Google links PC, living room devices

If you’ve already got hardware on your desktop and in your living room, Google wants to connect these two worlds with a simple – and free – piece of software, the Google Media Server.

With all the talk of over-the-top Internet services impacting cable/telco-delivered video programming, few consumers have actually purchased boxes – such as Apple TV or the recently announced NetFlix box – to bring the Web to the TV. And though adding over-the-top programming to set-top boxes is on the product roadmap of most telco/cablecos, actual commercial services are few and far between.

While some consumers will prefer to wait for their network provider to offer YouTube or Flikr to the TV, others that aren’t afraid to install software or configure home networks now have another option to bridge the Internet and TV.

Google’s play is to leverage its Google Desktop and Google Search products to enable users to send photos, videos and music files from their PC to any UPnP-enabled device, such as a PlayStation 3 or Xbox game console. Users need a home network to send files from device to device. That immediately – and at no cost – bridges the PC-to-set-top gap for millions of consumers.
Google isn’t first to market with such an application. Small players like Tversity and Orb have delivered applications that offer similar in-home file sharing and playback, and even Microsoft’s Windows Media Player can be configured to deliver similar capabilities.

Google Media Server was launched with little fanfare on the Google Desktop blog.