In keynote addresses today at the Intel Developer Forum, Eric Kim (head of Intel’s Digital Home Group) and Intel CTO Justin Rattner discussed what happens and what’s needed when the full Internet converges with broadcast networks. The television, they said (both the device and the experience) has arrived at an inflection point.

Delivering interactive product placements, games and on-demand video on non-traditional TVs, such as digital connected CE devices, will require innovation in how that content is actually distributed from TV service providers.

This key phrase from Intel’s press release about the keynote address stood out for me:

“At the center of the TV evolution is more processing power.”

Processing, and the ability to differentiate products through software, will continue to be the key driver behind inventive solutions to problems such as the one Rattner describes, “By the year 2015, you can expect 15 billion consumer devices capable of delivering TV content with billions of hours of video available. We’ll need much more sophisticated ways to organize content and provide it on demand.”

Moores Law has given us the processing performance density and speed to make some incredible things happen. If we remove all the perceived barriers by considering the extremes – infinite processing at zero cost and using zero electricity (and perfectly bug-free code) – we can begin to imagine huge leaps of innovation far beyond the ones already happening in the immediate future of TV.

Intel’s full press release can be read here.