Google aims to take over your TV screen

Threat to traditional broadcasters By Tony Glover

Google注册了一系列非常有趣的域名，即GoogleAdSenseTVsite.com/net/org。虽然Google最后并不一定就使用这个域名，但根据经验，这些域名会透露Google将要推出的新服务。Google AdSense TV Site，听起来有点像是
AdSense for TV的域名。早在今年5月份，Google CEO就已经主动透露了Google正在开发电视搜索引擎，在随后的6月，Google已经在开发一种实时环境声音辨认技术，利用普通家用电脑的内置麦克风收录周围环境的声音，然后根据这些声音判断当前正在观看的电视节目的内容，然后向电脑提供与电视节目相关的信息

GOOGLE is planning a new -version of its search engine – designed for TV screens – that the company’s co-founder and its chief executive believe will rival traditional broadcasting.

Chief executive Eric Schmidt told The Business: “At the most people currently have access to only around 500 television channels,” said Schmidt. “They should have access to everything – that is where we are heading.”

As they prepare to make the move from the PC to the television, internet service providers and broadcasters are trying to develop electronic programme guides (EPGs) that will enable viewers with a broadband internet connection to choose from a far wider range of video and film entertainment than is currently available. And Google believes it can offer a world--beating EPG.

“You have to look at what an electronic programme guide is. It is just a search engine and that is what Google does best,” said Schmidt.

Some internet service providers such as BT intend to limit viewing choice to content suppliers they have selected. But IT giants such as Microsoft and Intel are determined to harness the full power of the internet with its virtually unlimited choice into every living room.

Attaching a Microsoft Media Center player or an Xbox console will enable consumers to use a digital television to browse the internet for whatever video content they wish. This will enable viewers to use Google to realise Schmidt’s vision of allowing viewers to use a television-enabled Google search engine to watch any film or programme they want via the internet.

There has been industry scepticism as to whether the internet will be able to sustain the volume of data needed to allow television audiences to stream live video into their living rooms en masse. But Page, currently president of Google products, told The Business: “People are inventive and the history of the internet proves that it can be adapted to carry whatever level of data is required.”

Page is involved in a project being carried out in Google’s US research and development labs that will revolutionise television advertising. Paid search, the paid ad links that appear to the right of all Google searches, is the revenue generator that made Google the fastest growing company on Nadsaq.

Google’s co-founder Page believes that if the company is to continue to be successful in the era of internet television, it must develop a new form of paid search. Schmidt admitted to The Business that the company has yet to develop the right format but added that Page is trialling new prototypes on an almost weekly basis.

Microsoft is this weekend denying a story that appeared in the New York Post that is has been in discussions to buy online auctioneer eBay. A Microsoft spokeswoman told The Business: “There is no foundation to this story.” Last month Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer denied rumours that Microsoft was teaming up with eBay to take on search giant Google.