Internet sites such as Facebook and Twitter accessible on the TV. And Netflix Inc. delivered movies to TVs online.
But the idea hasn't caught on widely, partly because of the limitations of the services. Apple Inc.'s set-top box, for example, enables users to buy and rent movies and TV shows, but not much more in the way of Internet-delivered features.
