Check out a photo of the app UI below:

Redbox Instant by Verizon’s prototype app was on display on an LG Google TV that ran the next version of Google TV that is based on Android 4.2.2, or Jelly Bean. That version will come to Google TV devices in the third quarter of this year, but I was told that the Redbox Instant app will be available before that, and that is going to work just fine with the current version of Google TV. However, the service won’t be available on Google TV devices using an Intel processor, which means that owners of the Logitech Revue and other first-generation devices won’t be able to use it.

Redbox Instant first launched on select Samsung TVs and Blu-ray players as well as PCs and mobile devices in March. The joint-venture between Redbox and Verizon has since added support for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 as well as select LG Smart TVs. I was told by a representative Friday that the company is looking to add support for Roku players soon after rolling out the Google TV app.

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From the announcement post:

“Today, Google TV is moving to the latest version of Android (Jelly Bean, 4.2.2), and we’ve refactored Google TV so that our TV OEM partners can update to future versions of Android in a matter of weeks rather than months. For developers, this means you can build TV experiences using the latest Android APIs, including the NDK.

Today Google TV is also moving to the latest version of Chrome, and from now on Google TV benefits from Chrome updates on the same six week cycle that you’ve come to expect from Chrome. In Chrome on Google TV, we’ve added support for hardware-based content protection, enabling developers to provide premium TV content in HD within their web apps.”

Some Google TV hardware partners have been working with the new version since February.

This will be a big step for Google TV, which has been based on Android 3.2, or Honeycomb, since the last major OS update in late 2011. However, some Google TV owners won’t be able to take advantage of the update: A Google spokesperson confirmed Wednesday that it will only be available for ARM-based Google TV devices, and not on first-generation Intel-based Google TV set-top-boxes and TVs.

Coming next to Google TV: video games?

The update could bring a number of new features to Google TV that owners of newer Android handsets take for granted, including a better performance, a much-needed UI-update and an all likelihood some form of Google Now integration. It should also help developers by making it easier to port their Android 4.x-optimized apps to Google TV.

But there’s another aspect that’s interesting about this step: Google also announced Google Play games services, a cloud gaming service that makes it possible to develop multi-player games and save game plays across devices, at I/O Wednesday.

With Google TV switching to Android 4.2.2, it’s reasonable to assume that Google TV devices should have access to Google Play Games sooner or later as well. This could give the smart TV platform, which has so far only seen modest adoption, another leg to stand on, and potentially enable future Google TV devices to function as full-blown game consoles as well.

This post was updated at 1:35pm with additional information about the devices that will receive the update.

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But it looks like this may change soon: Google TV owners who visited NBC.com with the connected device have in recent days discovered a new splash screen, promising that “full episodes of this and other shows are now available for free” on Google TV.

The splash screen redirects Google TV users to Google Play, where the app is reportedly already being made available. However, users are reporting that it wasn’t listed as compatible with any of their Google TV devices — likely a precaution to prevent users from installing it on anything by development devices before it is officially announced.

The app also isn’t included in Google Play search results yet. But it seems like such an announcement could be imminent, given that the app and splash screen are already in place.

However, cord cutters in search for an easy way to watch NBC content for free on their TV shouldn’t get their hopes up too soon. It’s likely that NBC’s Google TV app is going to require authentication, meaning that users will have to log in with their pay TV credentials in order to watch. (One should note that Google TV owners have had the option to buy individual episodes of TV shows for some time.)

Google and NBC didn’t immediately respond when asked for comment for this article.

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“The functionality will work by taking a cable box signal and passing it through to the Xbox via HDMI, allowing Microsoft’s console to overlay a UI and features on top of an existing TV channel or set-top box.”

Sounds familiar? That’s because the same kind of HDMI daisy-chaining has been used by Google TV devices ever since the launch of that platform in 2010. Microsoft’s approach supposedly goes a bit further, thanks to a cooperation with pay TV operators. The Verge article doesn’t go into details on what this exactly means, but one possible scenario could be that the Xbox controls basic set-top box functionality via Internet Protocol, meaning that the device will be able to switch the channels without the need for an IR blaster.

Having that kind of overlay functionality can be neat, at least when it works. Consumers won’t have to switch inputs on their TVs anymore to switch from an Xbox game or a movie on Netflix to live television. And at this point, I’d take anything that Microsoft designs over the traditional cable guide.

But let’s not fool ourselves: Plugging your cable box into your Xbox, and then connecting that box to your TV? That’s just a crummy hack, which points to all of what’s wrong with TV today.

Cable boxes need to die, not another lifeline

Everyone hates cable boxes. They’re hard to use, outdated pieces of technology. Heck, at this point, even cable TV operators would love to get rid of them and instead deliver video over IP. Oh, and by the way, your cable box can consume more electricity than your fridge.

