Intel and Yahoo now sweethearts: first date is at bottom of your TV screen
By John Lister
Intel and Yahoo are teaming up for the latest attempt to bring the internet to television schemes. Their twist is to produce information displays which appear at the bottom or side of the screen so that viewers can still watch broadcasts.
It’s based around a new range of chips which Intel has designed specifically for use in internet-enabled TV sets. The two firms launched their partnership by demonstrating ‘the Widget Channel’, a news channel-style info-bar at the bottom of the screen containing details such as stock updates and sports scores.
The idea is that such displays will be interactive, for example allowing viewers to buy and sell stocks. The firms hope independent developers will produce hundreds of ‘widgets’ using the technology.
The ArsTechnica website is speculating the scheme may be somewhere between a promotional strategy and a testing ground for Intel’s adoption of the 32 nanometer microchip, currently the smallest in commercial use.
Of course, text information on a TV screen is nothing new and even predates the Web. Britain has a free ‘teletext’ service dating back to the 1970s where enabled televisions can receive constantly-updated text services broadcast during the gap between each frame of the video signal. The original version usually only allowed a full-screen display (except for closed captions), but today’s digital version only takes up part of the screen.
The difference between this and the Intel scheme is that Teletext has very limited interactivity. Most digital TV services in the UK (including cable and satellite) have experimented with some form of internet-style functionality, including e-mails, but they’ve failed to catch on.
How well the Intel-Yahoo scheme does depends on the classic technology question: do people actually want a device that combines two different functions, or are the manufacturers making it just because it’s technically possible? If the interactive functions don’t catch on, it’s going to be tough to get 21st century TV viewers excited about the possibilities of getting weather forecasts and news updates on their TV screens.
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