Sony, Toshiba, and IBM have jointly created the Cell processor. I've read, here and there, that Toshiba may use it for HDTV. I'm curious if anyone around here is already working on embedded Cell projects, or knows of people who are.
I've decided to focus on the IBM Cell because it is used in the Sony Playstation 3. This combines my interest in game development with my previous experience optimizing a high-end 64-bit processor (the DEC Alpha, circa 1996..1998). After learning the i486 I never found Intel processors to be all that interesting or all that good. Just gratuitously complicated and a pain in the butt. I've pretty much been spinning my wheels for 9 years waiting for a good commodity CPU to come along. To me, the appeal of the Cell is it's interesting as a performance architecture, it will have broad initial support in the game market (even if the PS3 ends up being the #3 console due to price), and it's not limited to the game market (for example, IBM Blade servers, and whatever Toshiba does).
Cheers, Brandon Van Every