"Intel Corporation and Google today announced plans to bring Google Video to the new Intel Viiv technology platform. This planned collaboration is intended to give consumers an easy way to search, manage and consume the huge amount of video information available on the Internet from the comfort of their couch," says Intel.
"Google looks forward to working with Intel to bring Google Video to consumers who use the new Intel Viiv platform," says Susan Wojcicki, vice president for product management at Google.
Users will no doubt be delighted to hear that Google has managed to come up with a video format that works with x86 and compatible processors.
Intel has also signed up NBC to provide exclusive of the Winter Olympics optimized for Viiv, plus deals for music, video and radio from AOL, MTV Networks, DirecTV, ClickStar and Eros International ("the single largest international distributor in the Indian film industry," says Intel's PR), among others.
Since Viiv is what's known in the trade as "a Windows Media Center PC", it's hard to see what all this means, if anything.
Intel's Viiv page says: "With your Intel Viiv technology-based PC, you can access a wide variety of global, on-demand entertainment services from companies like Movielink, Yahoo MusicMatch, DISCover, Adobe and many more." Great. All these work with Windows Media Center PCs.
But since it doesn't claim they won't work with, say, AMD-powered PCs, what's the fuss about?
