Google TV sets its sights on education

We all know that Google TV didn’t do too well in the consumer market when it was launched last year. The fact that it had trouble securing online content for its services made it even worse. It didn’t sell very well at all and not many people saw a reason to get it. But unlike other Google services that got the axe if they didn’t perform (Google Wave anyone?), Google are determined in making it work. There have been rumors of the company making the set top box cheaper by converting to ARM chips, but in the latest Google TV blog post, they seem to have other plans in mind. Google have just announced Google TV for EDU – a seeding program to support university research. Google plans to have their TV set top boxes set up around selected schools and classrooms in America in a research project. They want to see if the presence of a web TV can help to generate new interest in television engineering, make computer science tangible for students, help in development of smart TV curricula and new educational tools, contribute to in-classroom and distance learning over television, and to reach a wide audience. The Google TV blog states that they will be posting the outcomes of the research as well as information on new educational web-apps over the next few months. What do you think of Google’s move to penetrate the classroom? Could it help shape Google TV’s uncertain future?

George Wong
Categories: General
Tags: box, Education, Google, google tv, smart tv, TV