A Glimpse Of Intel's Futuristic Gadgets

Wouldn't it be useful to have a gadget that immediately warned you when the information you just saw on the Internet or heard from a buddy might be baloney?

How about a gizmo that helps you remember the names of people you encounter whose faces you only vaguely recall? Or a personal robot with such a gentle touch it could fetch your reading glasses without leaving a scratch?

These are among more than three dozen futuristic concepts being explored by Santa Clara chip maker Intel. Some might seem an odd fit for a company known for its sophisticated microprocessors, which serve as the brains of personal computers and other devices. But Intel's researchers, often working with universities, are constantly looking for innovative products or new uses for those it already sells.

"We want to be focused on breakthrough technologies," Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner said during an unveiling of the research recently at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. "We believe our mission is to take risks and define the exceptional opportunities."

Here are a few of the ideas the company is working on:

Dispute Finder: This experiment, recently being tried out at http:// disputefinder.cs.berkeley.edu/, is designed to enable Web surfers who install a browser extension to instantly know when a news article, blog or something else they are reading online is contradicted by other information.

Disputed snippets of text are automatically highlighted. When clicked on, these sections reveal contrary or supporting facts, which have been submitted by other Web users, similar to the way Wikipedia compiles its information. Users also can vote on the relative importance of the evidence, with the evidence receiving the most votes getting the most prominent display.

Robert Ennals, Intel's principal investigator for the idea, envisions people one day carrying mobile devices that can check the reliability of what others express verbally.

"The plan is to use voice-recognition software to automatically transcribe what is being heard into text" and then compare that with a copy of the dispute-finder database stored on the device, Ennals said. "We don't think that voice recognition is quite good enough to do this yet, but we hope that the technology will be good enough fairly soon."

He added that the mobile device might be designed to vibrate if it finds evidence contrary to what is said.

Face recognition: If you often can't remember the names of people you've met and suddenly encounter again, Intel is working on something for you. It's a gadget you'd wear that would be equipped with a camera and a database full of images of your acquaintances.

That way, if you're at a party or other place and run into somebody whose name you can't recall, the gizmo would recognize their face and remind you who they are.

Tour guide: Intel thinks mobile devices with visual-recognition capabilities also would prove useful to people who find themselves in unfamiliar places.

One version might contain information about the interior layout of buildings so it could direct a patient to a doctor's office in a large hospital, for example. Another might function like a vacation tour guide, said David Bormann, an Intel official exploring such ideas.

If you're visiting Paris and go to the Eiffel Tower, such a device would recognize the structure and provide interesting facts about it, he said. And if you point it at a bistro where you're considering having lunch, he added, the device might find reviews of the restaurant "so you can decide if you want to eat there."

Gentle robots: To lessen the likelihood of robotic devices damaging objects they grab, Intel is experimenting with versions of the machines that are capable of electrolocation, an ability some fish have to detect things by bouncing electric fields off them.

The company, which has equipped a mechanical hand with that capability, says the technology gives robots the "nervous sense of reluctant touch" that human hands display when grasping something delicate.

Intel envisions robots one day fetching and doing all sorts of other tasks for people.

"The robotics industry today is at a point analogous to the personal computing industry of the early 1980s," the company says on its Web site. "In the next decade the number of personal robots deployed in unstructured environments like homes could grow dramatically."

Intel officials generally wouldn't speculate on how long it might take for these concepts to wind up on the market — if ever. But a poster displayed at the event noted, "your kid's kid's kid won't think what we're doing is crazy at all."

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Source: http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_12681133

Tags: Intel, Gadgets, Gentle Robots, David Bormann, electrolocation, robotics, Facial recognition, Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Visual recognition, Dispute finder, Global IT News, Dispute finder software,

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Intel and Nokia Announce Long-Term Relationship

In a deal intended to strengthen Intel's push into the mobile computing arena, the Santa Clara chip maker and Finnish cell phone giant Nokia on Tuesday announced what they called a long-term relationship to develop new mobile devices.

