IDF

Intel's Lynnfield mysteries solved

The mysteries of the Lynnfield and Jasper Forest die photos (from last week's post titled "Investigating Intel's Lynnfield mysteries") were all cleared up at the Intel Developer Forum last week, and as expected, there was nothing sinister going on--just some confusion in Intel's graphics arts department.

With the help of the always-helpful George Alfs of Intel's press relations department and Intel vice president Mooly Eden (general manager of Intel's PC Client Group), we got everything straightened out. Literally!

Here's the die photo of Intel's Lynnfield chip from my previous post:

This is the newest (shipping) part based on the Nehalem microarchitecture, differing from the earlier Bloomfield by the addition of an on-die PCI Express controller. Both chips are made in Intel's 45nm process technology.

According to Eden, the Lynnfield chip design is shared with several other Intel chips that will be on the market soon, including… Read more

Intel's Moblin 2.1 to compete with Windows

Could Intel's new Moblin 2.1 OS make a dent against Windows in the mobile and desktop markets?

At this week's Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, the chipmaker debuted a beta version of its Moblin 2.1 open-source operating system targeted to run on a variety of devices, including smartphones, Netbooks, nettops, Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs), and in-car systems.

Moblin 2.1 will compete with other open-source operating systems like Google's Android and bump up against Microsoft in the burgeoning nettop arena.

Originally developed for Netbooks, Moblin 2.1 (short for mobile Linux) will come in three flavors--one for handhelds, another for Netbooks, and a third for nettops.

In the market for handheld gadgets such as smartphones and MIDs, Moblin 2.1 will run on Atom chip-based devices. The beta demoed by Intel at IDF showed off capabilities for touch-screen and gesture input. The new interface will also let users switch among different open applications and will provide shortcuts to social-networking apps.

The Moblin 2.1 Web browser will also support Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight 3 technology to run interactive Web-based apps.… Read more

IDF 2009: Intel plays to its strengths

At the annual developer forum, Intel shows off what it can do with silicon and what to look forward to from systems built around its chips.

Intel's Moblin 2.1 to compete with Windows The upcoming Moblin 2.1 operating system will run on mobile devices, Netbooks, and nettops, putting it in competition with Windows. (Posted in Crave by Lance Whitney) September 25, 2009 8:43 AM PDT

Sights from the Intel Developer Forum IDF is overrun by people in blue shirts and beige khakis, but there are still visually interesting sights at the event. (Posted in Full Frame … Read more

Intel tries anew to built its smarts into TVs

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel may not have attained the same dominance in TVs as it has in personal computers, but the company remains convinced that interactive, networked, computing-intensive tasks will win the company a foothold in the world of video.

The company touted various elements of its plan Thursday at its Intel Developer Forum here, including a new Atom CE4100 processor for TVs, technology to automatically extract a highlight reel from a soccer match, companies moving PC games to TVs, and big-screen 3D video that Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner believes ultimately will arrive in people's homes.

"I've seen … Read more

Intel's Light Peak: One PC cable to rule them all

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel unveiled technology called Light Peak that it hopes ultimately will replace the profusion of different cables sprouting from today's PCs with a single type of fiber-optic link.

Dadi Perlmutter, the newly promoted co-general manager of Intel's Architecture Group, demonstrated Light Peak at the Intel Developer Forum here and said components for the technology, though not Light Peak-enabled PCs, will be ready in 2010.

"We hope to see one single cable," Perlmutter said, adding that one thing getting in the way of smaller laptops is the profusion of cable ports around the systems' edges. … Read more

Intel brings Nehalem to notebooks, makes light of cables

SAN FRANCISCO--Intel has moved its latest desktop and server chip architecture to the laptop with the announcement of its 45nm Core i7 mobile processor, based on its new Nehalem microarchitecture.

Officially launched at the Intel Developer Forum here Wednesday morning, the chip is initially available in two standard and one Extreme Edition versions. Formerly known as Clarksfield, the quad-core chip combines Intel's Turbo Boost and Hyperthreading technologies.

"It's a 2GHz chip, but with Turbo Boost it can go up to 3.2GHz," said Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager of Intel's PC Client Group. … Read more

Meet the first batch of Intel Core i7 laptops

With the Intel Developer Forum underway, one of the big stories has been Intel's official unveiling of its new high-end laptop CPU, the mobile version of the Core i7. Of course, everyone's been talking about Core i7 laptops for weeks now, so the only real surprise is which PC makers are jumping onboard right away to show off this pricey new technology. Here's a roundup of Wednesday's announcements:

>Toshiba revamps Qosmio line with Core i7 X505

>Dell welcomes Intel Core i7 with pair of laptops

>Alienware launches Core i7 M15x laptop (Related: new Alienware desktops, too) … Read more

HP unveils Skyroom video collaboration tool

SAN FRANCISCO--Looking to take advantage of tightened corporate travel budgets, Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday showed the latest tech to come out of its labs, called Skyroom.

Unveiled together with Intel at the start of the Intel Developer Forum here, Skyroom is a real-time collaborative video conferencing and whiteboarding tool. HP CEO Mark Hurd hinted at the product when he spoke at Fortune's Brainstorm conference in July.

Skyroom allows colleagues in separate locations to make video calls and share videos, 3D applications, documents, and more in real time. Using an advanced video codec, rich applications and video are compressed and shared … Read more

How Intel's supercomputer almost used HP chips

SAN FRANCISCO--More than a decade ago, Intel ran into an issue trying to deliver what was to be the world's top-ranked supercomputer: it looked possible that its new Pentium Pro processors at the heart of the system might not arrive in time.

As a result, the chipmaker made an unusual move by paying Hewlett-Packard $100,000 to evaluate building the system using its PA-RISC processors in the machine, said Paul Prince, now Dell's chief technology officer for enterprise products but then Intel's system architect for the supercomputer. Called ASCI Red and housed at Sandia National Laboratories, it … Read more