Zynga goes ‘all in’ for Google TV

Guest post from Zynga

Attention card sharks: Zynga is raising the stakes and announcing the availability of Zynga Poker, the world’s largest free-to-play online poker game, on Google TV.

Zynga Poker gives players the option to play at any table, meet others from around the world or join friends for a game, choosing from casual Hold ‘Em tables, tournament play or VIP tables. Players interact with others by chatting, completing challenges and sending and receiving gifts, including poker chips for a truly social experience.

Zynga Poker was Zynga’s very first game and it continues to evolve by enabling players to hit the jackpot across multiple platforms including Google+ and Android devices, which now includes Google TV.

Especially optimized for playing poker from the comfort of your own couch, Zynga Poker for Google TV features custom graphics and a new way to control the game with the Google TV remote. Up the ante and play Zynga Poker from just about anywhere, whether you’re commuting to work or taking a break to connect with friends. Connect and play with your friends today!

Your friends at Zynga

Google TV Update Comes to Logitech Revue™ Devices

Google TV Update Comes to Logitech Revue™ Devices

As Logitech announced, starting today all units of the Logitech Revue™ will begin to receive an over-the-air (OTA) update of the new Google TV software. The update will include a simplified design and interface, an improved search functionality, a TV & Movies app for easily finding great shows and movies to watch, access to the Android Market with many apps optimized for Google TV, as well as an improved YouTube application. You can read more of the details of the update here.

We’re excited that starting today even more people will have access to an updated Google TV experience.

The Google TV Team

bConnected with Ball State University on Google TV

Guest post from Ball State University

(A series highlighting the most interesting new apps available for Google TV)

College students love free stuff, whether it is pizza, t-shirts or gadgets.  They also want things to be quick, easy, and available 24/7.  When it comes to meaningful student services and the technology that power them, those desires seldom waiver.  To meet those expectations, Ball State University’s office of information technology is working hard to develop cutting-edge apps to provide easy access to information, eliminate the hassle factor in finding that information, and offer a rich and immersive experience.  

Enter bConnected, a free Android app for students to use on their mobile phones, tablets and most recently, Google TV.  We’ve got all screens covered!  

bConnected provides students real-time access to course schedules, student organizations, campus housing and upcoming events, with more features planned for release soon.  More than a simple self-service app, bConnected helps students connect with everyone around them, including classmates, instructors, organization members, neighbors and advisors.  Using our core data and integrated systems, we are able to create, and push to the forefront, relationships between the people they interact with every day - relationships they may not have known existed.  

For instance, students sitting next to each other in BIO 100 might also be members of the same sport club. Or they both might live on the same floor in the residence hall.  And that great professor for English Lit also teaches creative writing next semester and serves as a faculty advisor.  

Google TV provides the perfect platform to showcase the social networking aspects of bConnected. To deliver this experience to students, Ball State just installed a stunning 46-inch Google TV in our brand new Tech Center, part of unified technology support.  The display allows students to gather around and interact with the app as it was intended – with their peers making connections. 
With help from our students, faculty and staff, we hope to find more inventive, inspiring and imaginative ways to incorporate Google TV in the classroom and other public spaces, enriching the campus experience and community.  

In the spirit of the Android platform and because universities like free stuff too, bConnected is available through the Google Code project hosting site as an open source project. Everything to build the project is included - the code base, sample database schemas, XML layouts, and an overview of the various bits and pieces.  We encourage other universities to explore the app and use it to jump start their own development efforts for Google TV.  To discuss how to get the ball rolling, contact us at bconnected@bsu.edu.

bConnected for Google TV is available in the Android Market, and for those not enrolled at Ball State, we’ve set up a demo account to check it out.  To access bConnected, just log in with bconnected as your username and demo for the password.

Kyle Parker, Senior Software Engineer, Ball State University

Droplets for Google TV – Time to Relax

Guest post from Ximad

(A series highlighting the most interesting new apps available for Google TV)

We at XIMAD are incredibly excited about the potential of Google TV. We have extensive experience developing beautiful and useful applications for iOS, Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Phone and other platforms, but we think that Android and Google TV have the greatest potential.  With the recent addition of Android Market to Google TV, we can now develop one game that will work across all three screens.

Our Droplets app is already used by tens of thousands of Android phone users and we are really excited to get it onto TVs.  The game will allow you to challenge your mind and wake your spirit even if you are in the heart of the city.  Gather all the dew in one drop and relax to the sounds of a torrential forest.

You will be amazed by the graphics and the high definition; the objects on the screen come alive as you gathers droplets, while a ladybird seems to escape the screen when the level is accomplished.

With over 100 levels at increasing complexity, you will find hours of entertainment here. For those who tried their best but failed we implemented a series of hints.

