<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/diTpeYoqAhc&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/diTpeYoqAhc&rel=0</a>

Google has launched its new Google TV service, announcing that the open-source platform merging television and the internet would be rolled out onto the market later this year.

As of today, most TV vendors have their own technologies (for example Panasonic has Viera Cast) that allow limited Internet usage such as playing video from YouTube or viewing photos from Picasa. Google TV will offer a standardized platform for all such applications and - as an open-source platform - enable developers to create widgets for the system.

Upon launching the service, Google stated that it would be updating the Android operating system to facilitate the development of web applications specifically for Google TV.

The Google TV platform is expected to have have fewer user restrictions than current systems. It will use the Google Chrome browser to allow users to search through the Web and video content in a similar way to what currently exists on desktop computers and mobile devices. Adobe Flash will also be integrated into the system. Google TV will allow users to access any website from their television, with particular support for services such as YouTube, Twitter, Netflix, and Hulu.