Tuning in to Google TV

Living room surf session? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
It’s only 4 days since my previous post, but something caught my attention -- Google TV being showcased at Best Buy. It’s a visually engaging product, but it reminded me of WebTV and other technical curiosities (Linux) …am feeling the need to comment.

I’ve gone on about techie tools that require humans to change their nature to suit a techie purpose. One major example is Linux (any flavor). Linux really requires the user (or at least someone in the household) to hold a Masters degree in Computer Science. A casual user who wants to do ordinary things (email, web surf, on-line shop, download mp3’s) is going to be met with a wave of technical issues -- how do I unpack a tar file or a package, how do I play mp3’s, where’s iTunes? My techie coworkers would say there are no such issues -- but they hold advanced CS degrees (or equivalent knowledge). For the average user, there needs to be hand-holding -- some helpful agent to integrate the product lines and make it all work seamlessly.

Now we come to Google TV. Before I go there I’d like to briefly discuss my “two rooms” activity scenario as a backdrop... In my study, I do intensive Quicken accounting and business correspondence. In this mode, I am no-nonsense and serious. I have a bright light, a large desk, an upright chair and full keyboard. The chair is a hard, swivel style. I’m not here to have fun -- the office is deliberately set up this way so I’ll get off my duff and accomplish things.

My living room has a fat, overstuffed (not unlike its owner) couch, giant HD TV, and a couple of set top boxes (Apple TV and Sony blu-ray). In this room, I don’t want to think too hard about anything. Don’t want a keyboard or console in two hands -- I want a remote in one hand which frees the other hand to reach for Fritos and Diet DP. What I look at on that screen will fall into the category of 100% entertainment. I don’t want to read cnn.com, balance my budget or really (in my middle-aged case) play computer games. To the extent that I would want to do any of that the iPad works well. (Wham bam, thank you ma'am -- iPad answers my crossword question in 3 strokes).

Now along comes Google TV which allows you to mix the study and living room into maybe a “living study”. Google can make me a time managing maestro... I can read Time and watch 30 Rock at the same time. I can watch Netflix, play games and use my smart phone as a remote -- all at once if so desired. Some of these things are already doable with Wii and Apple TV. Others are things that I’d never want to do; I don’t want to read an internet site on a TV screen across the room. I really don’t want an overly tasked, busy TV screen -- I’d prefer that it display one show at a time, full screen. Between shows it should give me a very simple intuitive menu selection such as as we already get from Time Warner, Tivo, Apple, Netflix and other service providers.

An informative web site (with a lot of verbiage) is necessarily something that I want to peruse on my desktop HP or my iPad. I want to study it up close. Maybe I’m peculiar but I don’t really like my computer screen to be too busy, much less my TV screen. Picture-in-picture is a bold move for me. It still annoys me how a close friend channel surfs across the shows when I visit his house. Decide on one show, and stick with it dammit.

Is Google TV for you? If you’re a young, game-playing, multitasker who doesn’t mind looking at busy, multiple windows from across a room you’ll do fine. The Google TV user probably doesn't demand total regularity in home activity settings (and maybe it's obsessive on my part). Am not going to twist arms or try to argue that my preference is the only way. But I’m personally going to stick with my long-observed room designations; the living room is where I live and the study is where I study.

Could I be wrong about all this? Very possibly -- I once thought the iPod nano would bomb because you can get twice as much memory on the iPod Classic for the same price. I was flat-out wrong about that -- who can read the next trend. We’ll just wait and see I guess. Linux has never gained more than a single digit market penetration after years of being touted as the open systems answer to everyone’s prayers. People are people, always and ever.

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