Low end too
"this is aimed at hig end tellys"
The Samsung Internet@TV platform is not just for the high end tellys, it is also available on the lower end Blu-ray players. The Samsung BD-C5500 is available now on Amazon and Dixons for £89 which puts it in the price category of being cheaper than a iPod Touch, a decent Android device, a Wii, XBox, PS3 etc. (the BD-C5500 has an ethernet port for internet connectivity to your router, it is possible to add a USB wifi dongle too but that is a separate purchase, more expensive models have wifi built in)
"robots racing rather sedately though mazes."
Heh, heh. It was my company, Abstract Worlds Ltd., which developed the Maze Racing Robots game, and I promise that for the next version work will be done on optimisations to make it faster (if possible) - "first make it work then make it faster". It is actually surprisingly fast when run in a normal desktop browser, FF3, Chrome, but even IE 6 and 7, (it is a Javascript/HTML4/CSS app), which might suggest that there isn't much more optimising possible.
The Samsung EU contest has 3 separate target market contests: UK, Germany, France. The contest is open to the whole EU, and out of the 19 submissions to the UK contest, only 7 were from UK-based developers! So my company is one of the few companies representing the UK in this European challenge, even for the UK contest. It's a bit like Eurovision, but for apps not songs! (The public vote is only one small part of the contest, the main parts of the contest are judged by a judging panel.)
The development platform for Internet@TV apps is either Javascript/HTML4/CSS or Flash Lite.
I must say that for now, the killer app for these devices for me is the Youtube app, which comes as standard with the device. And having this does remove the need for a lot of the other video based apps. But saying that, having the Safari browser on the iPhone removes the need for many iPhone apps too, a favourite saying of mine is "I have an app for that, it is called the browser".
As for non-video apps, like simple games, I do hope there is also a market for the casual game, the fun family or friends together casual game, or simple interactive games for children.