That’s the headline from the front page Oregonian story on October 4 profiling Renee James and the efforts inside Intel’s Software and Services Group.

Renee is wise and daring vice president and general manger of Software and Services Group, the team behind the Intel Atom Developer Program that was introduced at the Intel Developer Forum.

This video shows some behind-the-scenes footage of Renee’s keynote address to developers in San Francisco, and some soundbites about her leadership style.

After that keynote, Mooly hosted a briefing to a packed room. Here’s a video shot form the crowd. Wanna see it, here it goes:

I sat in on both keynotes, and since Niles covered Dadi Perlmutter’s talk, I’ll give more time to Renee James’s talk that followed immediately after it.

She set the tone immediately. Her focus was on software, and the developers turning visions and creativity into new experiences on Intel platforms. Throughout the talk, she had developers join her and do demos or elaborate on specific technologies.

She went into detail about the Atom Developer Program that Paul talked about Tuesday, including the computing continuum. In this talk, we got to see how developers take advantage of innovation, particularly with multicore and parallel processing. And how, at the end of the process, they can monetize their code as part of the developer program.

The toolset plugged into Visual Studio about a year ago. (The first set of client tools to take advantage of multicore processing, btw.) It allows developers to plug into any phase of code, and the see ~100 downloads per day of the client tools. And all this info is published on the developer network.

Renee had a number of guests, including Carl Jacobson from Cakewalk, what he calls “a company of musicians.” He said, “As many cores as you have, we take advantage of them.” Through optimization and developer tools, Cakewalk has seen 30-200% improved efficiency. Quite a range, but pretty significant regardless.

One of the examples he demonstrated was the ability to compose more complex music with more powerful processors. We listened to a 45-track version of a piece of music, and then a 140-track version. The orchestral nature of the 140-track version made it stronger and far richer.

The Intel Media Software Developer Kit gives developers the capability to work on integrated graphics, and includes a full suite of software tools.

They showed some examples—film grain running over rendered video (think 16mm film watched 50 times in a war zone) originally took 140 lines of code, but they reduced that to 25 lines.

Using list render targets, they showed a 3D model of a translucent rotating knot. The overlaps of the knot appeared realistic when they overlapped, with colors darkening, and with the right perspective. Originally it was 500 lines of complex DirectX code, which was reduced to 150 lines on Larabee using GPU programming efficiencies.

Renee James then introduced a high-performance computing partner—one that does beautiful things. This was Lincoln Wallen of Dreamworks, who, notably, showed a 3D preview of “How to Tame a Dragon” that is built on Intel platforms.

Yesterday Paul talked about Moblin, distributed for netbooks, nettops, and other mobile devices, running on an optimized Linux platform. At this session, John Thode, VP of Small Consumer Devices at Dell, and Mark Shuttleworth, of Canonical, both shared thoughts on the future of netbooks, the Developer Edition of the Moblin Remix, and the Ubuntu blend with Moblin on Dell’s top-selling netbook. There is optimized boot time, and suspend and resume times are “lightning-fast.” Ubuntu developers will be immediately comfortable on this device.

Then came the announcement that the Mini 10 V will be the first Moblin-installed device, available starting Thursday exclusively at dell.com.

Ian Ellison, GM Client Platform and Tools from Microsoft, talked about Silverlight 3.0 development across multiple platforms. Lightweight runtime and targeting across different screen types were the highlights. They have launched a Linux version through partnership with Novell.

The recently released Version 3 includes a pixel shader, 3D perspective transforms, and smooth streaming video. They also added new application features, controls, and rich data binding. The vision is to move Silverlight to PCs, mobile devices, and TV. Running on Moblin, they can offer the same rich SL experience across a variety of atom devices.

Adobe is also supporting Moblin with Air.

The Developer Program is designed to help drive innovation around atom-based platforms. The goal is to bring innovation to consumers and allow developers to monetize.

Peter Biddle, director of the developer program, was pointed when he said there is an innovation and usability gap on netbooks. No one is developing software for those devices specifically.

