Videoconference on a Smartphone

During his keynote presentation at CES 2010, focused on the future of computing, Intel's CEO Paul Otellini showed how advances in processor technologies would make it possible to run even the most demanding applications on smaller devices.

To achieve the demonstration, Intel partnered with Vidyo, a provider of high-definition video conferencing software that uses a multipoint architecture based on the Scalable Video Coding extension to the H.264/AVC standard running on the next generation Moorestown implementation of Intel's Atom processors. Moorestown is a system on a chip that incorporates a next-generation 45-nanometer Atom processor.

All CES keynotes videos are available here.

Intel Atom versus ARM Cortex-A9

The ARMflix channel on Youtube has provided a side-by-side performance comparison of a netbook based on the Intel Atom processor and a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 development board.

Wireless Display

Presetned at last CES, Intel's Wireless Display technology (WiDi) requires a laptop PC based on select 2010 Intel Core processors, Intel HD Graphics, and Intel Centrino wireless with Intel MyWiFi Technology enabled. In addition, the laptop needs to have Intel Wireless Display preinstalled. Finally, an adapter featuring Intel Wireless Display is required to receive the signals from the PC and display them on the TV. This adapter is connected to the TV via either HDMI (preferred) or standard AV cables.

Intel expects WiDi systems from several PC makers to be available in Best Buy stores by January 17 as reported in the new official WiDi website.

IDF 2009 (2): the CE4100 SoC

At IDF 2009 Intel Corporation unveiled the Atom CE4100, the newest System-on-Chip (SoC) in a family of media processors designed to bring Internet content and services to digital TVs, DVD players and advanced set-top boxes.

The CE4100 processor, formerly codenamed "Sodaville," is the first 45nm-manufactured consumer electronics (CE) SoC based on Intel architecture. It supports Internet and broadcast applications on one chip, and has the processing power and audio/video components necessary to run rich media applications such as 3-D graphics.

"The architecture of Intel media processors provides a powerful and innovative platform to showcase Flash-based applications in a vivid way," said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president, Platform Business Unit at Adobe. "Flash Player 10 combined with the performance of the Intel media processor and its support for standards such as OpenGL ES 2.0 offers a compelling environment for Flash-based games, videos and other rich Web content and applications." The companies expect Adobe Flash Player 10 to be available in the first half of 2010 for Intel media processor-based CE devices.

Intel CE media processors provide a full-featured software framework called Widget Channel for the development of Internet applications, or TV widgets. Broadcast networks such as CBS are expanding the gallery of TV widgets to help their viewers find and connect to premium content in a more personalized manner.

See the full press release.

IDF 2009

The Intel Developer Forum has been held in San Francisco between September 22 and 24, 2009. All the Keynote and Briefing presentations are available at the IDF Pressroom. Here is the full program.

Day 1

• Keynote: Paul Otellini - Building a Continuum of Computing
• Keynote: Sean Maloney - Intel® Architecture Innovates and Integrates
• Briefing: Steve Smith - Intel Roadmap Overview
• Briefing: Mark Bohr - 22 nm SRAM Announcement

Day 2

• Keynote: Dadi Perlmutter - Mobile Computing: The Definition of Cool
• Keynote: Renee James - Developing for the Continuum of Intel Platforms
• Briefing: Mooly Eden - Revolutionary, Intelligent Intel® Core™ i7 Processors - Coming Soon to a Laptop Near You

Day 3

• Keynote: Eric Kim - The Architecture of CE Innovation
• Keynote: Justin Rattner - Convergence is So Yesterday: The Future of Television

Intel's advancement in Silicon Photonics

The latest Intel's press release - entitled "Intel's Silicon Photonics Advancement Aims to Accelerate Future Computing, Communications" - unveils a major achievement in Silicon Photonics, an emerging technology using standard silicon to send and receive optical information among computers and other electronic devices, allowing ultra-fast data transfer for future bandwidth-intensive computing applications, such as remote medicine and lifelike 3-D virtual worlds.

A team led by Intel researchers created the silicon-based APD (Avalanche Photodetector), a light sensor that achieves superior sensitivity by detecting light and amplifying weak signals as light is directed onto silicon. This APD device used silicon and CMOS processing to achieve a "gain-bandwidth product" of 340 GHz -- the best result ever measured for this key APD performance metric. This opens the door to lower the cost of optical links running at data rates of 40Gbps or higher and proves, for the first time, that a silicon photonics device can exceed the performance of a device made with traditional, more expensive optical materials such as indium phosphide.

Mario Paniccia, Ph.D., Intel Fellow and director of the company's Photonics Technology Lab declared "In addition to optical communication, these silicon-based APDs could also be applied to other areas such as sensing, imaging, quantum cryptography or biological applications."

Numonyx, a leading maker of NOR, NAND, RAM and phase change non-volatile memory technologies, provided manufacturing and process expertise.