The Google TV platform was welcomed by a chorus of chirping crickets and not much else when it launched in 2010. The lackluster launch hardware and limited software capabilities made Google's Internet-enabled set-top solution a no-go in the living room. Despite the rough start, Google has continued to push the platform forward.

Some details have materialized about a very early version of the next-generation Google TV software platform, which was reportedly shipped out to a select group of developers on a reference hardware prototype, codenamed Fishtank. Some hardware photos and software screenshots were published by gadget blog geek.com. The software interface has the same "holographic" look and feel as Honeycomb tablets.

As Google promised last month at the Google I/O developer conference, the new version of the Google TV software is built on Android 3.1. The search giant also said that the Android Market would be opened up to Google TV devices, allowing end users to install and run third-party software. There is already some evidence that this work is underway—the AndroidCentral blog reported this week that Google TV devices have started showing up in the device listings on the Android Market website, albeit without support for remote installation yet.

The potential to run third-party Android applications on Google TV opens up some new possibilities and could help make the set-top platform more compelling. Imagine, for example, being able to run Plex's Android client on a Google TV device. It would also open the door for turning the Google TV into a budget gaming console—pairing low-cost Android games with the newly added support for game controller input devices in Android 3.1.