Google has said today that it plans to launch the Google TV platform internationally in 2011, bringing the search engine to Internet-connected HDTVs around the globe.
Showing off the technology at the IFA trade fair, Google says it wants to “bridge the gap” between TV and the Internet.
Google TV projects a search bar onto the top of the screen, giving users a chance to surf/search the Web and search live TV listings.
The product should hit the U.S. market in the next few months.
Google is currently working on bringing content to Google TV from major providers, as well as Android app support. Users will soon be able to change the channel with voice recognition.
“The Internet is creating a great Internet disruption and that disruption is changing so many things,” added CEO Eric Schmidt.
Result for: many things
Just 4 months after reaching 3 billion downloads the popular torrent site Mininova has announced that they have hit another milestone; 4 billion torrent downloads by its users.
Niek van der Maas, the founder of MiniNova had this to say about the latest milestone. “When we launched back in January 2005, we were the first BitTorrent site to offer a sophisticated search engine, sorting of search results, categorization, etc..We try to keep our lead by innovating and extending our website with new features. Many things changed in the past years, but one thing will always be the same: we try to offer the #1 P2P directory and search engine.”
The milestones just keep racking up for Mininova, and at an exponential rate as well. In May 2006 the site reached 400 million torrent downloads, and only 8 months later they hit the 1 billion plateau. By November of 2007 it was 3 billion.
“This is very good news, it means our site is growing exponential: the amount of total torrent downloads roughly doubles every half year,” Niek added. “And more downloads means more exposure, so more content available on our website.”
Result for: many things
According to an article in the Financial Times, the BBC is planning on bringing a set-top box to the market that will allow iPlayer users to transfer web video to their HDTVs.
The set top box, which will face competition from Apple TV and the newly introduced Roku from Netflix would allow users with broadband connections to have instant IPTV.
Mark Thompson, BBC director-general, added, “There are many things out there in the market but what we haven’t got is a simple standard, to mean that you can get services like iPlayer and Kangaroo.”
It also appears the BBC is talking with content owners hoping to strike deals making their content available. If the set top box does come through, the BBC will most likely more directly compete with BSkyB and its digital video recorder service Sky+.
