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Intel and Yahoo - both perpetrators of several failed interactive television efforts in the past - have come together to, well, go at it again. This time, we're assured, it's different; even differenter than last time.

The new stuff: Intel is sticking a set-top box onto a chip, and Yahoo is writing an OS of sorts to allow outsiders to write third party apps. The thinking is that an ecosystem of developers creating new applications - widgets in the Yahoo parlance - will create enough value to do to this set-top technology what the App Store did for Apple's iPhone - all, except for the circumstance that the iPhone was entering an established market of several hundred million active units.

That said, Comcast has said it will incorporate the Intel technology in one of its new standards.

The effort may be the late-borne release of a project conceived back in the Terry Semel days of Yahoo, back when Yahoo seemed to be moving away from its internet roots and toward a vague, video and content-centric model developed by the former studio executive.

The New York Times earnestly reported that all is ready, except that Yahoo has yet to finish the software framework, and Intel has yet to finish the hardware. Yahoo indicated a 2009 date for its part.

To see five years of (depressing) coverage of television's lack of ability to get along with other media, you can explore our coverage on convergence.