Intel Product Chief Touts Coming NFC, Mobility Products
SAN FRANCISCO -- Intel is eager to work with partners to develop new devices and technology platforms that can push personal computing forward, David Perlmutter, the company’s executive vice president and general manager of the architecture group and chief product officer, told the Intel Developer Forum Tuesday. He showed off some new ultrabook form factors from various manufacturers and brought out MasterCard President of Global Products and Solutions Gary Flood to tout new near-field communications (NFC) applications for e-commerce. Perlmutter also gave a preview of Intel’s next generation core processor which the company calls Haswell.
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Voice controls, NFC for payments, and gesture controls through Kinect-like 3D cameras were also on display during Perlmutter’s keynote. He predicted such 3D cameras will continue to shrink until they will become embedded in personal devices just as happened with traditional cameras and webcams. Intel said it will begin a contest later this year soliciting perceptual software leveraging such gesture controls and award $1 million to the winner. “We would love to get more and more usage and more and more capabilities,” Perlmutter said. “This is what working with the industry really means."
Haswell, the next generation processor, is 20 times more power efficient than Intel’s second generation core i5 processor, he said. The plan is to fit the processor into a very slim form factor, he said. In tests, it performs about the same as Intel’s current third-generation processor at half power, he said. At full power, it will far surpass current processors, he said. “Mobile computing is not limited to tiny low performing devices now,” he said. “We're going to fit the best performing processors, best performing graphics and media capabilities on Mother Earth … into extremely nice, slim form factors."
With MasterCard, Perlmutter and an Intel sales representative demonstrated a streamlined e-commerce application that uses and embedded NFC reader in a PC with MasterCard’s PayPass NFC-enabled credit card. In order to complete a transaction through an online vendor, the user would tap the credit card to their PC, thereby completing payment through a three-step authenticated transaction, Perlmutter said.
Perlmutter showed several new form-factors for ultrabook and tablet devices, many of them running Windows 8. Some of the devices convert between traditionally clamshell-shaped notebooks and tablets, through a sliding or pivoting screen. “People want a variety of uses with the mobile computers they have,” he said. “The form factor innovation is really great and different people will want different capabilities.”