(video)

After the great keynote and some chatting in the Upload Lounge, I went into the Technology Showcase for a few minutes, and got to chat with the folks showing the USB 3.0 video camera with interchangeable lenses. The macro zoom was really impressive. I haven’t been able to stop talking about it. It’s expected to hit the consumer market in early 2010, and I want to be on the waiting list.

I had the immense pleasure of doing a live-blogged Q&A with Ajay Bhatt in the early afternoon, and spent some time doing the social network thing, following up with the folks who asked questions. He was very gracious and generous with his time.

I saw an informal Q&A on netbooks with Intel (video) and Dynamism (video) representatives. This really captures the spirit of the event. Enthusiastic supporters of a technology, clustered together to learn more and talk about where to get it.

The technical session on innovation in the twenty-first century was really interesting and diverse. One of the panelists from Stanford talked about his experience learning to perform surgery in a simulator. (video) After that was The Living Room of the Future, with a sincere UX focus. And one of the things that was reinforced was that we need to do lots more research to determine what interfaces and input devices people are most comfortable with for particular situations.

I rounded out the day with a stroll through the multimedia for the home displays (video), and another trip into the Technical Showcase, where I looked most closely at the technologies supporting new in-car mobile units, where GPS, telephone, stereo, and social media features merge. As with so many of these emerging technologies, with these there is a tremendous need for user experience guidance and support.

It’s the first multi-touch, multi-screen concept laptop based on research and feedback from people who multi-task with work, media creation, entertainment and social networking.

We got our first peek at it during the MobilityMeetup on Monday.

That event inspired a few stories:

• CNET’s Crave — Intel debuts concept notebook with four displays
• Notebook.com — Intel Demos 4 Screen Laptop Prototype
• Engadget — Video: Intel’s four-screen laptop prototype hands-on

The day after the MobilityMeetup, I got the chance to bring my camera to meet the team as they demonstrated two prototypes inside the Intel Developer Forum Technology Showcase.

Here’s what one looks like up close and here are some facts about 22nm, including:

• The 22nm test circuits include both SRAM memory and logic circuits to be used on 22nm microprocessors.
• SRAM cells of 0.108 and 0.092 square microns function in an array totaling 364 million bits. The 0.108 square micron cell is optimized for low voltage operation. The .092 square micron cell is optimized for high density and is the smallest SRAM cell in working circuits reported to date.
• The test chip packs 2.9 billion transistors, at approximately double the density of the previous 32nm generation, in an area as small as a fingernail.
• The 22nm dimensions are patterned with exposure tools using light with a wavelength of 193nm, a remarkable testament to the ingenuity of Intel’s lithography engineers.
• This 22nm technology continues to deliver the promise of Moore’s Law: smaller transistors, improved performance/watt and lower cost per transistor.

A few minutes after his keynote and Q&A with the audience, sat down with CNBC reporter Jim Goldman to talk about the big picture efforts Intel is deeply involved in as the company continues:

• laying the foundation for resurgent growth in computing and driving technology into new areas to create new opportunities
• innovating and integrating to help move the meaning of PC from personal computer to personal computing on any device

Otellini also spoke live with Fox Business News.

Light Peak: Light Peak is a connectivity technology using light to transmit data to and from your PC, and does it EXTREMELY FAST. It transfers at 10 Gigabits per second. Think of it this way, if a typical network runs at 10Mbps. this is a 1000 times faster. So for the same speed of transferring a 100 Meg file you could transfer 100 Gigs. It’s also full duplex. So you can pull in content as fast as you can push it out. Meaning you can watch a HD video while also transferring large amounts of data. Cable length can go up to 100 meters, which is amazing.

Moblin 2.0: It was announced that Moblin 2.0 is built to work with handhelds with voice support. That means we can see this new snappy little operating system on smart phones when Moorestown comes out next year. Also Dell announced it will ship its Mini 10v netbook with Moblin. That means the OS will be tuned to work with the hardware so you expect a great experience. I test drove Moblin while at the show, and found to be a simplistic and visually appealing OS designed to give you easy access to your media, social content, web, and applications. It has an almost kiosk like feel, making it a highly intuitive experience and very effective for small netbook displays.

