google tv

Rumor Has It, Ep. 8: Google TV is a dead, dead horse (podcast)

The month is almost up, and Karyne is beating Emily by a smidge. With only two shows left, however, it's time to start thinking of embarrassing things for Emily to do when she loses.

On this week's show, we cry over CDs going the way of the dodo; we laugh about Staples selling the PlayBook for $199; Google Music is going to 11, whatever that means, at an event on Wednesday; and according to nobody, the iPad 3 will be able to fly.

Things are heating up in the Twitter wars, too! Stephen, at the time of the … Read more

LG may be looking to switch on Google TV

Logitech jumped off the Google TV train earlier this week, but now it looks like another consumer-electronics maker, LG, may be hopping on.

Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Seoul, South Korea-based LG plans to unveil a television based on Google software at CES in January. LG is the world's second-largest manufacturer of TV sets.

Representatives for both LG and Google have declined to comment. But the report, if true, could signal welcome good news for Google TV. In the past two weeks, the Google product has not only been dismissed by Logitech, but also dogged by reviewers, including CNET's Matthew Moskovciak, who said a recently released major update aimed at simplifying the user interface is frustratingly unready for prime time. … Read more

The 404 945: Where wow, you guys are a lot taller than I thought you were (podcast)

Big thanks to everyone who came through last night's 404 Meet-up at the CNET Gotham holiday gift guide. Friendships were made, business ideas launched, and plenty of stickers were given; it was one of our most productive meet-ups to date!

We'll wrap up last night's event and show a quick interview segment on today's show, then launch into the headlining news of the day: Logitech has announced that it made a huge mistake with its Revue Google TV set-top box, and the company has no plans to upgrade or reinvent the existing hardware. Tune in to find out your other options for streaming Web content to your TV.

We'll also chat about near-field communication (NFC) chips making their way to luxury goods like Louis Vuitton wallets, Prada bags, and Nike sneakers to battle bootlegers, a six-year project to tweet the events of the second World War, and Jeff gives us his quick-take of "Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword."

We've been talking about games like Battlefield 3, Batman: Arkham City, and Uncharted 3 a lot on the show, and Blockbuster just gave us two copies of each game to give away in conjunction with Blockbuster's promo running through Nov. 22 where if you buy a copy of the game in-store you receive a free month of unlimited game and movie rentals!

We have PS3 and Xbox 360 copies for Battlefield 3 and Batman: Arkham City and two copies of Uncharted 3 for PS3 to give away. Here's how to enter:

Follow The 404, Justin, Wilson, and Jeff on Twitter. Tweet out a message that includes #GimmeFreeGames and @The404.

And that's it! Just remember that you need to be a U.S. resident to be eligible and the contest ends November 22. We'll select the winners at random, so good luck!

Stream or download today's show after the break!… Read more

Logitech confesses to 'gigantic' mistake with Google TV

Logitech is halting production of its Google TV Revue set-top boxes, acknowledging that the whole affair was a financial disaster for the company.

At an Analyst and Investor Day hosted by Logitech on Wednesday, CEO Guerrino De Luca confessed that the Revue was a "mistake of implementation of a gigantic nature." In his presentation, DeLuca in part pointed the finger at Google TV, referring to it as a "beta" product, according to The Verge.

De Luca told investors that Logitech lost more than $100 million in operating profits on the Revue after bringing it to the … Read more

Adobe axes Flash for TVs too

Adobe Systems' announcement today that it would abandon its work on the mobile version of its Flash Player also applies to consumer devices such as TVs.

Adobe will no longer focus on porting the Flash plug-in into Web browsers on consumer electronics devices and instead encouraged developers to build native apps for those devices, the company confirmed in a statement today to GigaOm.

"Adobe will continue to support existing licensees who are planning on supporting Flash Player for web browsing on digital home devices and are using the Flash Player Porting Kit to do so," Adobe said. "… Read more

Google TV might not suck in the future

Day 1 of Streaming Media West included a highly anticipated demo of Google TV, the much maligned, though much improved media platform for your living room.

To get you up to speed, Google TV came out last year to a lukewarm response. Very few people adopted it, which prompted a complete redesign. That redesign was then realized last week with the release of Google TV 2.0, but unfortunately, at least one critic still found the updated platform plagued with problems. For instance, while CNET's Matthew Moscovciak conceded that the new Android Honeycomb interface is sleek, he still considered the overall experience clunky and frustrating. … Read more

Porn channel shows Google TV is open, all right--wide open

Vivid Entertainment, one of the largest purveyors of adult films, wants a piece of Google TV.

The Los Angeles porn studio today launched Vivid for Google TV, a service that lets its subscribers trawl for all sorts of explicit content from Vivid through set-top boxes running Google TV. Vivid hasn't created a specific application for Google TV, but rather optimized a Web site for the service using HTML5.

Google declined to discuss the offering beyond emailing a statement that pointed out anyone can create a Google TV-optimized site. Google went on to offer instructions for customers who want to … Read more

Google TV's Honeycomb update: Still not ready for prime time (hands-on)

It took Google an entire year to deliver a major update to the first round of Google TV products, and it has not been worth the wait.

When Google announced the Honeycomb update last week, we had a twinge of optimism, based on the slick press photos and the stated mission of simplifying the user experience, which was sorely needed. But after playing with our Sony NSZ-GT1 Blu-ray player with Google TV for several hours today, our initial impressions were mostly of frustration.… Read more

Android Atlas Weekly 71: No Galaxy Nexus for Black Friday (Podcast)

Jason Howell from TWiT TV joins us live as we get hands on with the Galaxy Nexus. We also take a look at a new nook, and ask what a dude thinks about his girl phone. All of that an more on this week's episode of Android Atlas Weekly for November 2nd 2011.

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NEWS

Samsung Galaxy Nexus hands-on video http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20127234-1/samsung-galaxy-nexus-hands-on-video/

Samsung Galaxy Nexus pushed back until after Black Friday? http://androidandme.com/2011/11/news/samsung-galaxy-nexus-pushed-back-until-after-black-friday/… Read more