Microsoft would have been in a great position to replace the cable box. Get rid of that old, humming, power-hungry fridge and replace it with something leaner, to stay with the metaphor. Instead, its answer is to get you a second fridge. The next-generation Xbox is reported to be another always-on device, not only adding to your power bill but also making you wonder: why do you need two devices to watch the same content you used to watch with just one?

This won’t work for cord cutters

Yeah I know, cord cutters are a small minority, and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future. But if there’s a lesson to be learned from the struggles of Google TV, it’s that people don’t buy these kinds of devices to make cable look more fun. They want to replace cable with these devices.

HDMI pass-through is the ultimate admission of defeat

Just a few years ago, Microsoft had grand ambitions for the future of television. The company was looking to start its own virtual cable service which would have competed squarely with Comcast & Co., much in the same way Intel is looking to do now. There were even discussions to kickstart these efforts with some high-profile exclusive content. Apparently, Microsoft was considering A DEAL to bring Conan O’Brien exclusively to the Xbox.

Fast forward to 2013, and Microsoft’s big idea for the future of television is an HDMI cable? It’s the ultimate admission of defeat, and it comes with a heavy price: Microsoft puts its integration of live TV feeds into its Xbox  at the mercy of cable operators, which could at any point in time break the integration and make your picture go black thanks to a sneaky little piece of copy-protection technology called HDCP.

That means that Microsoft likely won’t dare to display ads on the second screen that don’t come with the blessing of your cable company. And don’t expect an Aereo app to come to Xbox any time soon either.

Ultimately, Microsoft’s vision for TV is to make the TV devices and services you have today look better, and it’s using a cumbersome work-around to do so. Call that what you will, but it’s not innovation.

Image courtesy of Flickr user digitpedia.

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An announcement on Google+ states in part:

“Anyone on the same WiFi can join in to control the video or add videos to a playlist (Harlem Shake marathon anyone?). This feature is also available on the YouTube app for Android, and it’s coming to more TVs this year from LG, Sony, Panasonic and others.”

The updated YouTube app allows users to browse for videos and then initiate playback on the TV screen. A key part of this is discovery: The app automatically finds compatible devices within the same network — something that’s similar to the ease-of-use of Apple’s AirPlay. Of course, the big difference is that AirPlay limits video playback to the Apple TV, whereas YouTube wants to bring remote playback to as many devices as possible.

YouTube’s remote playback technology is in part based on DIAL, an open framework for second screen functionalities that YouTube has been developing in cooperation with Netflix. Google Product Manager Timbo Drayson told me in November that YouTube’s ultimate goal was “to move the whole industry forward” with this kind of technology.

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The job description includes the following snippet:

“Work with internal and external teams to architect, design, develop, and deploy IP set top boxes based on the Android operating system. This would include Android TV and Google TV solutions.”

It goes on to list the following requirements:

• Architect an interactive, set top box framework on top of the Android platform
• Create an app centric architecture for 10 foot user interfaces
• Develop specifications and APIs for TV platform framework
• Integrate premium services into platform
• Design framework to support playback and management of videos, photos, music over both local and wide area networks
• Design framework to coordinate 2nd screen functionality with other WD teams

The job offer in question: WD is looking for a Google TV software architect.

Google has signed on a number of new partners supporting the Google TV platform in recent months. At CES, companies showing off Google TV products included Netgear, Haier, Hisense, TCL, LG, Sony, Vizio and Asus. And just last week, some 20 partners came together in Seoul for a closed-door meeting to plot the future of Google TV.

WD has been in the market for streaming boxes for a couple of years. It currently sells three different products to bring online video services to the TV: The WD TV Live combines streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus with support for local files. The WD TV Live Hub adds an internal 1 TB hard drive to the mix, and the newly-introduced WD TV Play offers a simpler UI and a clearer focus on online services.

The WD TV Live Hub was first introduced in late 2010, followed by the WD TV Live in late 2011. Both could be up for a refresh this year, based on the typical release cycles for these kinds of devices.

Check out our review of the WD TV Play, which came out this month, below:

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I’ve also learned a bit about who was part of this meeting: Unsurprisingly, the list of attendees included representatives from device makers like LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL, as well as chipset manufacturers such as Marvell and MediaTek.

But at least two of the participating companies weren’t previously announced as Google TV partners: Nemustech is a South Korean software systems integrator that also develops launchers and UX frameworks for Android mobile phones, and Wistron is a Taiwanese original design manufacturer that builds TV sets for Sony and others.

Some of these partners have already started to work with the next generation of the Google TV software, which received its last significant update last fall. That makes it likely that we will see another big Google TV update before the end of the year.

It’s unclear yet how that next generation of Google TV will look like. Vizio CTO Matt McRae told GigaOM in January that at least some future Google TV devices could ditch the HDMI pass-through of live TV signals and instead look much more like competing devices from Roku and Apple TV with a clear focus on online streaming apps.