Under the arrangement, the companies said they will work together on chip design and open-source software. Intel recently has entered that field with its Linux-based operating system called Moblin, designed to function on portable devices, and Nokia has a Linux-based operating system, dubbed Maemo. In addition, Intel will license some modem technology from Nokia.

However, executives with the two companies repeatedly declined during a conference call and a later interview to discuss what type of devices they might make and to what extent Nokia might use Intel's chips.

"We will talk about products when we are ready to talk about products, but that is not for today's discussion," said Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's ultra mobility group.

"There is a lot of room for innovation here, to really define what mobile can do," said Kai Öistämö, Nokia's executive vice president for devices. "It's a future full of different possibilities." After the announcement, Intel's stock rose 13 cents to $15.81 at the close of trading.

No financial terms were disclosed for the deal, and the two executives were evasive about when their collaborative discussions began. They said only that their companies have been doing joint research for several years. In May, Intel, Nokia and a number of other companies formed an association to promote rapid new wireless technology for shuttling data among computers, high-definition television sets and other devices in homes.

Although details about the agreement announced Tuesday remain vague, the deal suggests intriguing possibilities for Intel. Although the company's x86 microprocessors serve as the brains in most personal computers and servers, it sees the rapidly expanding market for mobile computing devices as one of its biggest growth opportunities. And the cell phone business, where Nokia is the world's biggest manufacturer, is an area Intel is especially keen to enter.

Intel, whose chips are not used in Nokia products, has so far been shut out of the cell phone market. That's largely because Intel's microprocessors use too much power to enable the phones to maintain sufficient battery life. Instead, cell phones use low-power chips based on technology developed by ARM, a small company in the United Kingdom.

Öistämö said Nokia plans to continue working with ARM-based chip makers. But Intel hopes to break into the cell phone market with future versions of a chip it introduced in March last year, called Atom, which uses less power than other Intel microprocessors and is relatively inexpensive. Moblin, one of the open-source software systems that Intel and Nokia will collaborate on, works well with the Atom chip, the companies noted in their joint press release.

What sort of devices the two companies might develop remains unclear. Nokia has been rumored this year to be considering making netbooks, which are smaller than laptops. Intel, whose microprocessors already are in laptops and netbooks, is promoting its chips for even tinier gadgets, including phones.

In their press release, the companies said they hoped to "define a new mobile platform beyond today's smart-phones, notebooks and netbooks." The deal drew mixed reviews from analysts.

"This is a compelling partnership," Jack Gold, founder of technology research firm J. Gold Associates, based in Massachusetts, said in a note to his clients. "We do not envision Nokia abandoning its core dependence on the ARM architecture in the short term, but longer term (two to three years) we expect Nokia to offer devices based on Atom." Gold added that "this collaboration could limit the impact Google's Android operating system will have on the netbook market."

But J.P. Morgan analyst Christopher Danely was less enthusiastic about the partnership, writing to his clients that "we don't expect much to come out of it."

While the deal "should help Intel in its quest to generate wireless design wins for its Atom processor," Danely concluded, "we continue to believe the deficiencies of Atom in power consumption, cost and software relative to other applications processors render it an uncompetitive product."

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_12672076?source=email

Tags: Intel, Nokia, Strategic Partnership, Jack Gold, Atom, ARM chips, Google Android, Christopher Danley, JP Morgan, Silicon Valley, Moblin, Santa Clara, Netbooks, Maemo, Global IT News,

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A Cell Phone That Never Needs Charging

Nokia hopes to create a device that could harvest enough power to keep a cell phone topped up.

A cell phone that never needs recharging might sound too good to be true, but Nokia says it's developing technology that could draw enough power from ambient radio waves to keep a cell-phone handset topped up.

Ambient electromagnetic radiation--emitted from Wi-Fi transmitters, cell-phone antennas, TV masts, and other sources--could be converted into enough electrical current to keep a battery topped up, says Markku Rouvala, a researcher from the Nokia Research Centre, in Cambridge, U.K.

Rouvala says that his group is working towards a prototype that could harvest up to 50 milliwatts of power--enough to slowly recharge a phone that is switched off. He says current prototypes can harvest 3 to 5 milliwatts.

