Intel unveiled the Intel Media Processor CE 3100, a System on Chip (SoC) for consumer electronics based on Intel Architecture (IA), at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. This particular SoC has been designed keeping in mind internet-enabled consumer electronics products like optical media players, connected CE devices, advanced cable set top boxes and digital TVs. Intel hopes that the CE 3100 will make it easier for people to stay connected to the internet on their favorite CE devices without feeling any vexing technical constraints.

The CE 3100 utilizes hardware-based decoding for TV and optical media content and software-based decoding for Internet content. This is Intel’s big plunge into embedded Internet TVs and the company has also tied up with Yahoo to provide the Widget Channel for TVs using CE 3100 and future SoCs. The Widget Channel will feed TV-friendly internet content to the idiot box and support popular web development technologies like JAVASCRIPT, XML, HTML and Adobe Flash.

The internet and TV have met before but the union has been far from ideal. Let us wait and see if Intel’s powerful new SoCs can change that.