Innovation@Intel

Innovation@Intel: Safer & Smarter Roads

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:06:36 -0500

A number of traffic accidents are caused by worn down car tires. Intel along with industry players, Kontron and ProContour have developed tire-tread monitoring embedded technology that is making roads smarter. Kontron, a member of the Intel® Embedded and Communications Alliance has developed a camera with an Intel® Core™2 Duo processor that captures tire tread depth as a tire passes over a specialized grate. This technology can alert drivers when their tires need replacement to avoid potentially dangerous driving situations. Learn more about embedded solutions for safer roads.

Innovation@Intel: Delivering 1 Million IOPs Using Seven PCI Express Prototype SSDs!

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:06:41 -0500

Recently Intel showcased more than 1 million IOPs (input/output operations per second) supported by a single mainstream server using 7 PCIe solid state drive (SSD) prototypes. With this proof of concept, Intel is identifying platform bottlenecks and working on engineering improvements for future storage products. To get this kind of performance from conventional hard drives, you would need many storage racks, filled with ~4,000 hard drives - an expensive, space-consuming and power-hungry proposition. Intel used one dual socket server with an expansion box and consumed only ~400 watts (more than 100x lower power than a hard drive configuration would have). We used a challenging workload for a single 1U server: 4Kbyte transfers with a 2:1 read/write ratio. Meanwhile, the CPUs were only about 50% utilized, leaving plenty of power left for applications. This could enable an online retailer to host an unprecedented number of website transactions while containing costs or a game developer could bring products to market faster. For more info, see Senior VP & GM, Bob Baker's Intel Developer Forum Keynote "Silicon Leadership - Delivering Innovation" and recent press.

Innovation@Intel: On-chip Highways - 2D Interconnect for Tera-scale Processors

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:06:11 -0500

The ability to integrate hundreds of Intel Architecture cores into future microprocessors will help deliver the power of Moore's Law to new user interfaces and visually compelling experiences. A high performance, resilient, core-to-core interconnect will be as important for these tera-scale microprocessors as a well-designed highway grid is to moving goods and services across a country. Recently Intel demonstrated a next generation 2D interconnect prototype that provides high data bandwidth and low latencies between cores, memory and I/O. The demo also featured our -MCEMU FPGA-based many-core emulation platform developed at Intel Labs, in Braunschweig, Germany, and a 3D visual interface developed with UC Irvine. For more information see a webcast of the demo from the recent Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.

Innovation@Intel: Medical Imaging with Many-Core

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 12:06:49 -0400

Physicians today are collecting more complex imagery on their patients than ever before. Combined with the need to accurately diagnose disease and develop treatment strategies in a minimally-invasive manner, new imaging modes, methods, and hardware are needed. In collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, Intel is presenting a paper at the IEEE VisWeek09 Conference today titled "Mapping High-Fidelity Volume Rendering for Medical Imaging to CPU, CPU and Many-Core Architectures," outlining how medical imaging benefits from the parallel processing architecture in the Intel microarchitecture, code-named Nehalem. Medical volumetric imaging requires high fidelity, high performance rendering algorithms. We've now achieved more than an order of magnitude performance improvement on a number of large 3D medical datasets.

Innovation@Intel: Fast Food Made Faster, Smarter

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:06:58 -0400

Quick Service Restaurants (QSRs), known for making a science of fast food preparation and customer service, are getting a boost with embedded technology. WAND Corporation's Digital Restaurant, powered by Intel processing technology, gives QSRs the ability to immediately alter images, prices and display configurations on digital menu boards and point-of-sale terminals, as well as track the success of marketing programs through sales transactions. The remote management capabilities available through Intel® vPro™ Technology gives QSRs the flexibility to respond quickly to customer trends, inventory outages and competitor price drops. Learn more about Intel solutions for digital signage and retail.

Innovation@Intel: Robots Among Us

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:07:16 -0400

Take a closer look the next time you visit a hospital, factory or store - there may be a robot that is monitoring radiation levels, carrying heavy loads or promoting new products. Robots powered by Intel processors and based on MobileRobots' Motivity can accommodate environments and alter behavior to suit current conditions, including navigating around people and objects, and "learning" the surrounding layout. This is one example of the 15 billion devices expected to be connected to the Internet by 2015. Learn more about Intel's work with intelligent robots.

Innovation@Intel: Shaping the Mobile PC's Future

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:06:57 -0400

Intel Rock Star Ajay Bhatt today at the Intel Developer Forum presented how mobile processor power/performance continues to improve with every generation of process technology and how the revolution in the mobile platform enables thinner, lighter notebook PCs with longer battery life that are indispensible in our day-to-day lives. Download session materials to learn more about enhancements to come to Intel® Architecture mobile platforms. (Locate course number: MPTS001 in the content catalog).

