The idea is quite simple.

Via makes some interesting low power consumption processors; Nvidia makes some cool mobile chipsets - and decent IGP graphics chipsets too :-)

They decided to get togeather and produce the "VN Platform" to address the needs of set top box and highly portable mobile internet devices - although I'd be willing to bet that HTPC's and other SFF devices will see sone VN love too.

VN platform devices should start to show up early next year.

Now if Via comes out with a competitive dual core processor, we might all of a sudden have a three way race between companies with x86 processors, gpu's and chipsets... Intel, AMD, and VN. Interesting thought, eh?