LG and Samsung ready for Google TV launch

TV manufacturers LG and Samsung will join Sony in deploying Google TV services this year.

In a blog posting, Google said LG would showcase a line of TVs powered by Google’s TV platform at the CES trade show in Las Vegas next week. The TVs will run on LG’s own L9 chipset. The company said Samsung would also bring Google TV powered devices to market this year. It has also signed new deals with chipset vendors Marvell and Media Tek.

Google has had limited success with its TV play to-date, with only Sony currently delivering a Google TV-enable TV set. The new announcement goes some way to validating Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s claims last month that the majority of TVs on sale in summer 2012 would be embedded with Google TV.

Google also announced that since it released a Google TV update last October, activation rates have more than double and the platform now offers over 150 apps.