Intel casts wide net in CES 2013 presser (pictures)

The chipmaker talks about everything from a new smartphone chip for emerging markets to an Intel and Comcast home box for live and on-demand entertainment content to hybrid PCs for playing Monopoly and poker.

CNET News staff

Jan. 7, 2013 4:16 p.m. PT

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From OEMs to 'om'

As the crowd files in, an onscreen yoga pose hints at the upcoming segment on hybrid computers.

You can read the transcript of CNET's live blog of the Intel event here.

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High on hybrids

Another pre-presser slide primes the crowd for hybrid machines, while the machines themselves look on from the stage.

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Chip groupies

And the crowd goes wild.

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Intel-ephones

A slow starter in the market for mobile chips, Intel wants to show that it's now on the ball. The company's first presenter, Mike Bell, VP for the Mobile and Communications Group, started things off by talking about smartphones. Here, he's discussing how last year brought the first Intel-based smartphones, which include models from Lenovo, ZTE, Motorola, Megafon, Lava, and Orange. These are now in 25 countries.

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Staking a territorial claim

Next, Bell unveiled a value smartphone for emerging markets featuring the new Atom Z2420 w/XMM 6265 chip (codenamed Lexington). This is a chip for places like Africa, China, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. The emerging-market focus suggests Intel is going for low-cost, high volume sales and that it's also hoping to gain a foothold in places that haven't yet been claimed by other mobile-chip vendors.

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Atom for tablets

Bell discusses the Atom Z2760 chip for tablets and how it's in use by 10 different OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to produce Atom-powered devices running Windows 8.

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Hitting the 'Trail'

And here's a slide touting the "Bay Trail" processor, a 22-nanometer system-on-a-chip sporting a quad-core design. In short, it's a redesign of the Atom processor boasting better performance. Intel says it's twice as fast as current chips and bills it as a driver of "next gen tablet experiences."

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Seeing what sticks

Next up, Kirk Skaugen, general manager of the PC Client Group, highlights convergence, with some ultrabook convertibles and detachables. Here's Lenovo's Yoga 11S. CNET's Rich Brown says the varied swath of convertibles shown by the company translates to Intel saying, "we don't know which one of these consumers will like, so let's try everything and see what happens."

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Touchy 'Haswell'

Skaugen notes that "Haswell" (the company's fourth-gen Core model) is really the first chip Intel has made with ultrabooks in mind. Everything else was effectively retrofitted. The platform will also have a mandatory touch requirement.

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Big battery life

A demo of the company's reference design for the 4th Generation Core "Ultrabooks" chip (aka "Haswell"). The screen pulls off to become a tablet. The complete unit boasts 13 hours of battery life; the tablet alone, 10 hours, Intel says.

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Desktop touch

Even Intel's traditional stomping ground, the desktop PC, is going the hybrid route, says the company. Intel wants to make the desktop computer more wireless, so you can just pick it up and use it on a table or a couch. The example? The Sony Tap 20, which can be used a bit like a giant tablet. Skaugen says Intel has a new initiative to get other computers to be like this, which includes Microsoft, EA, and Omnitapps producing software specially designed for this form factor.

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Advance to Go (collect $200)

A video of a family playing Monopoly on a 27-inch touch-enabled computer.

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Smart cards

And a demo of a poker game that's using the same 27-inch computer. The key feature is that you can hold your cards with your Android smartphone so that nobody else sees your hand. Neat, but hey -- good old-fashioned paper cards never run out of juice.

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TV and PCs

Board and card games way too old-school? How about premium pay TV?

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Making sense of it all

Eyes, ears, voice, and touch come to the PC: Intel's "perceptual computing," which promises more natural, multisensory, and "human" interaction with computers.

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In the chips

Intel's director of Perceptual Computing, Achin Bhowmik, controls a virtual hand with his real hand, and grabs some gold. The company touted a gesture-control platform sensitive enough to pick up the movements of individual fingers in space.

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A cameo by Waldo

Bhowmik (on screen) shows off eye tracking with a software version of "Where's Waldo?" The PC just tracks where the user is looking. When Bhowmik spots Waldo in the crowded illustration, the page turns to the next picture.

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Get all that?

This is what Intel would like you to take away from this varied presentation, just in case you were wondering.

Check out CNET's additional coverage of Intel's CES 2013 announcements:
• PCs of the near-future: Intel lays out next-gen plans
• Not just for ultrabooks: Intel tweaks Ivy Bridge to be more tablet-efficient
• New Atom Bay Trail and Lexington processors headed to phones, tablets