IDF Spring 2008: Pre-IDF Technology Showcase

IDF Spring 2008 is here to bring more techie goodness. We managed to have a quick run of the technology showcase floor a day before, so we thought you'd like to know what Intel has been cooking up lately. There is even a Nehalem sighting, so don't miss out.

By Zachary Chan - 1 Apr 2008

Of Mobility and the Technology Showcase

IDF Spring 2008 is shaping up to be heavily mobility centric, with MIDs, Netbooks and Nettops taking center stage. Day Zero has revealed a number of new research efforts and directions that Intel is heading in the small form factor and mobility areas and we had a chance to get into their technology showcase before the crowd really starts to pour in tomorrow. Most of the technologies Intel is researching in the mobility sector now is focused on what Intel calls CSLL, the new mobility buzz-acronym that spells Carry Small, Live Large. CSLL is a vision of what mobile devices will be in the future (if Intel had its way and succeeded in world domination of course).

Carry Small focuses on cramming in more features into a device, improving performance, energy efficiency, and form factor. The concept here really isn't anything new. If you look at mobile devices today, the industry is already going the way of convergence. Take the Nokia N95 and Apple iPhone for instance. Of course, when Intel looks into it, it is not the consumer front, but the technology back end as to how to get this done. Mostly, Carry Small will be realized through PoC (Platform on a Chip) research and designs.

To this end, the research into Radio technology already has results to show for. Radio research is aimed at making radios smaller, more power efficient, smarter and more compatible with multiple wireless standards. In a briefing on multi-radio technology, Krishnamurthy Soumyanath, Intel Director Communications Technology Lab, revealed a few technology firsts such as the first reconfigurable analog to digital converter (ADC) for 802.11n applications, first 65m CMOS power amplifier for multi-radio and the first mm-wave CMOS synthesizer with a <3kHz frequency resolution.

The Live Large portion is more ambitious and interesting. Intel is focusing on technologies that make your device more aware of its environment and can use this environment to improve user experience. Some of these technologies aren't new, such as location based services, which is similar to geotagging. Some require too much processing power to implement in a mobile device as of now, such as context awareness. In a demo, Intel showed a sensor (camera) that could pick out among a busy crowd the person that was actually waving at the camera. There was also a demo on object recognition as well. However, you need about 4TFlops of computing power for the algorithm.

Still, there are a few technologies that have made it into a workable phase, which was displayed at the IDF Tech Showcase.

CSLL Enabling Technologies

Wireless device discovery and setup demo where the mobile device will scan the room for WiFi enabled deviced with a monitor that it can latch on to. After secure connection via pin input or near field link-up, the mobile device can either take control of the linked display as its own, or stream video, data, etc. One caveat, the WiFi devices must be tailored to include certain information in its broadcast so the mobile device can identify them. While the technology works, Intel must first secure a standards body to make the broadcast information an industry standard for it to go anywhere.

Similar to a secondary monitor, except that it's wireless and automatically configured.

Data path for wireless remote rendering technology.

Wireless remote rendering in action. Too bad it was both running at about 7fps only.

Ominous robot hand all alone in the corner.

This is actually part of Intel's sensory research for device context awareness and ESP (Everyday Sensing and Perception). The robot hand here can sense objects in its grasp and react accordingly.

Intel Netbooks

Intel was also busy showcasing the newly termed Netbook and Nettop PC segment that use the Intel Atom processor and use new form factors that are smaller than the current laptop and desktop system segments respectively. For more information on these new segments, tune in to our related links segment below for the more details that we recently published.