New Google TV sets facing delays: reports

Google has asked several television makers to delay their launch of sets featuring Google TV, which merges online content with traditional TV programming, newspapers reported on Monday.

The New York Times said Toshiba, LG Electronics and Sharp had been planning to unveil TV sets equipped with Google TV at next month's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

But the newspaper said Google has asked the manufacturers to delay the launch while it refines the software for Google TV, which has received some lukewarm reviews and run into difficulties obtaining programming.

"We will not be announcing a Toshiba TV or Blu-ray player or demonstrating the products at CES," Jeff Barney, vice president of Toshiba's digital products division, told the Times.

"We have an understanding with Google about the future product roadmap and will bring the right product out at the right timeframe," Barney said.

The Wall Street Journal said South Korea's Samsung intends to go ahead and showcase Google TV products at CES.

The Mountain View, California-based Google unveiled Google TV in May at a software developers conference in San Francisco.

Developed in partnership with Sony, Logitech and Intel, Google TV allows users to mesh television viewing with surfing the Web.

Sony unveiled a line of Internet-enabled television sets in October featuring Google TV and Logitech began selling set-top boxes that route Web content to existing TV sets.

Amazon, the NBA, Netflix, The New York Times, Time Warner, USA Today and others are among the companies providing content and applications for Google TV.

But US television networks NBC, CBS and ABC and the Hulu entertainment website have blocked people from watching full-length shows on their websites using Google TV.

Google is one of a number of technology companies attempting to marry the TV set and the Internet. A number of electronics manufacturers offer Web-enabled televisions or digital set-top boxes.