Sony TV’s To Gain Google Android Codename “Dragonpoint”

“dragonpoint”/” target=”_self”>

The race to bring computing to the television has been an on going battle for sometime. It really started started in the early 2000’s with Windows XP Media Center. The idea being that you could connect your laptop/desktop to your television and view your photos, videos and music on it. Of course, besides a lackluster interface, the problem was that computers were much larger at that time. Sense then, Microsoft has continued to expand it’s Media Center offerings and computers like the HP Slim Line are much smaller now. Apple itself has given this a go. You can use Front Row on your Mac to again display similar content but that again didn’t gain much traction. Their response to the idea was the AppleTV that I own myself. Although I would say they are the closest to a winner, there is still a lot lacking. It’s not a DVR, we live in an App world thanks to Apple now and most of all, you need to change inputs ie. Stop what your doing, jump to another input and then select your photos etc etc. Of course Tivo has given it’s own shot at this as well. Again, I own a Tivo 3 series and love my unit, but the apps it gives you in my opinion or worthless. So a combination of a Tivo and an AppleTV? Might just be the winner.

According to the NYT, Google is getting ready to give this a go as well. Powering this idea will be none other then the Android platform. Although I’m not an Android user, what I like about this platform is that it can be installed on any device, from a picture frame to a fridge and this gives developers and manufactures a lot of space to innovate where software might have been clumsy and proprietary before. Of course the reason we post this is that Google is indeed of a partner and that parter looks to be Sony. Details are still scarce on this project so we have no way of knowing if this is a top box like the AppleTV or will this be incorporated as widgets in the upcoming Sony lineup of TV’s. But it is expected to be released or at least unveiled next month.

Knowing what I know from the Sony release schedule, I’m not leaning on their TV’s because the majority of their brand new TV’s were shown off at CES and already in stores with their now and beautiful Monolith Design. This only leaves their higher end LX900 series (here to replace the XBR8) that will have full 3D built into it. Now that is set to be released late June, early July. So although it fits the timeframe, I still don’t see it happening. Also, I must say, I don’t really care for my TV to have widgets in it. As cool as it is to get the weather and twitter feed on my TV, I don’t need it. My iPhone or iPad or even Sony Dash can already do it better and faster, so why force it onto my TV and make it more expensive? I know this has been the direction that many TV manufactures have been going with, but I think it’s just a useless avenue that outside of a demo, most users will never use.

Of course, when the guys over at Gizmodo contacted Google about this, the following came as no surprise: