Welcome to a special CES edition of Lowpass with news about Google TV, Plex and more. Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here now.

Google doubles down on far-field microphones in the living room

Google is doubling down on voice control for TV: At CES, the company is announcing what it calls a “Gemini Enhanced Google Assistant” – basically a souped-up version of ambient computing that goes beyond simple voice commands and allows for more conversational interactions. Gemini is supposed to help with smart home control, road trip planning, and tap into Google Photos to revisit a past family trip, among other things.

60 percent of Google TV owners are already using voice commands and queries, according to Google TV VP and GM Shalini Govil-Pai, who acknowledged in a conversation ahead of CES that Google Assistant interactions were somewhat limited.

Bringing Gemini to the TV, and shipping more TVs and streaming devices with built-in far-field microphones, is supposed to change that. “You can actually have natural conversations, whether the TV is on or off,” Govil-Pai said. “It is going to be 100x better than what it is today.”

Read the full story on Lowpass.cc.

Plex will test its new TV app on Apple TVs soon

Plex is getting ready to revamp all of its TV apps this year, and Apple TV users will get to try the new app experience first: The company will launch a preview version of its new TV app on tvOS in the coming weeks, I was told by Plex Chief Product Officer Scott Olechoswki. “Based on how that goes, we'll see how quickly we can start launching the TV clients” across most major smart TV platforms, he added.

Plex’s revamp of its TV app is part of a bigger move towards a different developer framework. “It is a whole new code base from the ground up,” Olechoswki said. “This is all React Native-based.”

The switch to React Native will allow the company to effectively run the same code across mobile and TV, and quickly change things across all supported platforms. “It allows us to move faster,” he said. “The quality is going to be higher. If you fix a bug, it should be fixed everywhere.”

Read the full story on Lowpass.cc.

What else, Fubo edition

The biggest tech & entertainment story this week didn’t happen at CES. Fubo and Disney shocked the industry with a deal Monday that allows Disney and its JV partners to finally launch the embattled sports streaming service Venu. (For a first look at Venu, check my prior reporting.)

Fubo, which had prevented Venu’s launch up until now with an antitrust lawsuit, got thrown a supersized bone in return for standing down: The service gets $220 million in cash from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery.

Fubo will also receive a further $145 million loan from Disney next year, and the two companies are joining forces on the pay TV front: Disney is spinning out Hulu’s live TV service and combining it with Fubo’s business in a new joint venture, which will be led by Fubo’s CEO David Gandler.

Variety’s Todd Spangler has all the details, and Yahoo Finance’s Alexandra Canal reported that Fubo leadership believes that the joint company will be "‘become immediately cash flow positive,’ with over 6.2 million subscribers in North America and over $6 billion in revenue.”

My take: This may look like a sweet deal for Fubo, but the real winner is Disney. The company is finally getting Venu off the ground, showing that it ultimately values sports streaming more than traditional pay TV bundles. And by spinning out Hulu’s pay TV business into a separate entity, it gets to shield itself from its inevitable decline.

That’s it

Happy new year everyone! And have a great CES if you celebrate. After traveling a bit too much in 2024, I decided to cover the show from afar this year — but that didn’t stop me from putting together a special CES edition of this newsletter.

Consider it a trial balloon of sorts, if you will. For the most part, Lowpass will remain a once-weekly newsletter. However, every now and then, I may squeeze in one of these special editions to bring you the news that matter in a more timely fashion. Let me know what you think!

Thanks for reading, see you on Thursday!

Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash