- Courtesy of CNN

Saying it will “change the future of television,” Google on Thursday rolled out Google TV — the internet giant’s venture into web-TV integration.

The application, run by Google’s Android operating system, lets users search for content from their television, DVR and the web.

“Here we are folks — the multimillion-channel TV,” said Google project director Rishi Chandra during a two-hour keynote on Google’s Android operating system at the company’s annual I/O conference in San Francisco, California.

Even as sites like Google-owned YouTube have emerged as viable entertainment options, the move is a nod to a basic truth of leisure time: The estimated 4 billion television users worldwide is still a much bigger customer base than those using the internet.

“There’s still not a better medium to reach a wider and broader audience than television,” Chandra said.

The platform will let users search for content, from the name of a TV show to the name of a network, in much the same way a Google search works. They’ll get results from TV and the web and be able to watch either on their TV screen.

It also will have voice recognition, letting users speak the name of a show or other content and have it pop up on their screens.

“Videos should be consumed on the biggest, best, brightest screen in your house,” Chandra said. “That’s your TV.”

Devices for Google TV will be sold at Best Buy and on the market this fall, in time for the lucrative holiday shopping season. No prices were announced on Thursday.

The system will allow Android smartphone applications to be displayed on television screens and such integration as being able to watch a show on TV and a Twitter stream of people talking about that show at the same time.

A Google TV home screen will let users organize their content, like shows they’ve recorded on their DVR, and integration will let users view photos from such sites as Flickr and Picasa on their TV screens.

In addition to Best Buy, other partners include Sony, which will launch a line of TVs that optimize the Google service, Intel, Logitech and DISH Network — which also will offer features specifically for Google TV.

Developing for the system will be open, a fact that let Google’s top brass take several shots at Apple’s iPad and iPhone. They pointedly noted that Adobe’s Flash media player will be integrated into the system’s Web browser.

Adobe and Apple have been feuding publicly, and loudly, over Apple’s refusal to run Flash on its products.

“We’re thrilled to be part of the Google TV initiative with other industry leaders who share a common vision of enabling access to the best web experiences possible,” said Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, who attended the event.

Google isn’t the first company to meld web and TV content.

In March, TiVo rolled out TiVo Premiere, which lets subscribers pull internet content, music and movies onto their televisions more easily.

The Boxee Box, a cubelike device that shares internet content with your TV, was awarded the title of “Last Gadget Standing” at January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

And California-based company Roku also offers a digital video player that integrates television, Web content and a video library. It retails for about $100.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/20/google.tv/index.html?hpt=T2

The last few weeks was filled with baby group gatherings and friends visiting Amaya.  She adores the attention and is quite active with all of her visitors.  Nisha also started work again so that was a huge drastic shift in parenthood but we settled in after a few days.  Both sets of grandparents have provided amazing support.
    

She’s sleeping thru the night for about 7 hours straight.   Woohoo!  We feel it’s primarily due to this new blanket we bought called the Miracle Blanket.  We were skeptical at first but this thing is pretty amazing.  So far it works and Amaya sleep quite peacefully….and so do her parents.  Amaya is making all kinds of sounds and usually her and I will pretend to have our own conversation in our unique dialect.  At points, it goes on for minutes.  I could only imagine what is going thru her head.

    
Rolling over is going to be Amaya’s next big achievement.  While on her playmat, she tries really, really hard but is caught up with her own arm.  Now she’s spinning on the floor like a breakdancer since that arm stops the actual roll over process.  But any day now she will make the full turn.  She personally gets so frustrated at not being able to do when she gets so, so, sooo close.  We give her that extra nudge once in awhile to boost her confidence.

   
She is smiling on que.  She is recognizing our voices when we enter a room.  Her personality is getting bigger and bigger.  I must agree that they grow too fast.  Here are a few recent pictures but there is an entire collection on the Amaya page in the Month Two album.
    

Three Musketeers

The Baby Group: Amaya, Sanaya, Ishaan, Sajan

Being goofy on the playmat.

Ready for the SuperBowl

Two Month Birthday

Another play group: Sofia, Naveen & Amaya

The superstar.

Look, no hands!

Amaya & Ishaan

Ishaan & Amaya

Amaya & Sajan

A quick update on what has been going on.  I’ve added a few features to the blog.  The most important is you can now subscribe to the blog so you get emailed when updates to indeed take place.  It will come right ot your inbox.  It’s listed as Email Alerts in the sidebar.  I’ve also connected the blog with my Facebook so everything gets updated smoothly at one time.  Also, the Amaya page is dedicated to albums that gets updated frequently.  Be sure to note there are more than 21 images per album and there are multiple pages.  The plan is to have more regular posts.  Some Amaya related and the rest interesting items I find amusing.

Holiday time was just full of spending time with family.  Lots of chilling around, eating, laughing and Amaya was showered with presents of course.   Since there was no shortage of people reaching to hold her, she loved the attention.  Here are some pics during xmas time:

Great Grandmother

Xmas tree pose

Falling asleep in daddy's arms

Hari dada & Beena dadi

 
A few of Amaya’s cha cha’s (uncles) flew into meet her for the first time. Parag cha cha flew in from Switzerland and Sundeep cha cha came down from San Francisco to spend quality time with the family. Again, Amaya loved the attention was so happy to meet her cha cha’s. She had them wrapped her finger already and is anticipating that full ride scholarship to USC they promised.

Parag Cha Cha attempting to convert Amaya to a Bruin. She wasn't having it.

Sundeep Cha Cha pushing Amaya to get SAG credited asap.

 
Amaya had  many out of state visitors including aunts and uncles from Oklahoma.  Some even drove all the way from Oklahoma to see her for one night.  What an amazing gesture and feeling!  So lucky to have family like that.

Navnit dada

Sumi dadi

Tulsa representin'

Priya Masi - they're almost the same height!

Cultural beliefs didn’t allow us to take Amaya out of the household until 40 days after her birth.  So after xmas we performed a few religious ceremonies and then hit the town.  We actually got to take Amaya out in the stroller and attempted our first meal at a restaurant.   It went really well and Amaya loves to be outdoors which is great since Dodgers season is right around the corner!  She also got to meet her friend that was born a few weeks before and discussed girl band names.

Bhakta Temple - Day 40

Getting more blessings

Try this hat on for size

First stroller ride at the mall.

Outdoor feeding.

Amaya, meet Sanaya. Sanaya, meet Amaya.

We also had some real funny moments in the last few weeks.  One was what our friend likes to reference as a “terrorist poop”.  It’s exactly what is sounds like and I have the pics to disgust you with.  We were driving home from dinner and Amaya was in the car seat being odd.  She recently started talking up a storm now with various sounds so she was going on and on.  Little did we know it was a distraction for what we were to find when we got home.  Here’s what we had to deal with when we got home…

UH OH.

Terrorist Poop. Nisha what did you feed this girl?

Once in awhile Amaya will get you with a terrorist poop but everyday she delivers that gorgeous smile.  It’s priceless.  I love my baby girl.

Priceless