190w ago - According to PCWorld (linked above), Toshiba will soon unveil its first television based on the Cell processor, the same multimedia chip that sits at the heart of the PlayStation 3 games console.

Toshiba has been showing prototypes of the television and Cell technology for the last couple of years and its unveiling on Oct. 5 will come just before its first public showing at the upcoming Ceatec electronics show.

While a launch date has not yet been announced, the timing of the unveiling suggests it should be on sale in Japan before the end of this year.

To quote: "The Cell chip was developed by Toshiba, IBM and Sony and each chip contains a single Power PC core and eight co-processors. Together the chips make heavy-duty processing of video a breeze.

During previous demonstrations of Cell TV prototypes, Toshiba has put the chip to use providing real-time upscaling of standard definition to a quality closer to that of high definition.

It has also been shown streaming multiple chapters from a recorded TV show to make navigating to a desired part of a program easy. It's similar to the multiscreen menus on some DVDs.

But for all the neat tricks it can do with video there's one thing it almost certainly won't do: run PlayStation 3 games. Toshiba has said several...

267w ago - Toshiba today announced the start of sample shipping of the SpursEngine SE1000, a high-performance stream processor integrating four Synergistic Processing Element (SPE) cores derived from the "Cell Broadband Engine" (Cell/B.E.).

The SpursEngine is a co-processor that integrates a hardware codec for Full HD encoding and decoding of MPEG-2 and H.264 streams. Toshiba say its "dedicated to bringing the advanced capabilities of the Cell/B.E. to consumer electronics, particularly video processing in digital consumer products. We are sure that SpursEngine will accelerate the market for full-HD applications."

Press Release:

Toshiba Corporation today announced the start of sample shipping of the SpursEngine™ SE1000 (SpursEngine), a high-performance stream processor integrating four Synergistic Processing Element (SPE) cores derived from the "Cell Broadband Engine™" (Cell/B.E.™). Sample shipping started from today, and Toshiba expects sales of 6 million units within the first three years of the SpursEngine's release.

SpursEngine is a co-processor that integrates a hardware codec for Full HD encoding and decoding of MPEG-2 and H.264 streams with four SPEs derived from Cell/B.E. These advanced processing elements offer high performance media streaming capabilities, with a clock frequency...