Thursday: Internet TVs

These seem to be bursting onto the scene fully formed. Saw 3 today -

1. Panasonic Viera. Panasonic does have an internet-enabled OS for its TVs, with the standard apps, fitness, and content options. Skype is available thru their BluRay player.

But what's interesting is the Viera tablets. Available in 4, 7, and 10" versions, these Wifi tablets are "integrated" to the TV but in only a minor way, from what I could see.

The tablet isn't a remote control, can't view live content ("due to agreements with broadcasters"), isn't the DVR. It can only "send" content to the set, and this content only comes from Panasonic's servers, not from the internet. Huh?

2. Samsung SmartTV. Already boasting 150 3rd party apps, this environment is part of the TV (not a separate box). They have apps (games, netflix, youtube), search (google search ripoff), and skype for videochat.

A very rich offering, but that's not all.
"Screenshare" allows a 2tuner receiver to send the 2nd image over wifi to your Galaxy device. It's delayed a few seconds (what I observed at the show), so don't plan to watch the same show in both places (altho you can). So now you can continue watching your program in bed on your GTab. (Take that, Panasonic.)

"Photoshare" instantly uploads pix from the SH100 wifi-enabled phone directly to your TV (3sec)or harddrive (20sec). When I think of share I think cloud. Uploading to the TV for sharing at home is cool, but we also want to do this at friends and relatives homes, who may not have Samsung TVs - hence the value of upload to the cloud.
"Zone detection" uses "geomagnetics" based on GPS location and wall distances to define physical locations in your living room that trigger your Galaxy device to run a predefined app when placed there - such as "launch TV remote control app", "backup my tablet", "upload video to harddrive", "play motivational speaker video," etc. Detection seems to be accurate to within a few feet.

And I haven't finished going thru the Samsung booth yet!

3. Logitech Revue - already shipping at $300, this is the winner in my mind. It's a separate box, so future upgrades and evolutions won't force me to throw away my TV. Google TV, media player, apps like Netflix and Pandora. View your Logitech webcam that you have trained on your front porch thru the web browser (in the picture below, the feed of the tall travel mug in the box, in the lower right corner, is taken in complete darkness).

Interestingly, their videochat client is not Skype, but their own Logitech Vid - an acquisition from a few years ago. (Or, Skype must have been too busy with Verizon, Apple, Panasonic, Samsung, etc to bother with Logitech)
Disappointing Slashgear review
Disappointing Cnet review

The addition of Search to media playback is very intriguing. But here's a hole in media search. My own pictures and videos are not tagged or titled in any useful way. Because what would really be cool is to search for all pictures of Samantha and Mom. Or all pictures at the beach. Or videos taken at school. I have no way whatsoever to search the terabytes of personal digital files that I have. Other than that, I totally get Google TV now:

Videochat:
Seems to be standard functionality on all internet-connected TVs.
HD Skype must have been developed with living room chat in mind. Saw Panasonic's demo of HD skype at 720p on a 42" flatscreen.

Wouldn't want ANY fewer pixels than that.
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