Intel demos Yonah

Intel is not only prepping its next-generation chips for laptops, but also , perhaps signaling the company's first step toward consumer/entertainment devices. Buoying circulating rumors of Apple's own desire to develop Mac mini with TiVo-like features, the company demonstrated its own version of the device featuring the new Yonah processor, according to The Wall Street Journal. The report says that Intel is attempting to build a brand called Viiv, which "will be applied to a new generation of PCs that are styled as home media centers. Besides supplying chips for the effort, Intel is trying to persuade media companies and hardware makers to adapt their products to work together, and identify the offerings it has certified with a Viiv logo."

During a briefing in San Francisco on Tuesday, the company said that Yonah, designed to consume less power to extend the battery life of a laptop, offers two electronic brains, rather than one, and uses a new manufacturing process.

The announcement by Intel hints at details that support circulating rumors of Intel-based Mac mini with DVR functions. In addition to improved efficiency--up to 28 percent less power, while offering 68 percent better performance--the chip is being used as the centerpiece for the Viiv brand, which touts the ability carry out chores such as burning a DVD while listening to music, according to the report. "Hardware makers can choose other Intel chips, but Yonah will allow them to make small media-oriented PCs that don't need fans to keep cool."

The report says that Intel executives demonstrated a Viiv-style PC based on Yonah that was about the size of a paperback book. The Mac mini-like device was shown connected to a large plasma TV to let consumers call up movies and other content using a remote control--similar in concept to Apple's Front Row software introduced alongside the new iMac G5.

Viiv, the latest in a string of efforts by PC players in home entertainment. It uses Microsoft's Windows Media Center operating system, which includes a guide to help users call up music, movies and software using a remote control, according to the report. Intel says plans to certify that Viiv content has been formatted for TV screens and that it will help consumers set up networks to move content from Viiv PCs to portable devices and other products that will carry the logo, reminscent of upcoming TiVo-like portable video transfer services.

by MacNN Staff