Intel and Yahoo have announced a partnership aimed at bringing a Widget Channel to TVs. The leading chipmaker will contribute, well, a chip, designed specifically for web-connected devices, which will provide Internet connectivity to TVs and will allow users to e-mail friends, trade shares or check the weather, all while watching TV channels. Thus Intel will bring into the joint venture its new Media Processor CE3100, which had been dubbed "Canmore."

Yahoo will contribute the software, the so-called Widget Engine, which means that users will also get the wide array of Yahoo-branded widgets based on its Internet services, such as Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports.

The two companies made the announcement at the Intel Developers Forum in San Francisco, underlining that similar efforts have failed for a very simple reason: while indeed bringing Internet connectivity to television sets, they prevented users from actually viewing TV channels. The new technology is designed to run mostly in parallel with watching TV.

This will be accomplished through a slim "snippet bar" at the bottom of the screen, which can also be widened and used as a sidebar on the left of a screen without obscuring the programme that is being displayed in the background.

The Intel-Yahoo Widget Channel will also provide picture-in-picture capabilities, download video on demand features and the ability to shop online. The companies expect that eventually hundreds of thousands of applications, or widgets, will be developed for their platform.

The innovative solution will also change the rules of advertising. Still, companies spend about five times as much money on TV advertising as on web ads. However, so far, the advertisements were the same for all viewers of a particular channel, but with the new Widget Channel things might change (and will).