Crave

The Light Peak technology sends signals with infrared light over optical fibers.

(Credit: Intel)

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.

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)

>Dell launches first laptop with Intel's Core i7
(Via CNET's Nanotech blog)

For more IDF news, keep an eye on this handy roundup page.

(Credit: Nicholas Aaron Khoo)

SAN FRANCISCO--Talk about extreme multitasking. If two displays on a notebook, like Lenovo's ThinkPad W700ds' Side Panel, don't do the trick for you, Intel's about to up the ante with four. Yes, that's four--one primary LCD screen and three auxiliary OLED screens above the keyboard. The aim here is to allow the user to organize information the way he or she prefers it.

Touted as the world's first multitouch, multiscreen concept solution, the prototype (code-named Tangent Bay) was unveiled at the Mobility Meetup, an Intel Insiders event for bloggers here. We got Intel rep Renuka Awasthi to demonstrate the touted seamless interaction between the main screen and auxiliary displays.

Intel's Mobile Product Line marketing manager for Greater Americas showed some music files being dragged and dropped between the OLED panels using a finger, as well as flipped video files being moved up to the main LCD display from the auxilliary panels with ease. One could also contract, zoom, scroll, and pan content from one screen to another.

After the jump, blogger Nicholas Khoo has more photos and videos for Crave.

(Credit: Crave UK)

What's this gizmo? Another ridiculous lens thing for bolting on the front of your phone to beef up that pitiful 2-megapixel camera? Actually, no: it's the CellScope, which turns a normal mobile phone--in this case, a rather venerable Nokia N73--into a microscope. Limited access to microscopy in the developing world makes this a handy tool for diagnosing diseases like tuberculosis and malaria.

The CellScope works with handhelds and even Netbooks. The really clever bit is that it wirelessly transmits patient data to clinical centers, allowing the patient to be evaluated remotely and treatment suggested. Developed by Daniel Fletcher, associate professor of bioengineering at the University of California at Berkeley, the device could also be used for home monitoring of patients in the developed world.

The CellScope is one of four winners of the Inspire Empower Challenge, announced at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing. More than 200 ideas were proposed by developers--ranging from individuals to NGOs to companies--all tackling education, health care, environmental, or economic problems in developing countries.

The other winners are the Great Lakes Cassava Initiative, which connects cassava farmers with laptops, the Mobile Solar Computer Classroom in Uganda, and the Rural Livelihood Enhancement project, which aims to set up computer labs in Nepal that run off hydroelectric power.

(Via Crave UK)

Intel Research staff scientist Jason Campbell describes devices called catoms that collectively could be assembled into materials that are in effect programmable. To see more photos from Intel's presentation on smart computers, click on the image above.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco this week, the chipmaker painted a bullish future with advances in processing, communication, robots, materials science, and human-computer interfaces. Click on the photo above to see more on Intel's vision of future, including a robot that can sense nearby objects through electromagnetic field changes, a basic video game controlled directly to the brain's electrical signals, and catons, programmable building blocks like computerized atoms that Intel believes will be the building blocks for shape-shifting devices.

SAN FRANCISCO--Steve Wozniak got his start as a down-to-earth engineer, but the Apple co-founder made the case for keeping your head in the clouds sometimes.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak at the Intel Developer Forum.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

In an on-stage interview with Tech Nation's Moira Gunn here at the Intel Developer Forum, Wozniak talked about a life driven by his passion for the electronics and computing. And passion can be a more important incentive than money, he said.

"The rewards are in your head. The reward is invisible. It's what you like to do," said Wozniak, who designed the Apple I computer and its commercially successful successor, the Apple II, largely during his spare time.

Wozniak was in the right place at the right time, falling into computer design during an era when electronics were growing more powerful but were still simple enough that designs could be done by a smart human being. And he found a small circle of technophiles who shared similar views and ended up building the first personal computers. They, too, were driven by passion.

"We had dreams that computers would improve education and improve communication and help us achieve a lot of tasks. A lot of us in our group understood it," though their vision didn't extend as far as today's broadband-connected Internet. "What we were doing was not (figuring out) how build a computer, it was how you get a computer that fits into the home. Price, looks--a lot of that stuff. It gave us more passion. We used the word 'revolution' all over the place."

Intel senior VP Anand Chandrasekher touts Linux for MIDs.

(Credit: Intel)

At the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai this week, the buzz was about the Atom processor, mobile Internet devices, and Linux. What wasn't buzzing? Microsoft.

Welcome to the brave new world of computing sans Redmond.

At IDF, there was little media focus on Intel's next-generation Nehalem chip and even less on the Centrino 2 processor--both of which will run Microsoft software.

The focus was on devices that won't necessarily or exclusively run Microsoft software: Handheld-size MIDs--shorthand for mobile Internet devices--and Netbooks. Netbooks will run both Microsoft Windows and the Linux operating systems, but the MID category appears to be shaping up as a non-Microsoft enclave. MID makers, who are expected to begin shipping devices later this quarter, include Lenovo, Toshiba, Panasonic, and LG Electronics.

Asianux distributes Mobile Midinux.

