Bewitched, bothered and bedazzled
Fashion and technology come together in Intel’s vision of the wearable future.
At this year’s intel Developer Forum (iDF), the giant chipmaker made a shift from the usual hardware announcements to a more developer-centric event focused on helping not just big companies but also hobbyists to extend the functionality of its many products.
As such, intel chief executive officer Brian Krzanich’s keynote address only had two hardware announcements — that the company has started shipping its haswell-based Xeon E5 V3 processor for servers and its next-generation processor, codenamed skylake, is due by the end of 2015
the bulk of the keynote, however, dealt with how it’s encouraging developers to apply technology in innovative ways with products like Edison, a small, low-cost Atom-based design which is expected to kickstart a whole ecosystem of smart devices.
Krzanich also brought up the subject of the so-called internet of things, the current buzzword of this generation, and showed off MiCA (my intelligent communication accessory), a wireless bracelet which was co-developed with the fashion brand Opening Ceremony. While there were scant details about what the product does, the device has a well-hidden screen which we presume does many of the things that smartwatches do.
Wire-free future
Perhaps the most interesting technologies showed off at iDF dealt with getting rid of the mass of cables leading in and out of our PCs.
Rezence, for instance, is a new wireless charging technology the company claims can work through wooden tables that are up to 2in thick.
Unlike competing wireless charging solutions, Rezence doesn’t require the devices to be as physically close to the charging pad and will recharge multiple units at once.
A consortium called A4WP — made up of companies such as Acer, DuPont, Emirates Airlines and hewlett-Packard — is drawing up the standards that will govern how Rezence will be integrated into a variety of devices and locations.
Emirates also announced that it’s planning to integrate it into its planes in the near future.
Wireless charging, however, is merely a small part of the company’s broader “no-wires future” strategy and its work on wireless data streaming will eliminate cables altogether in two more areas.
the first is Wireless Display (WiDi) — a new version is coming out next year that will be able to stream Ultra hD (UhD) content. Although most upcoming UhD tVs will ship with the latest WiDi tech, intel also showcased a small, low-cost adaptor that can plug into a hDMi port to offer WiDi capability.
Using the same wireless streaming technology that is the basis for WiDi, intel also demonstrated Wireless Gigabit Docking (WiGig), where users can just bring their mobile PCs or tablets to a workstation and have the device automatically transfer not just video to an external display, but also automatically connect to peripherals like keyboard, mouse and external storage without wires.
Sensing the world
One of the highlights of the keynote was when chief executive officer and founder of Dell inc, Michael Dell, came onto the stage with Krzanich to demonstrate the company’s upcoming Venue 8 7000 tablet range.
the Venue 8 runs on Android 4.4 Kit Kat and intel’s quad-core Atom “Moorefield” processor — Dell claims that the tablet is the world’s thinnest, at just 6mm thick.
however, it’s not the size or the 8.4in OLED (organic light emitting diode) screen with a whopping resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels that makes the device standout but rather its 3D “depth-sensing” camera technology
pioneered by Intel called RealSense.
Now, depth-sensing cameras on smarpthones and tablets are nothing new — HTC and LG have had similar hardware installed on their devices before.
However, RealSense uses the computing power of Intel’s Atom processor and some software magic to do a few very neat tricks.
For example, the Venue 8 allows a user to take a photo of an object and the RealSense technology will measure the length, width and height of that object.
Krzanich pointed out that the technology is very useful when, say, logistics companies need to figure out the dimensions of crates and other objects for efficient packing.
However, the tablet also comes with a number of more cool applications — because the device can sense depth and the shape of objects, one fun app can rain “snow” on any photo you take with the RealSense cameras and the virtual snow will settle on the objects in a realistic manner.
Photo editing apps on the Venue 8 are also depth aware and apart from just offering creative blur of the background and foreground, they also allow the user to edit and make adjustments to the colour and brightness.