We haven’t heard much of Google TV in quite a while. But that doesn’t mean the search giant has put an end to it, in fact, Google might just rename it to Android TV. According to a Gigaom report, Google TV is dead but the rebranded Android TV is available to manufacturers.

What we’re getting from this is that Android TV is essentially the same thing as Google TV, but just with a different name attached. This move doesn’t come as a big surprise since the Android brand is well known in the consumer hardware space. It is also possible Google will change the User Interface to look a lot more like Android. Not to mention, Google TV’s UI in its current form is quite the ugly duckling that needs an instant makeover.

Not only does Google TV or Android TV requires a UI makeover; it also needs to be simpler to operate. If you look at the first set of Google TV devices and the recent ones, they all seem to have remote controls with a million buttons. This is not the right way to go about attempting to dominate the living room because folks require things to be easier.

Microsoft, on the other hand, has the right idea with the Xbox One and Kinect. There’s no need to fiddle with a controller with more buttons than you can count. With the Xbox One, gestures and voice commands are the easiest of ways to navigate the TV and media aspects of the console. Google and its partners will need to follow suit with something similar, or watch consumers gobble Microsoft’s new console faster than you can say Hakuna Matata.

[via Gigacom, image via Google TV]