Is Google about to rename its Google TV division? That's the word from GigaOM, which is reporting, via unnamed sources, that the company is looking to ditch Google TV in favor of the new Android TV brand. A spokesperson for Google declined to comment.
If the report is true, it would signal the end of a brand that launched in 2010 with high hopes of Google taking over the living room by offering TV and set-top makers an Internet operating system made for big screen TVs. However, the first generation products (a line of Sony TVs and a set-top box from Logitech) were disasters, thanks mostly to buggy software. Even the head of Logitech later called the first version of Google TV "beta" software.
Google tried to relaunch the product as Google TV 2.0 in 2011 but despite some improvements many TV hardware companies stayed away. Google kept trying to push Google TV to no avail. At one point the company's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt claimed that by mid-2012 "... the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded in it." That clearly didn't happen.
Google's newest TV-based venture has been far more successful. The $35 Chromecast dongle, which streams content from YouTube and Netflix from an Android device to a TV, went on sale earlier this summer and has been both a critical and sales success.
Source: GigaOM | Image via Google
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