The Nokia device will work on the same principles as a crystal radio set or radio frequency identification (RFID) tag: by converting electromagnetic waves into an electrical signal. This requires two passive circuits. "Even if you are only getting microwatts, you can still harvest energy, provided your circuit is not using more power than it's receiving," Rouvala says.

To increase the amount of power that can be harvested and the range at which it works, Nokia is focusing on harvesting many different frequencies. "It needs a wideband receiver," says Rouvala, to capture signals from between 500 megahertz and 10 gigahertz--a range that encompasses many different radio communication signals.

Historically, energy-harvesting technologies have only been found in niche markets, powering wireless sensors and RFID tags in particular. If Nokia's claims stand up, then it could push energy harvesting into mainstream consumer devices.

Earlier this year, Joshua Smith at Intel and Alanson Sample at the University of Washington, in Seattle, developed a temperature-and-humidity sensor that draws its power from the signal emitted by a 1.0-megawatt TV antenna 4.1 kilometers away.

This only involved generating 60 microwatts, however. Smith says that 50 milliwatts could require around 1,000 strong signals and that an antenna capable of picking up such a wide range of frequencies would cause efficiency losses along the way.

"To get 50 milliwatts seems like a lot," adds Harry Ostaffe, head of marketing for Pittsburgh-based company Powercast, which sells a system for recharging sensors from about 15 meters away with a dedicated radio signal.

Steve Beeby, an engineer and physicist at the University of Southampton, U.K., who has researched harvesting vibrational energy, adds, "If they can get 50 milliwatts out of ambient RF, that would put me out of business." He says that the potential could be huge because MP3 players typically use only about 100 milliwatts of power and spend most of their time in lower-power mode.

Nokia is being cagey with the details of the project, but Rouvala is confident about its future: "I would say it is possible to put this into a product within three to four years." Ultimately, though, he says that Nokia plans to use the technology in conjunction with other energy-harvesting approaches, such as solar cells embedded into the outer casing of the handset.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/22764/

Tags: Nokia, Ambient power, Intel, University of Washington, Vibrational energy, ambient cell phone charging, RFID, Powercast, Global IT News, MP3, MIT, Wifi, Nokia Research Centre,

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Cisco Joins Dow Jones Industrial Average Today

Cisco Systems today joins the elite circle of 30 blue-chip businesses that make up the Dow Jones industrial average, a move that may make it easier for the San Jose company to attract investors — at least initially.

Plus, in joining Intel and Hewlett-Packard on the list, Cisco is sure to get a boost in prestige. But more than anything, experts say, the decision to replace General Motors with Cisco is recognition that technology is a primary innovator and spark plug of the nation's economy. And that trend is turning heads everywhere from Wall Street to Washington.

"It signals the ascendancy of Silicon Valley and high tech," said Stephen Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. "We're seeing older industries and companies be replaced by a sector that has substantial long-term growth prospects."

Technology already has the attention of President Barack Obama, who is actively promoting such ideas as smarter electricity grids and computerized health records. And now, with Cisco, HP and Intel on the fabled stock index, along with IBM and Microsoft, elected officials may listen even more closely to the needs of Bay Area businesses, said Jim Wunderman, CEO of the Bay Area Council.

"It certainly cements the tech industry in Silicon Valley as an integral part of the American economy," he said. "From a public policy basis, it has some impact. I think it makes a stronger case in Washington and maybe in the state capitals."

Since its debut in 1896, the Dow Jones industrial average has predominately featured so-called smokestack industries, from U.S. Rubber and Bethlehem Steel to Standard Oil and American Smelting. However, reflecting a major shift in the nation's economy, those types of businesses have gradually given ground to firms offering products centered on computers, software and communications technology.

Officials with the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis say it's hard to say how much of the gross domestic product is represented by sales of such technology to consumers and the government. But business purchases alone of such goods represented about 3 percent of the GDP in 2008, compared with less than 1 percent in 1968. And one of the biggest up-and-comers in the tech field is Cisco, which was founded in 1984 and earned $8 billion on sales of nearly $40 billion during its most recent fiscal year.

