Netgear First to Cross the NewTeeVee Channel

Day by day, Steve Jobs is having a little more sizzle taken away from his upcoming iTV unveiling, with the latest being Netgear’s announcement of their own network-enabled TV appliance. On the one hand, it has an onerous HDMI port. On the other, it’s got a partnership with BitTorrent, which has a history of making friends with consumer electronics hardware manufacturers.

Either way, it looks like a hacker’s best friend, since Netgear has always had a saintly light touch with hardware security. But all anyone knows at this point is what’s in the press release — NewTeeVee is more than happy to withhold ultimate judgment until some corporate quotes and user reviews are in.