Ultra Mobile Devices – from IDF Beijing

The lights came up. Anand Chandrasekher called me from the IDF keynote stage. I walked on stage and Anand introduced the newest McCaslin based Ultra Mobile Devices for 2007.

Their form factors ranged from navigation devices to gaming devices, all capable of running many flavors of OS. Designs were very ingenious, all touch screen capable, you could tell the OEMs and ODMs had obviously spent some time thinking about their design and functionality.

In true Intel fashion we have yet again made things smaller, more powerful, and using much less power than their predecessors. I’ve seen a lot of processor launches in my 14 years, but what I saw today definitely raised the hair on the back of my neck.

Even though I knew what we would be revealing, when Anand pulled a Menlow platform out of his pocket (It had been running the whole time), I got butterflies. What was really COOL about what he was showing is that the particular device, designed by Compal, was running Linux. It was truly the “Internet in your pocket.”

We had the first two working Menlow devices in the world. I have to give my sincere appreciation to the Silverthorne and Poulsbo silicon teams as they have worked countless nights making this happen.

Be sure to check out the video on Google Video

(future product plans and specifications may change and performance may vary)