The Stuff of Genius

Here in the UK the leaves are already turning brown and the nights are drawing in – a telltale sign that awards season is almost upon us. Over the next few months an ultraflock (that’s the collective noun) of gadget magazines will release their awards nominees and winners, celebrating everything from cameras and cars, to smartphones and satnavs. But for us, it’s the Stuff Gadget Awards that really stand out.

The Stuff Gadget Awards is the culmination and celebration of the best gadgets and consumer electronics of the last 12 months, and this past year in particular has been witness to some fantastic innovations, including smartphones, tablets and most notably devices that enable a smart TV experience. Which is why Intel is the official sponsor of this year’s Stuff Gadget Awards.

Stuff is the world’s biggest-selling gadget magazine and for the first time the Stuff Gadget Awards are open to voters outside of the UK, including residents in France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Italy. Sponsoring this year’s Awards presents us with the chance to let gadget fans across Europe know what we’ve always known – that not all smart TV offerings are made equal.

In fact, many of the early internet-connected TV offerings to hit the market weren’t very smart at all – poor interface design, insufficient processor power and restrictive proprietary platforms mean they offer a clunky, limited and sometimes just disappointing online experience. This is primarily because they are built on platforms that were never designed to handle the web’s incredibly diverse content. Not so with Intel-based devices.

Our message is, and has always been, that our Intel® CE media processors offer the best Internet experience via the TV – afterall, the World Wide Web is built on Intel technology. Our media processors, for example, are able to handle simultaneous dual full HD video streams, as well as 3D graphics and multi-channel audio. They also support the latest and richest Flash formats and just about every video and audio codec.

And when it comes to awards, we’re already on a winning streak. What Hi-Fi recently named the Boxee Box the best media streamer of its type that it has ever tested; while GIGAOM announced Boxee as the best solution for bringing online video to the TV that it has ever seen.  The Iomega TV adds storage and cloud capabilities to take the experience even further.  And increasingly, game-changing devices are appearing from leading Service Providers such as Free (also recently rated as the best in France by What-HiFi in March 2011) and UPC.

To keep up-to-date on the latest smart TV news and trends, follow the Intel smart TV team on Twitter and Facebook. If you want to learn more, check out this smart TV video.