Since the June 1 announcement that Cisco will replace GM, a part of the index for 83 years, the Internet-networking equipment maker's stock price has risen more than 7 percent, closing Friday at $19.87. That kind of increase is common after companies are first selected for the list, in part because some big institutions invest heavily in firms that are on such indexes, said Sybille Reitz, a Dow Jones spokeswoman.

"It certainly does increase your visibility in the market," she said. "You're included among the bluest of the blue-chip companies in the United States." But the share-price bump frequently is temporary, she said, adding, "at the end of the day, it doesn't mean anything to their business or to their long-term stock price."

Although HP executives declined to discuss how they've been affected by being placed on the list in 1997, Intel, which got on two years later, hasn't seen much of an impact, according to spokesman Chuck Mulloy. "By and large, it's more prestige than anything substantive," he said.

John Roberts, director of Stanford's Center for Global Business and the Economy, also expressed skepticism that being on the index would mean significantly more business for Cisco or Silicon Valley. After all, he said, "very few people can tell you whether a given company is in the DJ30. I certainly cannot."

Still, in a prepared statement, Cisco officials said they are pleased at their inclusion. Noting that today marks "the first time in nearly 10 years that a technology company has been added to the Dow," the company said, "We are honored with this recognition of our continued strong performance."

Tags: Cisco Systems, Cisco, DJIA, Dow Jones Industrial Average, GM, Sybille Reitz, Chuck Mulloy, DJ30, John Roberts, Stanford's Center for Global Business and the Economy, Silicon Valley, Bay Area Council, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Intel,

Source: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_12530721?source=email

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Google Android Steals The Show At Computex Taiwan

The Computex Taipei 2009 electronics show ended Saturday after a week-long display of new gadgets, including netbooks, ultra thin laptops made with new Intel chips and several surprises surrounding Google's Android mobile phone operating system.

 

The show's final numbers were down nearly across the board from last year, but not by much considering the global recession andfears surrounding the H1N1 swine flu.

 

An estimated 100,000 people visited Computex Taipei 2009 from around the world, down slightly from 106,517 last year, according to figures from the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA). The totals include 32,178 international buyers, down from 34,685 last year and 1,712 exhibitors, down compared to 1,750.

 

The only figure that improved was the amount of booths rented, which rose to 4,498 this year, from around 4,000 last year. The 2008 comparison figures were taken from last year's closing press release from Computex, important to note because show organizers did not offer the figures on the 2009 press release, instead saying most of the 2009 numbers were up between 1 percent and 5 percent over last year.

 

A TAITRA official was unable to immediately explain the discrepancy in the figures. Chinese companies at Computex's first ever China pavilion complained deal-making was slower than they had expected. Chinese network equipment maker Shenzhen Yichen Technology Development found 30 percent to 40 percent more buyers at the show last year compared to this year, a representative manning the company's booth said on the last day of Computex.

 

The representative blamed the economic downturn for what he said was a smaller turnout at the exhibition than last year. The aisles of Chinese company booths were empty compared to other areas of the exhibition. This was the first year Chinese companies were officially welcomed at Computex, though JCG was one of a group that attended last year by registering as Hong Kong-based companies. Political differences between Taiwan and China have kept the presence of Chinese firms to a minimum in the past, but growing bonds between people in both places has turned out to be a boon for business.

 

Over 130 Chinese companies had booths this year, according to TAITRA. One first-time exhibitor, southern Chinese laptop vendor and designer Guangzhou Darling Industrial, also perceived a low turnout. The company did not secure the four to five business partners it expected to find, said a representative at the company's booth. The company also hoped to form partnerships with companies from outside Taiwan, but Taiwanese businesses were the main attendees, she said.

 

The company has not decided if it will attend next year, she said. Some companies blamed the sluggish global economy for the apparent lack of deals, while other said fear of the swine flu may have kept potential buyers away.

