Intel Claims to Have Cracked the Code on TV-Internet Union

SAN FRANCISCO -- Intel has created the technologies to finally weave the Internet into TV, it said Tuesday. To back the claim, the company put executives from Comcast, Sony, Disney and Yahoo on stage at the Intel Developer Forum.

Intel introduced a “widget dock” developed with Yahoo. It’s intended to create a simple, unobtrusive, visual Internet interface that doesn’t block the TV picture. Viewers can customize it and navigate it with a few clicks of familiar remote controls, said Patrick Barry, Yahoo vice president of connected TV. Developers quickly can create new interactive applications, he said.

The company also announced the Media Processor CE 3100, a system-on-a-chip to support high-quality video and audio, along with Web technologies such as Flash, Java, Ajax and successors. The chip is the first built by Intel specifically for optical media players, cable set-tops, digital TVs and other connected CE devices. It features more than 150 million transistors, 46 clock devices and “15 complex and unique pieces of IP,” said Eric Kim, senior vice president of Intel’s digital home group. The processor is powerful enough to fast-forward one of two video images using picture-in-picture without dropping frames or distorting the sound, he said. Multiple images can be angled for a 3-D effect.

Intel has been sampling the processor to potential customers for six months and is “a few weeks away” from delivering mass-market quantities, Kim said. The company confirmed Samsung Electronics and Toshiba as customers. The chip enables to CE makers to build devices that don’t need fans, he said. Tasuku Yazaki, general manager of the product planning department for Sony’s Vaio division, said, “Intel’s S-o-C is a great fit” for his company’s requirements of scale and flexibility. On video, executive Dong Ho Shin of Samsung Electronics said Intel’s work “will help us develop our next advanced multimedia CE products.” Intel has a complete development roadmap, starting next year with a second generation version geared to 45 nanometer technology, Kim said.

“We need the entire ecosystem to enable this,” Kim acknowledged. Intel and Yahoo have enlisted participation by CBS Interactive, Disney-ABC, eBay, NBC Universal owner GE, MTV, Samsung Electronics, Showtime, Toshiba, Twitter and other companies, Intel said.

The many previous attempts to bring the Internet to TV have failed because they substituted PC-style complexities for viewers’ strong emotional bonds to television, said Albert Cheng, executive vice president of digital media for the Disney-ABC Television Group. The new technologies respect and build on the couch-potato experience, he said. Disney’s presence was especially noteworthy because CEO Steve Jobs of Apple, whose Apple TV device also is intended to unite the electronic media, became Disney's largest shareholder when it bought Pixar.

The widget dock is a visual conveyor belt with clickable applications icons, including for e-commerce, and “snippets” of user-chosen information such as stock prices and weather. The viewer can move the dock right to left across the bottom of the TV screen to reveal more choices. More specific control options for a “sidebar” menu can be opened on the screen’s left side. To avoid blocking a broadcast ticker, the TV picture can be reduced.

There’s a deal with Blockbuster for sales and rentals of movies and other video, Barry said, without elaborating. The interface offers content controls, he said.

“We’re expecting to see hundreds, if not thousands, of these widgets be developed in the near future,” Barry said. Viewers can choose from offerings in a “widget gallery” which applications to add to their docks, he said. The technology is based on the fifth generation of Yahoo’s Widget Engine, allowing fast development of new applications with familiar tools, Barry said. This is an “incredibly powerful” benefit, said Tony Werner, Comcast chief technology officer. The widgets will dovetail with cable’s tru2way efforts, he said.

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