There were some trends (like eco-friendliness and social networking) at this year's Consumer Electronics Show that were inescapable; it seemed like they were in every booth and every presentation. Intel's internet TV chip with Yahoo! Widgets built in wasn't quite that ubiquitous, but it was hard to miss. We saw it in several TVs, Blu-ray players, and set-top boxes on the show room floor. It looks like it will become common on the marketplace soon, so be prepared to know what you're buying. Find out what it is, how it works, and whether or not it's something you want to look for in a video device in our hands-on first impressions.

Every device with this technology has an Intel-made chip installed in it that runs a computer-like interface on top of the TV signal or other video that's playing. You just press a button on your controller and a sliding list of applications appears at the bottom of the screen. This is a list of Yahoo! Widgets. You can scroll between them and select the one you want — for example, MySpace — and select it to load it up.

It'll then pop up on the left side of the screen, where you'll be able to use the arrow buttons on your remote to browse and make selections. What you can do here depends on which widget it is: some browse friends' photos, while others give you weather, stock quotes, or sports scores.

When using this tool on a prototype Toshiba network-enabled television with the chip inside, we saw widgets by Joost and CinemaNow, two online video companies. Joost is a bit like YouTube and Hulu, with streaming video of varying quality. You can watch movies for free with it. CinemaNow offers movie purchases and rentals over the internet. We were able to view trailers using the CinemaNow widget before deciding whether or not to purchase or rent.

The widgets loaded about as quickly as web pages do on a computer. As far as which widgets will be available, nothing is final yet, but we definitely saw MySpace, Flickr, Joost, CinemaNow, Yahoo! Weather, and Yahoo! Finance. The chips will be installed in Blu-ray players, IPTV boxes, and the TVs themselves. We saw working examples of all three. Intel hopes that cable and satellite companies will include the chip in their receiver and DVR boxes as well. Pictured below is a Widgets-ready Gigabyte optical disc player (we weren't sure if it was DVD or Blu-ray) with the not-so-subtle Intel logo on it.

Intel expects that its chips will be in many devices by year's end, and a representative told us that since the company is only providing the basic tech, it won't dictate a service charge for you to pay. That's up to the companies that license the technology and the makers of specific widgets, and we wouldn't be surprised if most of the functionality ends up being free of charge so long as you have an internet connection. According to an article at CNN, though, Yahoo! is considering placing ads in the interface at some time in the future.