The latest in TV Technology - October 2014

Time flies when you’re having fun and while it seems like only yesterday that Google presented Android TV, it just announced that it will be launching its Nexus Player set-top box next month, giving consumers their first opportunity to use Android TV, before it arrives in force next year in various Smart TV brands.

Chromecast – Google’s other approach to TV – has been getting a lot more competition recently. First Microsoft released not one but two mobile-to-TV screen mirroring devices, one from inside Microsoft itself and one from the acquired Nokia part of the business. While these are actually very different from Chromecast in their functionality, another initiative is much closer. Matchstick started a Kickstarter project recently for an open source Chromecast clone, which reached its funding goal very easily and is aiming for a february 2015 release.

Roku announced that it has sold more than 10 million Roku devices in the US and meanwhile is trying to broaden its adoption by also marketing itself as a platform for third party set-top boxes through its Roku Powered program. Apple doesn’t appear set for any big Apple TV surprises this year and instead settled for a modest Apple TV UI update.

Sony has been working hard on its PlayStation Now game streaming service, expanding the beta to PlayStation 3 and its PlayStation TV micro console, which was just released in the US. Meanwhile Microsoft’s Xbox One is now available in China. At Microsoft they’re working on pretty cool things, like the RoomAlive concept. Philips showed off something in the same range with Afterglow, which is best described as Ambilight on steroids.

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