- Google TV’s home screen will get a “personalized feed of snackable videos”
- New generative AI features on TCL Gemini-ready TVs arrives today
- Improvements to Google Photos and screensavers
Google TV is getting an upgrade (such as it is) that many people are going to dislike. This summer, it’ll be bringing vertical video to US viewers’ homescreen in the form of YouTube Shorts clips.
According to FlatpanelsHD it could get worse: Google hasn’t ruled out adding vertical video from TikTok and Instagram too.
Google isn’t the first big tech firm to add vertical video to its TV viewing. Disney+ did it earlier this year, and Instagram has a TV app too — but those are within apps, not just piped straight to you when you turn the TV on.
Why is Google adding vertical video to Google TV?
Adding Google Shorts to your homescreen is part of Google’s wider mission to keep you inside its ecosystem and watching its ads. At the moment, the homescreen recommendations are for movies and shows, often sending you other services; by adding YouTube Shorts to the mix, you might potentially watch lots of videos from Google’s own services, each with ads.
Vertical video isn’t the only addition coming to Google TV. As of today, if you’re a US owner of a TCL TV with Gemini (such as the TCL QM8K) you can access more generative AI tools in the form of the Nano Banana and Veo apps, for generating images and video respectively. They’ll roll out to more Gemini-enabled TVs and devices in the coming months.
There’s a new Remix feature in Google Photos that enables you to change existing photos’ styles and backgrounds via voice commands, and you’ll be able to search for specific photos via voice. There’s also a Dynamic Slideshows feature that’ll display a selected Google Photos album as a screensaver. That one doesn’t require Gemini.
Whether these features delight or disgust you is going to depend on what you use your TV for. As Google describes it, the new features are “designed to help you connect, create and share laughs together” by “unlocking the TV’s potential as a shared creative canvas.”
The new generative AI tools will be available on compatible US TCL TVs today, and most of the new features will roll out to US users this summer. Dynamic Slideshows will be available worldwide, again in the summer.
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