Innovation@Intel: Intel Supply Chain Improvements Lead to Satisfied Customers

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:06:56 -0400

Intel has made significant improvements in its supply chain, as Intel Senior Vice President Bob Baker outlined in his keynote this week at the Intel Developer Forum. Intel's 'Just Say Yes' initiative has led to significant improvements in customer fulfillment. Manufacturing cycle times have been reduced by 62 percent. Our ability to respond to customer change orders - both positively and quickly - has improved 300 percent. Our turnaround time from customer order placement to delivery has improved 25 percent just in the past 12 months. Our delivery performance to committed dock date has improved significantly. Each of these supply chain improvements has led to more satisfied customers. See Bob Baker's keynote materials for more info on how Intel is improving its supply chain.

Innovation@Intel: Ultimate Multi-Tasking Concept PC

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:06:24 -0400

Today at IDF, Intel showcased the world's first multi-screen, multi-touch concept mobile PC made possible using Intel's standard voltage CPU and Intel Graphics. This concept was developed as an inspiration for next generation notebooks. Without compromising on the activity on your main screen, it allows you to organize and enjoy information your way, in snack-able bits, using the multiple auxiliary screens strategically located just above the keyboard.

Innovation@Intel: Composition and the Collaborative Office

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:07:08 -0400

Today's conference room equipment is often inefficient and cumbersome, between initiating conference calls and passing projector cables from one presenter to the next. Using wireless display and mobile device-to-speakerphone dialing demonstrated recently at Research@Intel Day, users can have more effective meetings by seamlessly switching between presenters and more easily establishing conference calls. For more information, see the "Carry Small, Live Large" Research Program.

Innovation@Intel: New Entertainment Experiences in the WiMAX Connected Vehicle

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:06:37 -0400

Today's personal and in-vehicle entertainment devices are highly incompatible with each other outside of a simple wired connection that enables only rudimentary interactions. In the new mobile world, Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) used with Intel® Atom™-powered, WiMAX-enabled automobiles, can deliver a personalized, enhanced in-vehicle entertainment experience, as demonstrated recently at Research@Intel Day. Personal preferences contained in MIDs can customize the in-car entertainment experience while WiMAX-based wireless Internet services link drivers with the world around them to enable exciting new safety, entertainment and communication experiences for tomorrow's automobiles.

Innovation@Intel - Enriching the Living Room Experience

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:06:26 -0400

The combination of mobile devices and consumer electronics equipment can deliver a rich living room entertainment experience when they are aware of and interact with each other in new and unique ways. Researchers at the recent Research@Intel Day demonstrated how Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and notebooks can be used with a set top box running Intel technology to wirelessly show photos and videos, interact with applications, and play games. See "Integrating Mobile Wireless Devices into Future Living Rooms" video for more information.

Innovation@Intel - Wireless Resonant Energy Link: Efficient Wireless Power

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:06:32 -0400

With the dramatic rise in the number of electronic devices we each use in our everyday lives powered by batteries that often need recharging; the costs, resources and management of multiple, incompatible power cords, and adapters have become cumbersome and time consuming for the typical user. Intel Labs Seattle researchers demonstrated recently, at Research@Intel Day, "Wireless Resonant Energy Link" (WREL) - the transfer of electricity without using any wires. This technology could allow people to cut the last cord that keeps mobile devices tethered. See video for more information on this research.

Innovation@Intel: Face Tracking Enhances Speech Recognition

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:07:33 -0400

A classic speech recognition problem is how the computer can determine whether the user is talking to the computer, or to someone else. Intel researchers have developed an innovative solution with face-tracking software that processes video from a camera above the PC screen to determine whether the user is facing the PC or looking away. When the user is facing the PC, audio input and speech recognition is enabled; when the user is looking away, it's muted. This application utilizes two compute-intensive and highly-parallelizable workloads: image processing and speech recognition, and is currently most feasible on multi-core PCs. For more information, see video from Research@Intel Day 2009.

Innovation@Intel: Next Stop - Intel® Atom™ Processor Innovation on the Railroad

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:06:57 -0400

The great American railroad system has come a long way since the steam engine. Taking railroad technological innovation a step further, Intel, UC Berkeley and Intel Capital company Arch Rock are in the testing phase for Intel® Atom™ processor-based wireless sensor system that would allow train operators to monitor the railroad system in real-time. The tiny sensors, which are partially powered by the vibration of the car itself, communicate via Wi-Fi-enabled handheld devices, enabling personnel to monitor the location of each railcar, its operating condition and parameters affecting the cargo. This is one more example of how the 15 billion devices expected to be connected to the Internet by 2015 are enhancing our lives now.