TAIPEI—Mobile devices are on the rise but Intel is quick to point out that the sun has yet to set on traditional PCs, especially new products like the thin-and-light ultrabooks that the chip giant insists can offer the best of both computing models.
Conveniently, new ultrabook-optimized processors like the dual-core Ivy Bridge chips the company introduced at Computex this week are just what the PC market needs going forward, according to Intel.
Keynoting the e21 Forum at Computex Tuesday, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Sales and Marketing Group Thomas Kilroy stressed the continuing importance of ultrabooks and mobile devices in shaping the technology landscape.
"Let's face it, we're humans before we're users. Experiences are sensed. What we see, what we hear, what we feel—that's what defines our experiences," he said.
Kilroy spent most of his two-hour talk elaborating on the sensory nature of the computing experience, with the added gloss that mobile devices—and in particular, ultrabooks, the increasingly thin and light laptops Intel unveiled at Computex last year—provides it in ways traditional PCs no longer do.
He underscored his point early on by playing an elaborately produced video about ultrabooks from a smartphone. Kilroy and several Intel colleagues also demonstrated other ways in which mobile devices are redefining what we're capable of doing on a computer without being tied down to a desktop or even a clunky laptop. Such demos included streaming an elaborate interactive video (complete with 360-degree scrolling) from a smartphone loaded with Intel hardware.
Another showed how Wireless Display, the Intel technology that in the past we've seen stream content from a laptop to an HDTV, is now capable of bringing over video from tablets and phones as well. (This latter demo centered on a five-finger game of Fruit Ninja, but the audience was assured that anything and everything else was possible with Wireless Display).
Kilroy was careful not to completely dismiss the desktop and older notebook form factors entirely. He cited a study that found that 66 percent of college students around the world consider a PC rather than a tablet or a phone to be the "most important" in their everyday lives. Naturally, Intel thinks ultrabooks are among the best ways to reach them as well.
He touted the more than 110 design wins so far for Intel's third-generation Core platform, also known as Ivy Bridge. In the most dramatic moment of the presentation, part of the set's backdrop fell away, revealing several dozen ultrabooks lining the shelves—just in case anyone didn't believe Intel has had remarkable success getting this still-new product category off the ground and running.
Kilroy also rattled off some of the advances in ultrabook hardware over the last year: reducing the display thickness by 40 percent, moving the battery from a prismatic to a cylindrical design, and making the keyboard even thinner by 30 percent.
"But we're just getting started," he promised.
The next step in the evolution of ultrabooks will come with the release of those dual-core Ivy Bridge chips, which feature markedly improved CPU processing and graphics capabilities as compared with Intel's previous generation of mobile processors. All of this "will unleash more ultrabook innovation," Kilroy said.
Some of that will come in Intel's commercial products, where new Ivy Bridge-based vPro platforms are designed with security and IT management capabilities in mind. For consumers, the addition of voice and touch interfaces on next-gen ultrabooks will give users a "more natural interaction" with their machines, Kilroy said.
Jim Wong, the president of Acer, appeared alongside Kilroy to say that "touch is a game changer" and "we really believe it is going to be essential to the ultrabook experience."
Wong showed up with evidence that his company is taking the ultrabook movement seriously—the Acer Aspire S7 unveiled Monday. Acer claims the Aspire s7 is the thinnest ultrabook available today.
And ultrabooks are just about thinness. Convertibles like the Asus Transformer and Taichi that combine laptop and tablet capabilities point to uncompromising new ways to deliver a compelling mobile computing experience, according to Kilroy.
Future developments for ultrabooks and mobile computing in general include multi-person gesture, biometrics, health assessment, and eye tracking, the Intel executive predicted. And none of it will be possible without Intel's design and manufacturing prowess, naturally.
"It all starts with our time-tested approach. [But] it's all just a formula until it's brought to life by you," Kilroy said.
For more from Computex, see the slideshow below.
