Google creates website templates for Google TV

The Google TV team published a couple of new design templates, as well as a still-in-beta Web UI library that Web designers can use to optimize their sites for Google TV.

Blockage of such "less-than-ideal" sites could actually have been what caused Google TV to have such a disappointing launch in the first place.

Within the first month of the service's availability on the Logitech Revue set top box, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and Viacom all made their websites unavailable to Google TV. The idea was that this would limit users' access to only the sites that the content providers designed specifically for Google TV.

If you're a Web designer, you now have some easy tools to rebuild your video site with a pre-made "10-foot UI" for Google TV. All of the templates are open sourced under the Apache 2 license, and they support sites that utilize HTML5, JavaScript, CSS and Flash.

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Opera offers content development kit for connected TV apps

The floodgates may be opening for app development on the connected TV. After Samsung announced that it was undertaking a more open applications development approach, Opera Software has now announced a content development kit (CDK). A key benefit to the CDK, Opera notes, is that it will allow Web developers create apps without having direct access to the device itself. Web developers will be able to create apps in HTML5 and HbbTV environments on a PC.