I can’t think of Google TV as anything else but Recombinant Television. This time the New York Times had the scoop when reporter Nick Bilton broke the story here. Intel’s Atom processor, which powers (some say “under powers”) popular netbooks and many smartphones, will be called upon to serve as the foundation for new set-top boxes designed to bring Google’s Web-based apps to the home TV set.

Add Logitech to the mix and can imagine how the master of the mouse and the multi-function TV remote will finally solve some of the sticky issues that arise when a single screen is called upon to serve up video entertainment, display photos, render social networking “activity streams” and otherwise accommodate the whims of the multi-tasking, attention-challenged public. If it works as suggested, it is one of the key outcomes of taking a recombinant (rather than a unified) approach to computing and communications. The family TV is transformed not just into a media or entertainment center, but into a big screen on which all manner of icons could invoke the widgets, apps and “links” that make each of our lives what they are.

Like the iPad, it is a tabla rasa or empty slate today. It’s just neat to contemplate how it could transform TV viewing into a much more engaging or social activity. Based on the backlash surrounding Google’s Buzz (and even Wave for that matter), we can only hope that the roll-out is done in a way that reflects an understanding of the different human factors that prevail in the TV room, as opposed to at a cubicle or among the mobile phone toting public.

Categories: Articles

Tags: Android, Intel, Recombinant Communications, Google