Myka Launches Intel Atom Processor-Based Over-the-Top STB Device

Over-the-top-TV specialist, Myka, has launched a Web-to-TV set-top box, dubbed the Myka ION, which it bills as "the first consumer Web-to-TV product that can easily run Boxee, Hulu and other leading Internet video services." The $379 device is powered by the Intel Atom Processor 330 and the Nvidia ION Graphics Processor. According to Myka, it allows users to browse any Web site and start playing online video directly on their TV without "messing with conversion software" or "tinkering with anything." "Technology has finally caught up with what consumers want out of Internet video services," Myka president, Dan Lovy, said in a prepared statement. "They want to be freed from their computers and watch the growing variety of Web video content on their large-screen, high-definition living room TV's. And they want to do it without a lot of hassle and without video quality suffering. We've heard them loud and clear and we're proud to present the Myka ION, the first product to take advantage of the latest processor technology and finally give Web video consumers what they want."

According to Myka, the new box's Intel and Nvidia processors perform "all the heavy lifting," including video encoding/decoding during playback, and the box supports a wide range of formats. The company, which has set up an open source developer community on its Web site, claims to have designed its platform to encourage third-party development: "We went with Linux," the company states on its site. "Although it has been optimized for a set-top box environment, it still offers the tools and extensibility you would expect from Linux. Our middleware and communication layers are PHP. This lets us open the 'guts' up to enhancements by the developer community. The UI is rendered in HTML. This makes the UI easy to update and throws it open to the creativity of a larger audience. There is a rich backend infrastructure. Channels can be created, new interfaces rolled out. With the Myka Web services, Web sites can offer a range of download and program guide options. We chose BitTorrent as our P2P file transport system. This lets us tie in to the huge BitTorrent network." More information on the Myka ION's specs can be found here.