Google TV Coming to TVs this Fall

Google TV is coming to (many) TVs this Fall. So what is Google TV? Watch this video first:

Google TV will be ‘free’, but only in the way that over-the-air TV is free – first you have to buy a television set in order to see it. It’s software built on Android 2.1 running Google’s Chrome web browser, and it will be embedded in some TV sets and Blu-ray players (Sony is already signed up), dedicated appliance boxes (Logitech is on board for starters) and even content providers like DISH Network are working with Google and Logitech to make the integration as seamless as possible.

Naturally, you can search, but not just for traditional TV shows, but for online content as well, and that means more than just video. With the built-in browser, you can surf the Web as well while watching TV. Yes, more multitasking!

But perhaps the most compelling thing about Google TV is the ability to augment it with apps. As it stands, there are many of the thousands Android apps that will already run on it, and Google is encouraging developers to create new and targeted apps for this platform. See their presentation at the last Google I/O conference. Better still is that Google plans to open-source the platform next summer.

Google’s tag line: “TV meets Web. Web meets TV.” It will be interesting to see how well G-TV fares against the like of AppleTV and Boxee. I’ll bet pretty well.