If you haven’t heard the news yet, check out the press release that Clearwire and Sprint issued bright and early this morning (I was wide awake at 3 a.m. when the news hit). The two companies entered into an agreement to combine their WiMAX wireless broadband businesses to form a new wireless communications company to be named Clearwire. They also announced that Intel Capital, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks invested a combined $3.2 billion in the new company.
There are only about 20 Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) existent in the world. Most of them were in Shanghai last week for the Intel Developer Forum (IDF). 10 of them were in the Mobility Software Enabling Lab at Intel Shanghai, where I got special access today to shoot photos and videos, as well as some hands on time to play, with the Lenovo Ideapad U8 MID and the Aigo MID. They also had some other devices around for comparison - an old prototype UMPC with a pivot screen, a Samsung Q1 Ultra Premium UMPC, and a Fujitsu Lifebook UMPC. And I threw my iPhone in a few of the photos for size/comparison’s sake.
If you’ve been reading all of the Intel blogs lately, you’d think nothing else was going on in the world outside of the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai this week. But… there was. The CTIA Wireless show took over Las Vegas this week and there was a lot of buzz around WiMAX.
Do not attempt to adjust your screen. And since April Fool’s Day is over, this is not a silly prank to see if you are paying attention. No, this is a real and true report coming to you straight from the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, China, where today Intel announced it would begin offering software testing and validation services to members of the Intel Software Partner Program.
Did I say services? From a hardware company? What’s up with that?
Well, Intel has entered into a key partnership with SpikeSource, a software validation solution provider. The deal is that software companies, many of whom are medium in size or who develop open source solutions, can now receive Intel certification that ensures their solutions meet “rigorous standards for security, interoperability and maintainability, and are optimized for Intel technologies.” (I took that directly from the release).
I sat down for a brief conversation with SpikeSource CEO Kim Polese to get her perspective on this new service and how it will benefit both the software community and the end customers who rely on software in their everyday jobs and lives. (You all remember Kim, right? Think Java.).
Wow, maybe it’s the coffee here (I’ve made it no secret how I feel about it) but once again I’m a little giddy with the important implications of this announcement. Intel’s partner program reaches over 8,000 independent software vendors (ISVs) and I can see this service being a major benefit to developers so they can focus what they do best: developing cool software.
Among a number of very cool items on the subject of “Digital Transformation,” in his keynote today, Andrew A. Chien, Vice President, Corporate Technology Group, hosted an awesome demonstration showing a 30-35% system power consumption savings.
By synchronization system events at the hardware level--as opposed to allowing asynchronous calls for power--baseline system power consumption can be reduced dramatically. The demonstration showed that, under normal conditions, the system can't really ever “go to sleep” resulting in a steady level of power consumption. If, however, system events are syncghronized the system only needs to wake up once in a while.
Very cool to see such dramatic power drops in practice and to hear that a 50% reductions are the goal for 2010.
Among a number of very cool items on the subject of “Digital Transformation,” in his keynote today, Andrew A. Chien, Vice President, Corporate Technology Group, hosted an awesome demonstration showing a 30-35% system power consumption savings.
del.icio.us