14 DAY TRIAL // Google TV hasn't been the smashing success Google and its partners hoped it would be, but the project is under review and should be seeing a second big push when the underlying software matures. Until then, Google is expanding the scope of the project, beyond the living room and into the classroom.
"We are announcing Google TV for EDU, a seeding program to support university research. Google TV for EDU asks campuses around the country: how can education change the world of the Web the TV for the classroom," Google announced.
Google has several goals with this. Not only is it promoting the product and providing a potentially useful tool for education, it's also hoping to raise more interest in TV engineering.
Google is a company created and very much run by engineers and it's always had a big focus on education and the great technological challenges. If there's one company to promote engineering, in any field, it's Google.
The move is also an educational one for Google as well as it is very interested in how the universities will make use of the Google TV technology.
The company wants the research to focus on several main areas:
· Generate new interest in television engineering; · Make computer science tangible for students; · Help in the development of smart TV curricula and new educational tools; · Contribute to in-classroom and distance learning over television; · Reach a wide audience.
Google TV for EDU should be interesting to watch. At this point, internet-enabled TVs, though having been around for a few years, are still in the early stages.
No one really knows how the web should be adapted to the TV and what's the perfect balance between the passive TV watching and the interactive web.
Google will be providing updates on the outcome of the research but it will be also introducing several web apps that should make Google TV more suited as an educational tool.