#idf15

IDF 2015 Das Intel Entwickler Forum hat dieses jahr so einiges zu bieten, zum Beispiel: Machen sie aus ihrer Sandkiste einen Bildschirm …echtes Sandbox Feeling. Intel und Google haben zusammen, das “Projekt Tango” bearbeitet und herauskam das: Real Sense Smarthphone: …

Thoughts on IDF: 43 Years Later Brian Krzanich validates Intel’s vision of  transforming the world by empowering Makers. 

In early 1972, a time of mainframes and emerging desk-sized mini computers, Intel’s co-founder Bob Noyce showed the original microprocessor, an Intel 4004 to a family gathering and said, “This is going to change the world. It’s going to revolutionize your home. In your own home you’ll all have computers. You will have access to all sorts of information. You won’t need money any more. Everything will happen electronically.”

We now live in a world of ubiquitous computing, connected devices in the home, and (in some markets) operate in essentially a cashless economy. He made his vision happen. 

I both spoke and exhibited at IDF last week on our work in Africa and how we are re-inventing the PC and though Intel Optane (an enormous breakthrough of essentially merging RAM and NAND) featured in the CEO keynote, the passion was very much on IoT, drones, robots and wearables. 

Much of the session was on use-cases of SD-card sized Edison (an underutilised platform still finding its feet), the new pin-sized Curie (watches and wearables) and Realsense (3D depth Camera - a Kinect in a gumstick form factor). These tools are a way of embedding true compute power (not just a microcontroller) into devices and echoed Bob Noyce’s early ideas on how microprocessors would change our lives. 

Cure is another return to form. Intel released a digital watch called Microma in ‘74, quickly losing a fortune to competition from Japanese volume manufacturers like Casio and Seiko, killing the project and swearing off consumer products for years.  Curie as a brain for others (I suppose Tag Heuer given their announcement of Google/Intel partnership a few months ago) seems a far better approach. 

IDF 2015: Robots and IoT

 Author: Tamara G

Intel Developer Forum (IDF) took place in San Francisco at the Moscone Center. The event spread through three days full of exhibits with new technology, hands on labs and talks.  

This was my first time at IDF, Intel really knows how to put together a well organized event with great technology experts and hands on demos. The IDF app allowed me to stay on top of all events I wanted to attend, it would send me reminders of ongoing attractions. I was able to follow what other attendees were experiencing through the news feed section where people could post pictures and comments on what was going on.

 The robots

Umajin

David Brebner from Umajin showed me how they integrated Intel Real Sense to their robot powered by Intel Edison. Through gesture control David was able to direct the robot to perform different movements. In addition he showed me the integration of a smart phone app to control various action taken by the robot.

 As per the Umaji descriptions “Umajin is able to talk via a number of protocols:

HTTP, Comet and Websockets for     normal API calls, and peer to peer communications

BTLE Bluetooth Low Energy for     robot control

NFC Near Field Communications     to read and write tags

Machine Vision with pattern     recognition, optical character recognition, QR and barcode reading

3D camera, face detection, hand     tracking and voice recognition”

Dancing spiders

The dancing spiders were one of the attractions during the opening keynotes and were also displayed on the main entrance floor throughout the entirety of the event.

The spiders are equipped with Intel Edison and Real Sense and dance to the beat of the music.

 Savioke

I got the chance to interact with Savioke’s  robot, aimed for hospitality and service.  Imagine being in your room at a hotel, ordering room service and getting it delivered by a robot; or what if you were at a meeting and the attendee wanted water, now Savioke’s robot can deliver this to you directly and communicate through a smart phone. Check out the great video that goes in depth about the companies vision and progress here.  

Robot fight

 If your drawn to robot fights IDF15 had a spot for you. In the second floor there was an exhibit with a remote control robots  powered by Intel. Attendees were given the opportunity to play against each other.

In the exhibits floor there was a different set of Intel Edison powered robots that attendees could interact with. Two robots were set at a time to allow people to compete. The open source robots showcased that anybody can program connected robots with Cylon.js programmable open source code.

 Magical jewelry mirror takes interactive shopping to the next level

“Magic Mirror 2.0, designed and built for the jeweler chain Chow Sang Sang by global digital agency Mirum, with Intel technology and a Samsung Display Mirror OLED display panel” (credit)

The user can interact with the mirror through its touch screen capabilities. Choose the item, a picture of you will be taken (here is where Intel RealSense comes into play) and then the item will be displayed on you as if you were wearing it. For expensive jewelry this technology allows you to interact with the product without having to go through all the paperwork, imagine if the same could apply for clothes and save you the hassle of fitting rooms.

 The IoT zone

 IoT greenhouse

The interactive display in the agriculture caught many attendees attention.  “With deployment of Intel IoT Gateway, the agriculture sector can now turn the daily farming data into a more meaningful decision-making basis. Sensors for temperature, humidity, pH, and luminosity in the greenhouse pass the data to the local Galileo gateway. Galileo, via ZigBee, transmits the useful data to Atom processor-based gateway, and then uploads all the information to the cloud system.” (credit)

  Intel IoT Commercial devel Kit

Intel is taking a step forward in making prototyping easy and accessible for bigger companies. While the beginners developer kit is intended for makers and hobbyist, the Intel IoT commercial devel kit plus is intended for small and big companies that want to prototype, test and evaluate their IoT solutions. The demo showed a set of sensors included in the Grove Starter kit plus along with a display LCD and a tablet. The simulation showed a truck that needed to keep its temperature at a certain degree to prevent the cargo from spoiling.  A button would control whether the truck door was open or closed. When the door was left open for long period of time the temperature would raise which was displayed on the LCD screen;  the buzzer would start an alarm to alert of the issue.