LG Powers Ahead With Connected HDTVs, Picks ARM As Its Accomplice [Lg]

Connected HDTVs—the kind that can display widgets, stream network content, browse the web or tap into other software services—haven't gotten off to the most auspicious start, but they seem sort of inevitable, no? Anyway: LG thinks so!

The company has announced a partnership with ARM to license its processor technology for the "next generation" of HDTVs, essentially committing to the connected TV ideal that other companies—namely Sony, Vizio and Samsung—have been toying with for the last year or so.

The technology itself isn't the story here, since ARM processors are in quite a few TVs already, and the MPCore chips and Mali graphics processors aren't expressly new, although they are admirably capable. It's that LG, one of the biggest HDTV manufacturers in the world, wants to make your next TV into a net-savvy quasi-computer. Well, the road from a partnership announcement to an actual product is a long one, so maybe not your next TV, exactly, but the one after. Honest! [ARM]