Schmidt says Google TV heading to Europe

Google TV will be launched in Europe early next year, despite its rocky start in the U.S., company Chairman Eric Schmidt told an audience in Edinburgh, Scotland, last night.

Delivering the keynote MacTaggart Lecture at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival, one of Britain’s premier television industry events, Schmidt sought to reassure broadcasters, according to a Reuters report on the speech.

“We seek to support the content industry by providing an open platform for the next generation of TV to evolve, the same way Android is an open platform for the next generation of mobile,” Schmidt said. “We expect Google TV to launch in Europe early next year, and of course the U.K. will be among the top priorities.”

Google TV is a software platform that interacts with a user’s TV set, along with his or her Internet, cable, and/or satellite hookup to bring a combined TV-Web-app experience to conventional televisions. Those with Google TV can, for instance, use their smartphone as a remote control, search the Internet on their TVs while watching a show, and create a home page on their sets that looks much like an iPhone-style smartphone’s home screen but includes launch icons for apps and TV channels both…Read more [via cnet]