Logitech Updates the Revue (Sort Of)
Logitech is finally rolling out a firmware update to its recently iced Revue set-top box, hoping to make the product more appealing to new customers in the holiday season as the company looks to clear out inventory from a "mistake" that the company's CEO said cost the company tens of millions of dollars.
Yet the firmware update lacks several key video features that cause concern among users, and may hold the key to understanding that the Logitech Revue failed not because of Google TV itself but because Logitech failed to implement the full Google TV feature set.
The firmware update adds limited "Google TV 2.0" functionality, a series of enhancement based around Android 3.1 (Honeycomb) that Google announced in late October. At the time of the Google TV 2.0 announcement, Ashish Arora, vice president and general manager of Logitech's Digital Home Group, stated that one of the key features would be enhancements to the integrated media player.
"We are excited to announce that the free automatic update for Logitech Revue with Google TV is coming soon," wrote Arora in an October 28 blog posting . "Some key developments will include access to the Android Market, faster and more comprehensive search capabilities, a simplified user interface, and improvements to the Logitech Media Player."