 

Taiwan put several measures in place to guard against swine flu, including hand wipe stations at the front doors of the exhibition areas and infrared scanners capable of detecting fevers via heat that international airline passengers had to walk past on their way to passport control.

 

The number of new gadgets and announcements did not show any signs of slowdown from last year. Computex served as a coming out party for Google's Android mobile operating system in devices outside the smartphones for which it was designed.

 

Mobile phone chip maker Qualcomm showed off a previously unannounced version of Asustek Computer's Eee PC based on its Snapdragon processor and running the Android OS. Asustek pioneered netbooks and has used other Linux OSes in its netbooks in the past, but prior to Computex it had almost completely changed over to Microsoft Windows XP, which is the most popular OS for netbooks.

 

The new Eee PC also lacked the Intel Atom microprocessors that have become ubiquitous in netbooks. Instead the device, which is thinner and lighter than current members of Asustek's Eee PC netbook lineup, uses a Snapdragon chip with a 1GHz ARM processing core. The chips use less electricity and give off less heat than Atoms, so the mini-laptops they're in do not require cooling systems such as heat sinks or fans.

 

Qualcomm, Freescale Semiconductor and Texas Instruments call the devices smartbooks. The smartbooks on display at Computex looked a lot like netbooks, with 10-inch screens and full keyboards, but they can run for eight hours on a three-cell battery, compared to two or three hours for a netbook with a three-cell battery.

 

One potential benefit of the devices aside from their long battery life is easy connectivity to mobile phone networks for wireless Internet surfing. But one downside is that since they use ARM microprocessors instead of x86 processors such as Atom, they will miss out on the huge library of software made for x86 chips, though software can always be revamped to run on the ARM processors.

 

Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) also showed off a smartbook running Android, on chips from Texas Instruments.

 

Acer may become the first company to put out a netbook with Android in the third quarter of this year if it can beat some rivals, such as China's Guangzhou Skytone Transmission Technologies, which has said its Android netbook is undergoing final testing.

 

What's unique about Acer's new Aspire One netbook with Android is that the processor inside is an Intel Atom, not an ARM-based chip. Acer worked with a Taiwanese Linux distributor to port Android over to x86 processors, a first for the OS.

 

Not to be left out, MIPS Technologies worked with software developer Embedded Alley to port Android to the MIPS chip architecture, which the companies also showed on devices at Computex.

 

Several other companies displayed their first-ever Android-based gadgets, including Inventec Appliances, which showed a smartphone and handheld computer and Kinpo, which displayed a handheld computer. Other vendors such as BenQ, Micro-Star International (MSI) and Garmin-Asus vowed to catch up with Android-based products of their own.

 

There were a number of other notable devices shown off at Computex, including thin, light laptops created around Intel's CULV (consumer ultra low voltage) microprocessors from every major Taiwanese producer, such as Acer's Timeline laptop series and Asustek's U-series.

 

New netbook designs were on show, including Gigabyte Technology's TouchNote T1028 netbook running Microsoft Windows 7 and sporting a 10.1-inch touchscreen that swivels around and folds down to transform it into a tablet PC. Other netbooks and nettops with Nvidia Ion graphics chips inside were available at several booths, while e-book devices were also out in force.

 

One nice aspect of Computex is that unlike other trade shows that show off concept devices and cutting edge technologies that may never make it to market, the majority of what's shown in Taipei is on store shelves ahead of year-end holidays.

 

Tags: Computex Taiwan, Taiwan, ECS, Intel, Acer, Global IT News, Taipei, Google, Google Android, BenQ, Kinpo, Asustek, Inventec Appliances, netbooks, Nvidia, nettops, Gigabyte Technology, Garmin-Asus, smartphones, MIPS Technologies, computer chips, MIPS chips, Aspire One notebook, linux, android netbook, intel atom, shytone transmission technologies, Computex Taipei 2009, Taiwan External Trade Development Council, TAITRA, snapdragon processor, Shenzhen Yichen Technology Development,

 

Source: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20090606/tc_pcworld/computexattendancefallsbutandroiddazzles_1

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