Recovering from its stunning defeat with its HD-DVD product, Toshiba is shifting its focus on new technologies.  Having learned its lesson in the risks involved with designing a product around its own proprietary technology, they have decided to adopt the innovative cell processor technology developed that it co-developed with Sony and IBM.

This technology, also known as the Cell Broadband Engine, was lauded as being the greatest leap into next-generation processor for TVs, DVD players, and high definition players.  Toshiba has committed itself to this trend-setting technology that it purchased a Cell chip manufacturing facility  from Sony (one of the triumvirate) for $800 Million Dollars.

 The first successful deployment of this technology is widely recognized consumers with the Sony Playstation 3.

Whereas the typical CPU processor would have a single socket and can be found with single - dual - and quad cores, the Cell can support up to eight Synergistic Processing Elements (SPE) cores controlled by a single CPU unit.

The PS3 has moved beyond its primary associated purpose of a game system.  Rather, PS3 owners have seen the great value of utilizing the system as a media center.

For we HTPC enthusiasts, this is good news because if the cell can be offered as an additional solution other than Intel and AMD-based chipsets, it can vastly improve the home theater experience for the consumer.