Intel covered client devices at its Developer Forum in San Francisco yesterday, focusing on the notebook and desktop technologies of the future.
The silicon manufacturer committed itself to lead an industry-wide effort to up the performance, battery life and portability of notebooks, as it believes the move to wireless connectivity will highlight the current shortcomings in these areas, which will in turn stunt the notebook market`s growth if not addressed.
Intel also demonstrated three concept laptop designs to cater for the ever-fragmenting market segments, such as students (50% of US university campuses now sport wireless networks), executives, and finally the content producers. While the executives` machine folds into a briefcase-like form factor and features a leather keyboard and a flappable keyboard (which converts the machine into a tablet form), the students` laptop has a second LCD panel that folds out of the keyboard, allowing access to information while on the run.
Intel also released the specifications for what it considers a reference machine in 2003. The Intel spec, codenamed Lecta, includes wireless connectivity, Gigabit Ethernet and serial ATA, and the industry can expect systems of this calibre in the second half of next year.
Other demonstrations and topics yesterday included the Pentium 4 Mobile (although its release date was not revealed); Intel`s XScale processors for handheld and smart phones; and 3GIO, the high-speed device connection architecture that the industry is migrating towards.
Hyper-threading technology on the desktop is also in the pipeline, and Intel is planning to phase out its mobile Pentium chips in favour of its Banias processor, which will be released next year.
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