Google will launch its new service to bring the Web to TV screens in the United States this autumn and worldwide next year, its chief executive said.

Eric Schmidt said the service, which would allow full Internet browsing via the television, would be free and that Google would work with a variety of programme makers and electronics manufacturers to bring it to consumers.
   
"We will work with content providers but it is very unlikely that we will get into actual content production," Schmidt told journalists after a keynote speech to the IFA consumer electronics trade fair in Berlin.

The announcement came less than a week after rival Apple  unveiled its latest Apple TV product, and heats up a battle for consumers' attention and potentially the $180 billion global TV advertising market.

Schmidt also said Google would announce partnerships later this year with makers of tablet computers that would use Google's new Chrome operating system, due to be launched soon, rather than its Android phone software that has been used for mobile devices until now.   

Google plans to make its Chrome browser, which competes with Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox, the centre of an operating system that would offer an alternative to Microsoft Windows. - Reuters