The Verge is reporting that Google is about to launch another expedition into the lounge room with Android TV, a new custom interface for its popular mobile operating system designed for use on television.

The company is calling for developers to build extremely simple TV apps for an extremely simple set-top-box interface. While Android still lives under the hood, the interface will consist of a set of scrolling "cards" that represent movies, shows, apps, and games sitting on a shelf. You use a remote control with a four-way directional pad to scroll left and right through different suggestions, or up and down through different categories of content, each with their own shelves. Much like on other set top boxes, each item will be like a miniature movie poster or book cover, and you’ll pick the one you want. The controller will also have Enter, Home, and Back buttons to help get around, and there will be "optional" game controllers.

Android TV will also support voice input and notifications — though Google is encouraging developers to only use notifications in very limited cases. In total, Android TV is remarkably similar to Amazon's just-released, Android-based Fire TV.

The Verge's report also mentions that it will support optional game controllers, and one of the leaked menu screenshots feature games such as Plants vs Zombies 2, Asphalt 8, TripleTown and Temple Run.

What's not so clear in the report is how Android TV is expected to launch. Although it would seemingly make the most sense as an alternate UI option for Android device manufacturers to use, and a wider new standard for Android developers to target, an earlier report also from The Verge suggests that Google might be building hardware for it itself in the form of a Nexus TV set-top-box. Perhaps it's both; we'll have to wait and see.