Google TV Update Offers Enhanced Voice Control and New Features
By Rob Scott
November 16, 2012
November 16, 2012
- Google announced a new upgrade to Google TV on Wednesday, which now offers advanced voice control, a new programming guide app and features from Google’s Knowledge Graph.
- “The most important new feature of the update, which has internally been called Google TV 3.0, is voice control: Users can trigger channel changes, start apps and fire up the program guide with simple voice commands,” reports GigaOM.
- The system is sensitive to context, bringing up Web content, shows or videos as commanded by users. The article also notes that the Google TV voice control is different from that of Microsoft’s Xbox and Samsung’s TV platform.
- “The company decided to add the microphone to the remote control to allow users to use both,” explains the article, noting that the “old D-Pad still works great for simple navigation tasks, which can be overly complicated if you want to solve them through voice or gestures.”
- The smarts behind Google’s Knowledge Graph also powers the recently launched Google Now app.
- “Google Now and the thinking behind it has been a big inspiration for Google TV going forward, [Google TV product lead Rishi Chandra] added, explaining that the goal is to eventually display content in very much the same way that Google Now displays its information cards to its users.”
- Google TV 3.0 includes a new programming guide called PrimeTime that gives access to live TV and streaming content, “but shines especially during live TV viewing, when shows on other channels are displayed through topical overlays,” notes the post. “Eventually, the same functionality will exist for YouTube and other on-demand content.”
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