Toshiba licenses Net tuner
Technology from iReady will allow the low-cost production of Internet-ready consumer electronics such as pagers, cellular phones, and televisions.
iReady's Internet Tuner is a proprietary processor design that Toshiba can integrate with the other functions of its electronics products. The design offers support for several major Internet communication protocols, as well as HTML, graphics, and email.
Integrating the design into consumer electronics provides Internet connectivity to other devices at only a small incremental cost. Such devices could, for example, provide users with wireless access to the Net for email.
Under the agreement, Toshiba and iReady will work together to design a prototype that will allow devices to access text data on the Internet.
iReady's development and sale of the Internet Tuner as intellectual property is part of the growing trend of "chipless" semiconductor companies. These companies design processors or processor sections then license those designs to final manufacturers.