Wireless desktops
to be a reality in 2016
If your desk is overrun with wires Intel hopes
to bring some relief to the tangled reality soon
Over the past two decades, semiconductor giant
Intel has been able to cram an exponentially large amount of compute power in
smaller die areas, slashing the power consumption dissipation at the same time.
Add the lack of competition in the x86 arena,
the tepid PC market and the notable absence of mainstream, non-gaming software
that can bring top of the range computers to their knees and you understand why
Intel and its partners have been looking for innovative ways to add value to
the personal computer.
This is where Sanjay Vora comes in. As Intel's
VP of User Experience, he oversees the process that links users to products and
beyond to a multitude of partners (ISVs, developers, OEMsODMs). “The user
experience effort at Intel started a few years ago,“ he told TechRadar during
an interview, and it saw “tens of thousands of users“ being interviewed about
what they do with their computers.
Easing pain points
This exercise, which is a continuous one,
compelled Intel to work with its business partners to identify and mitigate
pain points. The two obvious ones were wires and passwords. Vora noted, “You
lose a few minutes every day dealing with them.“ Over the years, this adds up
to a fair amount of time and frustration.
Technologies like wireless display, docking and
power have improved significantly in recent times, partly due to the jump in
compute power we've seen, but also other innovations that Intel and its
partners have invested in. Vora said that Intel and Redmond have been working
closely to integrate these innovations tightly with the new Windows 10. “We
have been working with them since the beginning [of the development of Windows
10],“ he said.
From integrating the Windows Hello secure login
system with Intel's own True Key technology to working on Continuum, both
companies have re inforced their relationships in a bid to create (or at least
try to create) a much more compelling user experience.
As for the company's roadmap for wire less, the
next big thing will be wireless charging which is likely to hit the mainstream
later next year with 20W receivers being commer cialised. Vora confirmed that
laptops with an integrated receiver (that is, the coil) will go on sale by
then, with weight and cost premiums unlikely to be significant.
However, 2 0W is still a long way from what
current laptop power supply units can deliver.
But that's not all -user interaction is also
about mak ing humans interact better with each other when communicating via
devices. Which is where Intel's Real Sense comes in; the technology which makes
good use of the CPU and GPU resources on Intel's processors helps create better
interfaces, immersive collaboration and even a better gaming experience. Intel
has partnered with Electronic Arts, for example, to allow object and face
scanning, letting the end user digitise and integrate real, physical objects.
It also teamed up with gaming outfit Razer for a standalone Real Sense camera.
Exponential rise
The wider picture is a growing number of
computing devices, with an exponentially larger rise in interactions that's
bound to happen -interactions between the devices themselves or between the
devices and human beings, or indeed between devices and their environments. And
this can only mean more revenue for Intel and its partners.
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in.techradar.com
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