Intel

Lenovo K900 taps Intel's first dual-core phone chip

LAS VEGAS--Lenovo's big-screen K900 smartphone is one of the first to integrate Intel's first dual-core Atom chip for phones. And includes an impressive camera too.

By smartphone standards, the K900 has a massive 5.5-inch screen 1080p IPS display. So, no better time to tap Intel's new chip to manhandle all the pixels in that giant display.

The Atom Z2580 roughly doubles the central processing unit (CPU) performance of Intel's single-core Medfield processor used in Lenovo's K800 phone. The new Atom silicon also boasts an improved graphics chip.

A few more deets on Intel's … Read more

Voice recognition will make touch obsolete, Intel exec says

LAS VEGAS -- Watch out, touch screens. You may be hot now, but one Intel executive predicts voice recognition will eventually make you obsolete.

Mooly Eden, the Intel senior vice president who oversees the company's "perceptual computing" operations, told CNET today that voice recognition will do to touch what touch has done to physical keyboards -- making many things unnecessary.

"Voice is the best means of communication between humans," Eden said. "We finally have enough compute power to do what we want from science fiction."

Intel is working with partners on complete systems … Read more

At CES, tablets go full-bore Core, get 'real' Intel processors

LAS VEGAS--With Intel now pushing its mainstream processors into tablets and convertibles, some PC vendors are opting for high-performance designs that offer no-holds-barred performance.

Lenovo is delivering probably the best example. The PC maker announced the ThinkPad Helix at CES (see video below) which is built around Intel's low-power "Ivy Bridge" Core i5 and Core i7 chips.

Surprisingly, Lenovo's Helix doesn't skimp on battery life, offering a total of 10 hours when used in conjunction with its keyboard base.

So, why would Lenovo stick an ultrabook chip in a tablet? Intel's most power efficient … Read more

Ultrabook's quiet triumph

LAS VEGAS--Intel's CES 2013 press conference lacked the hard sell of last year's version, which was almost entirely devoted to all things ultrabook. But even as the grand ultrabook experiment -- a massive branding campaign to create a new laptop category from thin air -- shared the stage with smartphones, Atom chips, and tablets, the ultrabook idea continues to be one of the most influential ones I've seen in many years of laptop-watching.

The catch is, it's the ultrabook's ideas that have spread to nearly every corner of the laptop ecosystem, not the name itself. … Read more

Touch will be 'mandatory' for next-gen Intel ultrabooks

LAS VEGAS--Your next laptop may be touch whether you like it or not.

"To be an ultrabook with 4th generation core [processors], it will be required to have touch," said Kirk Skaugen, vice president of Intel's PC client group at the keynote today, referring to laptops based on Intel's upcoming "Haswell" chip.

That means all ultrabooks coming later this year -- likely in the summer timeframe -- will have touch, not as a feature, but as standard.

This will be a way for suppliers of Windows 8 ultrabooks to demonstrate that they have something … Read more

Intel gets serious about power-sipping silicon

LAS VEGAS--Feeling the heat from tablet and smartphone rivals, Intel demonstrated today at CES today that it is more concerned about low power than high performance.

Kirk Skaugen, GM of the Intel PC Client Group, made a surprising disclosure when he said the current third-generation "Ivy Bridge" processor will now run at a rated 7 watts and will appear soon in super-skinny tablet-laptop hybrids from Acer and Lenovo.

Power efficiency like that wasn't supposed to happen until the upcoming fourth-generation "Haswell" processor based on a new micro-architecture.

To put that into perspective, mainstream Intel mobile … Read more

PCs of the near future: Intel lays out next-gen plans

LAS VEGAS--PCs on your coffee table, playing Monopoly. Super-thin ultrabooks. Voice and gestural computing. Intel showed these and more at their CES 2013 press conference. But does it add up to a firm control on the future of computing?

Fourth-gen Intel Core processors aren't on their way immediately, but at this year's CES Intel was ready to demonstrate how its "Haswell" code-named chips will make Windows 8 devices of tomorrow even thinner and smaller than now ... if you're in need of that. Fourth-gen Intel processors will require touch and have mandatory Intel Wireless Display, a … Read more

Not just for ultrabooks: Intel tweaks Ivy Bridge to be more tablet-efficient

LAS VEGAS--Ultrabooks are nice, but tablets are even smaller. Unfortunately, Intel's Core i-series processors haven't been a perfect fit in that regard. Intel announced tweaks to its current Ivy Bridge lineup at this year's CES that will make thinner, better battery-efficient laptops and tablets in a matter of months.

While fourth-gen Intel Core i-series processors aren't here yet, more power-efficient 7-watt Intel Ivy Bridge processors are shipping now that allow thinner laptops and tablets with better battery life than the previous 10-watt CPUs.

These will show up in systems as early as this spring, in devices … Read more

New Atom Bay Trail and Lexington processors headed to phones, tablets

LAS VEGAS--Atom's back, and it's not just for Netbooks, or even high-end phones.

Actually, the Atom platform's been around all this time, but Intel's CES 2013 press conference laid plans for Atom's next-gen revival. We expected as much before the show started.

The new Bay Trail Atom system-on-a-chip processors are quad-core and even smaller than previous Atoms, with a new 22nm design. These processors mean better "all-day" battery life as well as better processing power -- according to Intel, up to twice as fast as current Atoms. There are Intel Atom processors in … Read more