At the Samsung press conference earlier today at CES 2009, Yahoo’s involvement with Samsung’s new HDTV line was revealed to be an integrated system of Widgets, based on a new Konfabulator engine. They went through it very briefly, but Flickr, news, finance, and other Yahoo services are fully available and integrated into an on-screen display, for use during usual TV watching. They call it Medi@ 2.0, a wholly buzz-oriented name, but you’ll probably just call it “Yahoo TV” or “The Stocks.”
Here’s a video of the interface in action — dramatized, it looks like, but a good indicator of what it should look like on your Samsung, should you choose to accept one. (Update: I talked to Samsung, they say it’s pretty much good to go. It’s still only working on prototype TVs right now, however.)