(Credit: Intel)

Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, said in his IDF keynote: "As always, we partner with Microsoft." Then he proceeded to not mention Microsoft again--and mentioned Linux a lot. "We announced an initiative last year. A Linux-based initiative. In order to get the form factor down, to get the cost down, and to even get lower power levels beyond what was achievable. We have an entire ecosystem behind it. Ubuntu and Red Flag. The initiative is called Moblin," Chandrasekher said.

Aptly enough, the Moblin Web site is entitled: "mobile and internet linux project." That's pretty self-descriptive.

Whether MIDs succeed or not, only time will tell. But if they do succeed, it won't be on Microsoft Windows--at least not in the foreseeable future. Microsoft has recently hired Len Kawell, originally the CEO at Pepper Computer, a start-up focused on MID software, to scale Windows from smartphones (some of which run Windows Mobile) to MID-type devices with "larger screens and faster processors," according to a representative at Weber Shandwick, the P.R. firm that represents Microsoft's Mobile business.

Scott Rockfeld, Group Product Manager for Microsoft's Mobile Communications Business, said this in an e-mail Thursday: "Windows Mobile is constantly innovating the platform to meet the expanding mobile needs of our customers. MIDs are an exciting class of devices that address many of those needs, and we're focused on ensuring that Windows Mobile is a great platform for partners to build MIDs."

But that's probably news to a lot of the attendees in Shanghai listening to Renee James, vice president general manager of the Software and Solutions Group at Intel.

"This new category requires a new software environment. There isn't a built-in ecosystem of developers who have been doing MIDs," she said, describing the incipient market. "For MIDS, we, Intel, are establishing that ecosystem. We launched it in September. It's called Moblin.org. It's an open-source project. Intel has contributed the foundational stack. More than 500 member companies are contributing code into Moblin. And it's particularly strong in Asia."

If MIDs catch on--and that's still a big if (though Apple's popular iPhone is arguably a MID)--it will be refreshing to see a PC platform develop without Microsoft participation, or at least see a platform unfold in which Linux distributors may have an advantage over the software giant.

An Intel executive demonstrated upcoming solid-state drives at this week's Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, noting that the chipmaker is on track to deliver the drives later this year.

Meanwhile, an Intel fellow describes his "addiction" to solid-state drives in a blog posted Wednesday.

Intel solid-state drives

(Credit: Intel)

Knut Grimsrud, an Intel fellow who leads an R&D group responsible for developing new mainstream storage innovations, described in a blog the difference between using a hard drive and a solid-state drive.

"I played the part of Guinea Pig and had one of our pre-production solid-state drives installed in my IT laptop...I was unprepared for the powerful instant high it gave my system," he said in his blog. There was a "dramatic difference in how my system responded," he noted.

"Then the day came that my SSD was retrieved for data mining...and my original hard-disk was put back into my laptop. There's no way to feel the pain quite as intensely as having to go back."

(Note: I can second Grimsrud's statements. I own a SSD MacBook Air. Once you use an SSD and realize that there is a world without hard drive bottlenecks, a hard-drive-based system seems very old.)

Intel is expected to make an announcement about SSDs in the second quarter.

Features of upcoming Intel solid-state drives

(Credit: Intel)

David Perlmutter, executive vice president/general manager of the mobility group, commented at IDF Shanghai on the input/output, or I/O, issues related to hard drives.

"CPUs, graphics, and media chips have improved significantly year after year, but I/O remained very limited in performance," Perlmutter, said. I/O refers to the data transfer speed of the hard drive. Even with the fastest processor in the world, he said, an I/O bottleneck can put a crimp on performance.

Intel currently offers small-capacity chip-level (what are called Thin Small Outline Packages or TSOPs) technology that provides end-product sizes ranging up to 16GB. But this modest line of products will get a big boost in the second quarter when Intel offers 1.8- and 2.5-inch SSDs ranging from 80GB to 160GB in capacity. Intel's SSDs will compete with Samsung, for example, which is slated to bring out a 128GB SSD in the third quarter.

Click here for more stories on IDF Shanghai.

Intel showed what it considers the smallest PC motherboard in the world at the Intel Developers Forum (IDF) in Shanghai. The motherboard, or main PC circuit board, will go into the company's next-generation "Moorestown" mobile Internet device (MID) platform due in the 2009-2010 time frame.

Intel's Anand Chandrasekher holding motherboard

(Credit: Intel Corp.)

"Our engineers have been very hard at work on Moorestown," Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Ultra Mobility Group, said during an IDF keynote speech Wednesday. "The platform design teams have been hard at work in figuring out what is the smallest form factor that they can actually fit a complete PC motherboard into so they can deliver a great mobile Internet experience."

"What I'm holding in my hand is what is possibly the world's smallest PC motherboard," Chandrasekher said. The Moorestown motherboard houses the processor, chipset (including graphics), and memory, along with silicon for 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS, he said. "This is the heart of the new machine."

Moorestown will be Intel's showcase system-on-a-chip, combining the CPU, graphics, and memory controller (and other silicon mentioned above) on a single die. It will likely be the main launching pad for Intel into the mobile phone market--what the chipmaker calls "MID phones." Moorestown may also be a major market for Intel's upcoming solid-state drives.

Intel Moorestown platform

(Credit: Intel Corp.)

Click here for more stories on IDF Shanghai.