Google Surprises Hardware Partners With Google TV Delay

From DailyTech: Google's Android operating system has reportedly put its bid to conquer the world of television on hold. At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show Toshiba, LG Electronics and Sharp planned to wow visitors with a portfolio of products powered by Google TV, the Android distribution Google cooked up for the television industry. Now those plans have evaporated.

According to The New York Times, Google is pulling the broader launch of its new platform, as it felt the system wasn't giving users the best experience.

In an effort to improve its experience, Google released a number of upgrades last week, according to the project's blog. Google added many long-promised abilities, including the ability to use Android phones as a remote control; the ability to move and resize website and video windows when in "Dual View" mode; a Netflix app with special features; and a new search engine extension that displays appropriate Amazon Video on Demand and Netflix video options, when searching for movies, plus pertinent results like photos and cast information.

The ability to resize video windows in particular was important, as it fixed one of the early annoyances with the system, which saw the video window covering important messages.

In addition to further tweaking its interface to improve mobile search, Google is also planning to add Google Marketplace access to the sets, allowing users to download third party apps. In this sense Google TV could serve as a poor man's gaming console, of sorts, and offer crude productivity software.

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