Panasonic has revamped its smart TV strategy for 2015 with what it calls "Beyond Smart" features, including a shift to Firefox OS.
The TV maker partnered with Mozilla to craft a custom user interface based on the Firefox operating system that will be available on its new "Life+Screen" smart TVs this Spring, Panasonic announced today during CES 2015.
These include the CX850 Series, CX800 Series, CX650 Series, and CX600 Series smart TVs.
Panasonic says the new UI is "is specifically designed to allow users to access preferred content, applications and content from connected devices quickly and easily." It lets you bookmark specific apps, web pages and paired devices for easy access and features "advanced voice command functions" on certain models (the CX850 Series).
Flexibility for devs and apps
The new smart TV OS also has increased connectivity features, letting users send photos, videos and other content to their TVs from any smartphone, tablet or computer with a Firefox browser or "other compatible application" (whatever that means) on the same wi-fi network.
Panasonic says Firefox OS also provides greater flexibility for developers to create new smart TV apps, and the system even lets TVs show on-screen notifications from apps and - at some point, at least - from connected appliances.
Finally Panasonic's new Life+Screen TVs feature Xumo Guide, which provides recommendations from multiple content sources based on users' viewing history and lets users search and browse for content across multiple apps and platforms.
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