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Digital
Google planning digital entertainment device
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 10 February 2012
Google is planning to enter the digital content device market, according to reports. It is thought that Google’s wi-fi enabled home entertainment hub unit thing would initially have music at its heart, presumably hooked into the web firm’s newish download and digital locker platforms.
It would put the web giant more directly in competition with Apple, a once friendly rival of Google which has become a head-on competitor as both firms place more importance on their respective smartphone operating systems.
Amazon too, of course, is stepping up its efforts in the entertainment hardware space, so the launch of a Google device would escalate the battle between the three big players in online content, as well as pitching the web firm against more traditional entertainment device makers, many of which are now using Google’s Android operating system.
It’s thought a prototype of the device is already in production, and assumed that if and when it goes to market Google would hand the job over to Motorola, which it acquired last year but which has so far operated autonomously from its new owners.
Elsewhere in Google news, Broadcast reports that YouTube, which has been pumping its own money into original content for the first time in the last year via content partnership deals with media, brands and celebrities, is looking to launch 20 UK-specific channels, with £10 million set aside to make that happen.
