Smart TVs get ready for prime time

The roll-out of cloud services allied to faster internet speeds now offers televisions the chance to usurp the PC's place, and offers users furthermore freedom from the confines of broadcasters' schedules.

Users are offered thousands of apps allowing them to use social networks, play video games, run educational software and follow exercise routines. Nevertheless smart TV makers recognise that people on the whole want a sit-back to put it more exactly than lean-forward experience most of the time.

Furthermore they acknowledge that increasing numbers of homes own other connected devices. So users may however find it preferable to tweet about a show via their tablet or smartphone to put it more exactly than shrink the TV picture to pull up an app alongside.

The best example is that you are watching live sport

"Probably the best example is that you are watching live sport and a family member phones on Skype and you want to take the call nevertheless you on the whole want to be watching the football," says Andrew Denham, Panasonic UK's marketing director.

At the show, LG and Vizio unveiled new sets with the search firm's Android-based software built in. Sony as well added the facility to two devices - a set-top box and a Blu-ray player.

The first version of Google TV launched in October 2010 to much fanfare, nevertheless proved a flop - enabled devices were criticised for being too expensive, and several TV networks blocked the US-only service from accessing their web content.

The web to come to TV than it

"I think it is more difficult for the web to come to TV than it was to smartphones for instance," says Mario Queiroz, vice president of product management for Google TV.

"Nevertheless what is happening is with the silicon and hardware technologies that we're seeing, the bandwidth coming into people's homes and with the advanced operating system in other words Android, this is becoming a opportunity.

Further evidence of Tivo's efforts to exploit, to put it more exactly than be undermined by, Google came with its sole CES announcement - a remote control and content-finding app for Android devices.

However, in spite of all the technology on show, many analysts appeared preoccupied by the one company without a booth - Apple.

The firm's strength in the online music industry

The firm's strength in the online music industry, its Siri natural speech recognition facility and a hint of having "cracked it" in the recent Steve Jobs biography, have all combined to create an as but unjustified sense that the iPhone giant is about to disrupt the television market.