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LG Electronics has been a close ally for Intel on various fronts this year as both firms look to come out of the shadows of mobile frontrunners. Their latest collaboration revolves around Intel's WiDi (Wireless Display) technology, and harnesses the strongest aspect of LG's business in the wireless sector, its dominance of tablet and other screens.

The two companies will jointly adopt and promote WiDi, a wireless connectivity interface which allows for instant, high definition viewing of content stored in mobile devices on large screen TVs, projectors or monitors. Intel hopes this will become a de facto standard, increasing its influence in the burgeoning market for multiscreen systems where the smartphone or tablet acts as the hub for a home media network. Such trends play to Intel's strengths better than the pure mobile segments where it is overshadowed by Qualcomm and others.

"Intel is planning to expand WiDi technology to various devices to provide consumers the seamless, smarter usage experience," said Hee-Sung Lee, country manager of Intel Korea, as the deal was signed. "Through this collaboration … LG Cinema 3D Smart TV users could also benefit from Intel WiDi without the need to purchase an external adapter."

WiDi supports the sharing of shared content as well as transferring online video and images to TVs, projectors and other screens. It will be vying with wirelines standards like HDMI and USB, and their wireless equivalents. Like those, it does not require an active wireless or Wi-Fi connection to transfer content betweee devices but establishes a direct link between the Wi-Fi chips embedded in the gadgets. While content sharing is taking place, users of the mobile devices can continue to perform other tasks.

However, many of these capabilities will also be seen in the emerging Wi-Fi Direct technology, which Intel also backs. This peer-to-peer implementation allows for ad hoc connections to be established without an access point and has the support of nearly all the main Wi-Fi players. However, it has been slow, so far, to find its way into commercial products, partly because of its newness and partly because it is criticized for being complex to use.

This has left the way open for vendor-specific tools. Intel introduced My WiFi at the 2009 CES show and now includes it in nearly all wireless laptops. It then became the basis of WiDi, which My WiFi to send video and audio to displays (Microsoft's equivalent is SoftAP, which also bypasses the need for a dedicated network by turning a PC temporarily into an access point). Intel says it will continue to offer WiDi and My WiFi but will also add Wi-Fi Direct to all its wireless products, as long as it sees demand for all three systems.

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