Intel shuts down Smart TV chips Division

At the start of 2010 at the Consumer Electronics Show you couldn’t swing a cat without hitting an Internet Ready television and after a year of promises from all the big names such as Apple, Sony, Samsung and Sharp, more than 18 months later Internet TV’s are still just a small blip on the Gadget Radar.

That’s not to say that they are not great pieces of kit, but the Internet Ready services have not hit off like many manufacturers would have hoped, and today see’s the first big name jump overboard, ceasing the production of Internet Ready TVs in the form of chip giant Intel.

Due to a lack of demand for the Internet Televisions the company will fold its TV-based Digital Home Group and move its engineers onto tablet, smartphone and Ultrabook development.

Intel are currently the power source behind many of the Google TV-powered boxes as well as the D-Link Boxee Box and Logitech’s Revue digital media players with the Atom CE4100 chip. The Atom CE4100 chip will be the last of its kind to be made by Intel for the purpose of televisions.

At this years CES show and following on, 2011 has been all about the tablet devices with the iPad 2 starting the charge for tablets in consumer’s homes. Google have followed quickly by providing a semi-universal open source operating system for other tablets in the form of Android.

It’s simple to see why Intel have chosen to step away, and for all we know if the internet TV format picks up again then they could always jump straight back into the fray.

All we know is that in the UK there is simply not enough content available on Internet Ready TV boxes and televisions and there is also a host of other add-ons that can support just as much content as well as holding other features (See PS3, Blu-ray players).

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