Disney backs new Intel chip

By Anupreeta Das

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Walt Disney on Thursday threw its weight behind a new Intel chip that lets TV viewers interact with their favourite programs, underscoring a continuing effort to merge computers and media.

Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television group, said viewers may be able to access complementary content during the series finale of the hit TV series "Lost" next year through the chip, designed to power Internet applications on TVs.

The new chip from Intel could offer content providers like Disney and electronics manufacturers new ways to collaborate on programming, Sweeney said at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The chip, which Intel launched last year to specifically target the consumer electronics industry, is designed to be included in TV sets and contains software that lets networks, content creators and other developers add their own applications.

It has the "potential to make TV viewing more functional and more fun," Sweeney said.

ABC's popular "Good Morning America" and "Lost" were good candidates for this type of interactive, add-on programming, she added.

Sweeney said they could work on widgets -- small software applications -- that allow GMA viewers to cast votes or comment in real-time on stories being broadcast. ABC could even build widgets that take viewers through the step-by-step instructions for recipes shown on GMA's cooking segment.

And ABC may also develop an application specifically for the series finale of "Lost" next year that could heighten the audience's involvement, say, providing clues to the plot. The series follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a tropical island and will kick off a new season this month.