Japanese electronics conglomerate Matsushita Electric Industrial is working with Web giant Google to develop televisions that display Internet content such as photos and videos.

The TVs, to be launched in North America this spring, will allow users to directly browse and access videos through YouTube, a video-sharing Web site owned by Google, and view Picasa Web Albums, a free online photo-sharing service from Google, Matsushita unit Panasonic said in a statement on Monday.

The Japanese company said it has not set a date for the global launch.

"Panasonic's cooperation with YouTube and Google's Picasa Web Albums exemplifies our commitment to leading the natural evolution of the Internet and extending it to the High Definition television," Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company's Vice President Merwan Mereby said in the statement.

The contract with Google is not exclusive, spokesman Akira Kadota said.

The news sent the shares of Matsushita higher right after the market open, but they ended the morning session down 1.6 percent to 2,155 yen to underperform a 0.3 percent fall in the benchmark Nikkei average.

Late last year, Matsushita, the world's top plasma TV maker, said it would take control of a liquid crystal display joint venture and may build a new factory, marking a major shift in its strategy for the flat panel TV market.

Matsushita has until now invested aggressively in plasma displays in the belief that it was the most cost-effective technology for flat TVs bigger than 37-inches, while procuring LCD panels to make TVs for the smaller sets. - Reuters