Vizio, the US LCD TV company are working with Google to promote TV apps for its televisions as it embraces Android’s technology after what appears to be an ending of using Yahoo connected technology.

Vizio is also announcing plans to break away from TV’s and launch a smartphone & tablet devices at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas later this week.

The Californian company has been a disruptive influence in the US TV market. It began by making low cost TVs through its relationships with Asian component suppliers and has grown to challenge major players Samsung and Sony in both sales and feature on their hardware

It has also expanded into the Bluray player and soundbar markets, but the move into its own designed phones and tablets, a 4 inch screen smartphone and 8 inch tablet are expected to be sold in stores such as Walmart later this year.

Their introduction are all part of its Via Plus strategy for 2011, where its internet connected TV’s will run similar apps and will be able to share media with and be controlled by the mobile devices.

Via or Vizio Internet Apps have featured Yahoo TV widgets up until now, but, in a blow to the Silicon Valley internet company, it is believed these will be phased out during 2011 in favour of Google’s Android platform.

“One of the things Yahoo was not very successful at was getting 1,000s of developers to write 100s of thousands of apps on the widget platform. Google has already demonstrated they can do that and do that very well,” Vizio chief technology officer, Matthew McRae said.

Unlike Sony with its models, Vizio is not adopting Google TV wholesale it will base its TVs on the Google Android OS, but has designed its own interface to run on top.

“We think Google TV is a very powerful platform underneath, but there were some shortcomings around the user interface,” said Mr McRae, and he continued “We’re designing a consistent interface for from 4 inches on a smartphone screen to 65 inches plus on a television.”

But Vizio is particularly excited at the possibility of Google’s developer community working on apps that can link all of its devices and exploit features such as 3D on its televisions.

“One of the areas we’ve been working on a little with Google is 3D apps it becomes possible because of the standards we are moving to. They could be 3D games they could be media consumption, they could be 3D in the user interface itself,” said Mr McRae.

Although Google have had plenty of teething problems, the fact that the Android OS runs on some many devices including mobiles and tablets makes it a better commercial choice for Vizio.

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