Attack Of The Grey Buttons: Sony's Google TV remote spotted.. on TV

If you thought that Google TV would make watching the internet on your television as simple as clicking a button, you were half-right. It does involve a button. Actually, 81 of them

Sony's Google TV remote, as seen on ABC TV in the US. Screen capture by Engadget.

Oh, that? Sony's remote control for Google TV. Handy, isn't it?

Pardon? Yes, now that you point it out, it's true to say that all that's missing is the aerial sticking out of the top, and it really would look like a remote control. For a jumbo jet.

Well, don't say that you weren't warned. Google TV was shown off withhuge amounts of razzmatazz but worryingly little detail about how you'd actually operate it.

At the time we noted that

Google's approach does have potential. It has the backing of Sony, which will use Google's software in a new line of TV sets that will appear before Christmas, and users who don't want to buy a new TV will be able to get a Logitech set-top box instead. Also, it will have a head start in apps because it will run Android apps from Google's store and third-party marketplaces.

The problem with trying to do the internet from your television has always been the same one: TV sets have extremely low interaction needs. You have channels and you have sound. And a power button. OK, and often an input selection. If you start adjusting the colour balance and contrast, you are unusual, and you'll do it on average once in the lifetime of the set.

Computers, and the internet, require a lot of interaction. URLs don't type themselves. Many sites, including YouTube, will ask for a username and password, and those are a real pain to enter on any sort of non-QWERTY device. And how do you control a mouse on a screen that's ten feet away?

This seems to be Sony's answer. We count 81 buttons, not including the circular ones at the top and the central buttons. That is a hell of a lot of buttons. Ergonomics? No, next door down.

The URLs and interaction problem is why the documentation for Google TV admitted coyly that "all input devices for Google TV will have QWERTY keyboards" - as we pointed out last month - but also that that "users needs interactions that are fast and easy to do – at a distance, with one hand, in the dark."

Engadget managed to grab this telling picture of the Sony effort when Google TV was featured on ABC's Nightline. Though Engadget is excited about it: "everything you'd need to rock the web and video all at once", it enthuses.

Hmm, well, perhaps. By contrast, let's take a look at the the Sky+ remote, as it does everything - channels, volume, plus control of the hard drive recorder, and so must be the most complicated you can get:

Sky+ remote

Hmm, 36 buttons plus two rockers. There's the facility to do text entry (via SMS-style keys). More than that, it's got some real human factors design in it: it's a remote designed to be held and brandished at the TV.

Conclusion? This must be a first iteration. Things must surely get better. And also: has Sony completely lost it?