Intel Announces TV Processor, Partnership with Yahoo!

At today’s keynote, Eric Kim and others discussed how the television has always been a static part of our lives. People love watching TV, and that hasn’t changed, even with the advent of the Internet. Up to this point, the TV hasn’t become a truly Internet-capable device, or at least has not been executed well. Intel revealed a brand-new processor exclusively for the TV, called CE 3100.

The 150 million transistor processor is designed to be low-power (>10W), while enabling features such as high-definition video support, 3D graphics support, all while offering high-performance. Being that the CPU is based on Intel’s IA, development should be a relative breeze, allowing great TV-specific tools and applications to be written.

Along with this, Yahoo! was there to showcase their exclusive widgets feature, which will improve the Internet/TV experience by a wide margin. I’m normally not one to be impressed by any sort of widget, but the way these are implemented are sure to improve the overall experience. Their demos showcased a bar running along the bottom with various widgets that could be selected and opened to the side. Such examples were checking your favorite stocks, looking for a movie to rent, weather information, and even shopping. The overall idea isn’t that impressive, but the implementation is.

With Intel’s chip now shipping, we should be seeing this functionality in our TV’s Q1 2009, especially from Toshiba and Samsung. I’m not even a TV buff, but I can imagine having a lot of fun with this.