Check out my interview with Matt McRae below:

Image courtesy of Flickr user SLR Jester.

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I stopped by the hackathon in its final hours this Sunday to ask Paul Carff, senior developer advocate for Google TV, why Google was interested in sponsoring a giant sleepover for developers: I expected one or two reasons, but he had many. First off, it’s an opportunity to engage Google Developer Groups, the third-party enthusiasts developing apps for the Google TV and YouTube APIs.

It also proves to be a good testing ground for the APIs, giving the developer relations team an opportunity to see how easy or difficult it might be for developers to work with the code and documentation. It can even be an opportunity for fixing errors: This weekend, one participant caught a bug in an app — the team was able to pass it along for fixing.

Also, it was an opportunity to see what people might come up with, given the opportunity to work hands-on with the APIs. Of the people who attended this weekend’s hackathon, Carff estimated that 40 percent called themselves developers, while 20-25 percent volunteered themselves as designers and the rest claimed to be business development-types. “Which is cool, because you need all those people to fill in all the blanks,” he said.

Carff, as one of the judges, said that the criteria they would be using to judge the winning videos would include the level of completeness the developers were able to achieve in just two days, as well as the way in which they used the APIs and a certain “Wow” Factor.

The winning apps from this weekend’s hackathon included Vid Social, a timeline for comments on both live-streamed and hosted video and Giggle, which uses the SongKick app to generate playlists of music videos from bands that will be performing in your area soon. TVUS, which enables users to overlay any video (including Hangouts) over any Google TV screen, took home the grand prize.

So what will come of the projects developed this weekend? As the point wasn’t to complete an app, but to instead create enough of it for demo purposes, it’s still unsure. But there’s a track record for hackathons resulting in completed projects, such as Viki, an app curating Korean entertainment for Google TV.

Not only did the developers of that app conceive of it initially at the Mountain View headquarters hackathon, but because they had the opportunity to connect with the Google TV team, they were able to get featured on Google Play.

But that’s not the only reason people take part. And it’s not why Google employees volunteer their weekends to help. The biggest reason that people participate? Carff put it like this: “My first time, I wondered, who’s going to come in? Especially if they’ve been coding all weekend. But I was floored. The energy you get when people are excited about a new idea — it’s really invigorating.”

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And don’t get me started on the approach taken by companies like Samsung and LG who reckon that, once you’ve bought their TV set, you’ll stick to their brand for handsets just so you can get easy streaming from one to the other. Most people don’t think like that, so hardly anyone uses the functionality. What a waste of the connectivity built into these TVs.

All of which is why I rather like the idea of Zapstreak‘s SDK, which has just come out of beta. I love the idea of pairing up the mobile device and television set – I want to use the zippy apps on my phone or tablet, not the clunky efforts built into my so-called smart TV – but I don’t want to be hemmed into some artificially walled garden. Miracast goes part of the way here, but even there you need special chips on either side.

The cool thing with Zapstreak’s SDK is that it allows Android apps to communicate with a wide variety of Wi-Fi-enabled devices, from TVs to gaming consoles and hi-fis – Zapstreak essentially provides a layer on top of the increasingly ubiquitous but severely underused DLNA standard, so anything that has that built in will work.

Variety

Zapstreak is a Polish company that’s had its SDK in beta since April, during which time it says it’s had around 100 developers giving active feedback. Here’s what co-founder Stefan Bielau has to say about that experience:

“It took a bit longer because there were various use cases on the way that we didn’t expect. For example we had a company from the U.S. that’s selling hearing aids and they have an app which is a text-to-voice app. They were interested in extending this setup for someone who doesn’t want to wear the hearing aid all the time at home, to listen to stuff through their home entertainment system.”

That’s a relatively obscure use case, though. A far easier one to grasp is this: imagine, as an Android user, visiting a friend with an Apple TV unit and streaming content from your handset to that receiver. According to Bielau, that can be done.

What’s more – and this may give the firm an answer to Google’s promised open protocol for streaming from Android devices – Zapstreak is also gearing up to release SDKs for Windows Phone 8 and iOS by the end of this year. Apple’s T&Cs don’t forbid doing that, Bielau noted, but Zapstreak’s going to check with Apple before it deploys anyway – this should be amusing, as it would theoretically mean the ability to stream from an iOS device to any DLNA-equipped TV without the need for Apple TV.

Developers using the SDK will need to pay Zapstreak $29 a month per dev account, rather than per app. However, Bielau said his team is considering making this a per-OS payment, once the Windows Phone 8 and iOS SDKs are out. Still, it’s pretty cheap, and the company’s also offering a 30-day free trial for developers who sign up early.

Interestingly, Bielau suggested that Zapstreak may over time evolve into a consultancy of sorts. The company is picking up some valuable data as developers use its SDK, such as information about which handsets are being used to cast to which TV models. This, he reckons reasonably, is something the OEMs might want to know.

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