Our company is dedicated to developing the very best Android apps. You can find Droplets, as long with all our other apps, in Android Market.  Droplets is XIMAD’s first project on Google TV, so we are very interested in your opinion, feel free to comment below.

The Droplets app costs 99¢ and can be found here in Android Market

Alex Pridorozhny, XIMAD Marketing Manager

YouTube and Photos Updates for Your Google TV

Google TV updates:

YouTube and Photos apps

A few weeks ago we announced a software update for Google TV, along with a commitment to deliver the best way for you to engage with more high-quality entertainment on your television. We said that we’d improve your Google TV on an ongoing basis, and today we’re introducing new experiences for your YouTube and Photos apps.  These are just two of many updates to come from Google and from lots of app developers.

YouTube

The new Google TV YouTube experience introduces playlists to your living room. You can now easily watch your YouTube subscriptions on your HDTV and quickly access your other playlists like Watch Later and Favorites. If you have your own channel, you can now add videos to it from your Google TV. So whether you’re a newshound wanting a constant stream of world events or you’re a curator in search of an even more endless summer of content, you can sit back on your comfy couch and enjoy YouTube’s thousands of options in the High Definition brilliance of your Google TV.

Photos

Your Google TV Photos app already syncs with your online photo albums uploaded to Picasa & Flickr, and now we’ve added a great new feature called Discover to your Google TV Photos app.  Discover creates an animated and constantly changing collage using photos from the albums you have uploaded online and synced with your Google TV. When you click on one of the photos in Discover, you go straight to the album where you can start a slideshow or simply view other photos in the album. With Discover you now have an even more fun way to rediscover your favorite memories caught on camera. 

These are just a few of the many updates coming in the future, so stay tuned and enjoy your Google TV.  

Posted by:

Wiktor Gworek, Software Engineer & Bartosz Leper, Software Engineer

Google Music is Here

Google Music just arrived to Google TV

Yesterday, Google Music announced that their service is opening up to a broader audience and that it will integrate with the music store on Android Market to make music discovery, purchase, and sharing easy and fast.

Today, we’re excited to launch the Google Music App for Google TV. 

The app syncs with your Google Music account in the cloud, so there is no need to stream from a computer or download songs to the TV. Simply download the Google Music app for Google TV from Android Market, login with your account, and enjoy your entire music library through your HDTV and home theater system.  

Google Music for Google TV plays in the background while you enjoy other apps on your Google TV.  You can add a custom soundtrack to slideshows from the Photos app, you can enjoy your favorite tunes while surfing the web, or you can just add some mood music while you peruse the latest news headlines, all from the comfort of your couch.

To get you started on Music, visit music.google.com on your computer, sign-up for the free service, upload your music to the cloud or buy music on the Android Market. Once finished, you can play all of your tracks on Google TV the same way as you can do on your computer, phone or tablet.

We’ll continue to improve your Google TV by bringing more entertainment all the time, so be on the lookout for future updates to the Google Music app along with other great apps coming to Google TV.

Posted by Jurek Foryciarz, Product Manager, Google TV

Watch only the best sports with Thuuz for Google TV

Guest post from Thuuz

(A series highlighting the most interesting new apps available for Google TV)

The thrill of watching sports comes from experiencing the suspense and drama as it unfolds.  At Thuuz, our mission has been to let sports fans know about great games they may be missing – and to get them into the game as often as possible. With its combination of live TV and online access, Google TV is kind of our Holy Grail. It gives us a platform to alert sports fans to great games, and provides more options than any other platform for actually watching those games.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1. Thuuz (as in “enthusiast”) monitors all the matches involving your favorite sports, leagues and teams. We process play-by-play feeds and other automated sources to generate an excitement rating between 0-100 for each game.  Factors include parity, pace, novelty, momentum and context.

Step 2. We alert you to the truly exciting performances with on-screen notifications.

Step 3. You can click to jump to the appropriate TV channel or streaming source for both live games and replays.

That’s it. It’s designed to be simple.

We’ve got a Google TV box hooked up to a wall-mounted TV at the office, so we can QA our excitement ratings from the couch.  It’s great for streaming ESPN3 games on the big screen instead of a laptop.  We also catch the best European soccer and rugby matches from the night before using FoxSoccer.tv.   

We currently cover MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA, NCAA football and basketball, MLS and 5 European soccer leagues, cricket and rugby.  There’s still plenty of work ahead to add more sports, features and content, plus individual athlete excitement alerts for your favorite players.  We’ll also be building out the personal preferences, as we’ve learned that each fan has his/her own take on what makes a game exciting.

The Thuuz app can be found here in Android Market.

Bill Bradford, COO & Co-founder, Thuuz