The Huawei MediaQ is yet another Android set-top-box, which follows in the footsteps of Hisense, Haiers and Xiaomi’s models, and hopes to snatch a slice of the home entertainment market from Apple’s own Apple TV.

Rather than just being a run of the mill Android STB, Huawei have delved deep in to their parts bin and used some of the same high performance hardware which is used in some of their more powerful flagship phones. The CPU is Huawei’s own quad-core H3V2, there is 1GB RAM on-board and graphics are handled by a Vivante GC4000 GPU.

The Huawei MediaQ M310 also features 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI, 1 x SPDIF, 3.5mm headphone jack plus 2 x USB. There will also be a more powerful version named the M810 available with 2GB RAM and built in TV tuner, Ethernet and disc drive bays available too.

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For years Google, Apple and Microsoft have been dancing around the idea of revolutionizing the living room with their perspective living room solutions. While devices like the 360, Google TV and Apple TV have helped change the way we watch content in the living room– they haven’t really reached a true revolutionary status either.

Tired of waiting for one of the big three to make a move, a new rumor arrives courtesy of TechCrunch suggesting that the revolution will not be lead by any of these companies. Who instead will be the first to truly change the way we interact with our multimedia content in the living room? Intel, that’s who.

Citing an unnamed source, the rumor suggests Intel is preparing to deliver set-top boxes with DVR that will be rolled out in a city-by-city basis. Outside of being a DVR and cable set-top box, the device is said to have quite a few interesting features inside.

Some of the feature include facial recognition and the possibility of creating individualized viewing settings, favorite settings and more based on who is “logged in” to the box. There will also be targeted and individualized advertising for online content.

The idea here is to create a hybrid that would have both online and traditional cable content working together. There would also be a “Catch Up TV”-style service that would let users view anything airedi in the last month on the channels that they are directly subscribed too.

Other ideas include having the options to buy specific channels instead of having to just have one big package. All the ideas here sound fabulous, but there is one major obstacle that is holding back these kinds of revolutions– that’s dealing with content creators and providers.

If Intel can manage to create a marvelous piece of technology and woo the content creators and providers, this will truly be a feat indeed.

Do you think that Intel could truly play a part in bringing the living room to the next level?

With the PC market on the decline, perhaps Intel wishes to focus on new areas in case the day comes when there isn’t as much demand for their x86 chips?

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It’s like the Apple TV, sort of, except it’s Google. Set to ship July 22, the $199 Sony NSZ-GS7 is being marketed as an “Internet Player,” since you can use it stream such services as Hulu Plus and Netflix. You can also use it for browsing the web and using certain Android apps. The remote control is Bluetooth and, interestingly enough, it has a touchpad on one side and a QWERTY keyboard on the other.

There’s even a three-axis motion sensor in there, which will let you interact with certain Android apps and games like how you would on a smartphone or tablet. If you don’t like the provided remote, you can download the free iPhone or Android app to control the set top box instead.

Realistically, though, I’m not sure anyone would really want to spend $199 for this when there are similar “media players” available in the $99 range. I can’t imagine this will do wonders in improving the adoption rate of Google TV.

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