Intel's TV Device Won't Watch You Back

Intel recently confirmed some details about its upcoming TV device and over-the-top (OTT) TV service, declined to comment on others, and revealed that its planned set top box won't include facial recognition technology.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Eric Huggers, the head of Intel Media, said the chip giant's upcoming TV device would be just one part of an "Internet-based service that doesn't only serve up on-demand programs but overhauls live TV as well."

The proposed service, being stitched together by a 350-person team under Huggers' leadership, would involve a massive back-end server operation "to record every piece of programming aired—local, national, and international—and store it for at least three days in the cloud," the Journal reported. Users of Intel's device could tap into those servers to view anything aired on TV in the past several days, with the ability to go back to the start of programs they're viewing without a local DVR.

"This is live TV, but you can rewind it," Huggers told the paper.

The Intel executive didn't reveal a timetable for the release of Intel's TV service and device, and he declined to comment on what they would be called. Trademark filings from around the globe recently unearthed by GigaOM suggested that "OnCue" might be used as a name for the OTT service, the set top box, or both, but Huggers declined to comment when asked by the Journal.

But Huggers did say that Intel had scrapped a plan to include a camera and facial recognition software "to help personalize offerings for each user in a household" in its media-streaming device, despite a desire by the company to incorporate more cutting-edge interface technologies in its future platforms.

Intel has recently been pushing what it calls "perceptual computing," a combination of older and newer interface technologies across a multitude of platforms, including facial recognition, as well as voice and gesture-based technologies—for example, the company recently acquired gesture-recognition developer Omek Interactive.

But the timing apparently isn't right to outfit the coming TV device with the facial recognition component, Huggers said, telling the Journal that it "didn't work well enough in the low lighting common when watching TV and raised privacy questions."

Meanwhile, Intel certainly isn't alone in making a big play for the TV market. Companies traditionally rooted in personal computing attempting to upend the hidebound TV landscape with various Internet-based devices and services also include Apple, Google, Netflix, Microsoft, and Sony, the paper noted. That's leading to an increasingly competitive landscape where the upstart players have compelling technology but are scrambling to lock down content-distribution agreements from traditional TV powerhouses reluctant to give up their keys to the kingdom.