intel innovation lights up research day

7/30/2019 Intel Innovation Lights Up Research Day

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Intel innovation lights up research day

Intel's 'show and tell' event allowed the company to highlight how it hopes to harmonise its

research and business objectives

Traffic lights will communicate directly with cars, if anIntelresearch project comes to

fruition. Also, "my taillight will communicate with your headlight," says Intel's Vu Nguyen,

"using Visible Light Communication (VLC): imagine morse code, but very fast. You can't

see it, but the light is flickering." The idea behind VLC is to provide safety features such as

"brake assist", so if the car in front brakes, your car will hit the brakes before you do.

It sounds a bit of a long shot because of the infrastructure required. However, there's already

aVisible Light Communications Consortium(vlcc.net) and Intel wants to be in at the

beginning, helping to establish standards and developing the building blocks that companies

will use to make products. That's an approach Intel has already taken with USB, Wi-Fi,

WiMax and other standards, and VLC has a particular appeal: you don't need a licence to uselight for signalling.

A day at the museum

Nguyen, a senior technology evangelist in Intel's research department, was demonstrating a

system mockup with a car dashboard, new LED traffic lights and a big screen at Intel's eighth

annual Research Day, held last week in the Computer History Museum, Mountain View,

California. A working model of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine on the museum's

ground floor reminded us how much IT progress depends on manufacturing capabilities.

Research Day was "show and tell" on a grand scale, and Intel flew in technology journalists

not just from Europe but from Australia, Japan and other countriesto enjoy the experience.

We got a speech from Intel's chief technology officer, Justin Rattner, an in-depth look at

silicon photonics, and a conducted tour of Intel's own museum.

Rattner told us that Intel's old Corporate Technology Group no longer existed, it has been

reorganised and renamed: "We're now Intel Labs and proud of it," he said. "But there's not

really a change in what we do. Ultimately, our success is the company's success. Research

that doesn't find its way into a product isn't of much value."

This is a marked contrast fromMicrosoft, the other half of the Wintel duopoly, which hassimilar "show and tell" events to inform its staff what its researchers are doing. Microsoft

Research is run like a university computer science department by a man who used to run a

university computer science departmentRick Rashid.

Rattner says Intel's researchers start by finding out what the company's problems are, because

"ultimately they translate into research objectives. I like to think Intel is somewhat unique in

its ability to align its research with its business objectives." At the moment, Rattner's hot

topic is the embedded chip market, where Intel is pushing its Atom processor for mobile

devices. Much of this research is being done under the Carry Small, Live Large banner.

Nguyen's effort to turn cars into communicatingcomputingplatforms (with broadband

delivered via WiMax networks) is part of that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/intelhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/intelhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/intelhttp://www.vlcc.net/http://www.vlcc.net/http://www.vlcc.net/http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/microsofthttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/microsofthttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/microsofthttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/computinghttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/computinghttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/computinghttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/computinghttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/microsofthttp://www.vlcc.net/http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/intel


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So is the Classmate PC effort for schools, where the Intel research scientist Trevor Pering

was showing off a new trick: people-proximity audio sensing. Imagine a classroom full of

children, each with their own Classmate netbook. The software listens to what the kids are

saying and creates ad hoc networks for the small groups who are working together.

Intel is expanding its commercial Wi-Fi networking system with My WiFi technology(MWT) for PCs, which maintains two network stacks at once. The product manager Gary

Martz says you still have your original LAN (local area network) connection to the internet,

but get an extra virtual network for your PAN (personal area network). This provides a fast

connection to cameras, printers, digital photo frames, TVs and mobile phones.

MWT will be part of Intel's next-generation Calpella platform for laptops with Nehalem

processors, which will be available later this year, I'd guess with Windows 7. However, if you

run Mac OS X, Linux or Windows XP, hard luck. "My customers are PC OEMs (original

equipment manufacturers)," says Martz. "They're interested in selling new equipment: they

don't want to introduce new technologies for old platforms. We will make the drivers

available online, but we're not investing in XP."

But, as with most Intel software, MWT will be free. As Rattner notes, somewhat wryly: "We

do an enormous amount of software development today, but it often disappears into someone

else's product."

Another of Rattner's enthusiasms is the 3D web, and he saysIntel is supporting ScienceSim,

which is based on OpenSim. It's like an enhanced version of Second Life. "Now, scientists

anywhere in the world can put up a 3D virtual world," he says. "Unlike Second Life, this is

much more like putting up a web page, but you get avatars and all the things you'd expect

from a 3D world."

ScienceSim does have practical and educational uses as a meeting place and a research world

where you can customise the physics. The not-so-hidden agenda is that Intel is promoting

something that can consume vast quantities of processing power, the majority of which will

be provided by Intel chips

Dual duelling

But the two biggest hits from Research Day 2009 may not do much for Intel's profitability.

The first was virtual fencing, demonstrated with light sabres, which attracted TV crews and

just about every reporter with a video camera. This used stereo video cameras to capture themovements of two combatants at different locations and show the results on a single screen.

The Teeve (Tele-immersive Environment for EVErybody) system was developed on a joint

Intel-Microsoft project on parallel computing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign, and inspired comparison to Microsoft's Project Natal for the Xbox 360.

However, Raoul Rivas said: "Natal uses avatars: we use real video. We think that's superior

becausepeople want to see themselves interacting."Rivas suggested the system could be used

for things like doctor and patient consultations. I suggested he try the San Fernando Valley,

home to America's porn industry.

The other hit was Rob Ennals from Intel Research Berkeley, with ConfrontationalComputing, which highlights"disputed points of view"on websites. It's based on
http://blogs.intel.com/research/2009/01/sciencesim.phphttp://blogs.intel.com/research/2009/01/sciencesim.phphttp://blogs.intel.com/research/2009/01/sciencesim.phphttp://www.mefeedia.com/entry/teeve-tele-immersive-environment-for-everybody-raoul-rivas-intel-research-day/19736579http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/teeve-tele-immersive-environment-for-everybody-raoul-rivas-intel-research-day/19736579http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/teeve-tele-immersive-environment-for-everybody-raoul-rivas-intel-research-day/19736579http://connectedsocialmedia.com/intel/4167/confrontational-computing-are-you-being-duped-rob-ennals-researchintel-day/http://connectedsocialmedia.com/intel/4167/confrontational-computing-are-you-being-duped-rob-ennals-researchintel-day/http://connectedsocialmedia.com/intel/4167/confrontational-computing-are-you-being-duped-rob-ennals-researchintel-day/http://connectedsocialmedia.com/intel/4167/confrontational-computing-are-you-being-duped-rob-ennals-researchintel-day/http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/teeve-tele-immersive-environment-for-everybody-raoul-rivas-intel-research-day/19736579http://blogs.intel.com/research/2009/01/sciencesim.php


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crowdsourcing, with people voting texts up and down. It works as a Firefox browser

extension, and wasreleased last week as Dispute Finder.

Ennals says the system alerts people to disputed or misleading statements on blogs or

websites when otherwise they might take them at face value. A later version will include

speech recognition to pick up disputed statements on TV or radio. There's never likely to be ashortage of those.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/24/intel-research-day
http://disputefinder.cs.berkeley.edu/http://disputefinder.cs.berkeley.edu/http://disputefinder.cs.berkeley.edu/http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/24/intel-research-dayhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/24/intel-research-dayhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/24/intel-research-dayhttp://disputefinder.cs.berkeley.edu/

intel innovation lights up research day

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