Tangent Bay Concept PC: This is a concept laptop with 4 screens, with 3 small screens just above the function keys on your keyboard. These are multi-touch screens, giving you quick access to media, devices, tools, etc without taking up room on your desktop. I think we can imagine OEM’s will have their own take on this concept. It demonstrates an evolving laptop market. Netbooks may not be the only spin-off segment. With OLED, touch screen, and a host of other technologies that alter how we might interact with data, we can imagine how PC and mobile designs will continue to shape themselves into new segments.

Atom Developer Forum:The term thrown around to describe this was “AppStore”. And just the thought of an “AppStore” for Atom brought up excitement and controversy. The vision from Intel is, across Intel’s architecture you only need to compile once, regardless of the device. Meanwhile here is a major initiative fostering development around the Atom and most specifically for Netbooks. I believe those ideas are complimentary. We have to be honest. Netbooks are not the same as Notebooks, largely because of the form factor. As you get smaller, Windows based apps built for 1024 displays are not ideal. That issue actually creates opportunity for new app types and new application user interfaces. I see this as start of an Intel architecture marketplace to help spawn innovation for smaller form factors while putting money in developer’s pockets.

Widget TV: Widget TV appears to be much more than Widget TV. It’s a whole space and technology. Widget TV has also moved from the TV to a set-top box that adds Internet apps as a layer to your TV. And that is smarter! Your Xbox, Tivo, AV Receiver or any other devices connect as normal, but the Widget TV console as the last item in the chain, adds Widget application as a layer to the whole experience. So regardless if you are playing a PS3 game, a Blue Ray video or watching a slide show from your PC, the widget apps will always be there, giving you access to content from various services. Widgets could aggregate your media content from your DLNA devices on your home network. Other widgets can provide you on demand content and shows from your favorite broadcaster, or give you access to your social networking content and friends. All directly via your TV. A game service was also shown. This game store allows you access to a variety of licensed games from leading game developers, for immediate play on your TV. The target is casual gaming, which fits well for a TV experience. More reason not to get off the couch.

3D Television: Justin Rattner gave, hands down, the best demo of the show, by livecasting in 3D. It literally gave a whole new dimension to livecast conferencing as we saw a person from outside the room, show up in the room in full 3D while talking to Justin, as if they were actually standing side by side. Truly like something out of a SciFi experience, but done right then and there during the keynote.

Whiteboards: I SO like the whiteboards; extremely low tech, popular and fun. As we all know, some of the most technical and forward thinking inventions started as doodles. Here we got to see attendees show off their vision of future technologies across dozens of large whiteboard displays. I hope Intel publishes these and extends this in the digital space

You’ll notice something here. Not a mention of the word “processor” in this whole post. That was not a conscious effort. I think it shows what Intel is up to. It is a company working hard to innovate new technology that lives in our future. Processors are part of that story, but certainly not the end of the story and certainly not the end of Intel’s innovation.

The winners were as follows:

• First Place — AKA the “Intel Code Breaker 2009” — Tareq Saif a student from San Pablo, California won an HP notebook computer with a quad-core Intel Centrino2 processor.
• Second place— Alan Yee from Cisco systems in San Jose, California won a Dell Netbook with an Intel Atom processor.
• Third place — Martin Wojtczyk of Bayer Healthcare in Berkley, California won an HP MediaSmart home server.

If you have been working on the puzzles and would like the answers here they are:

Puzzle 1 — 121801

Puzzle 2 — 6983104110102

Early next week, we will be posting a video with puzzle 2 creator Mike Kounavis that will explain how to solve it.

Thanks to everyone that played the game. We hope to see you again next year at IDF2010.

He talked about the future of television being available on any Interent connected device, the rise of 3-D video and moviemaking, and what he enjoys most about working at Intel: creating the future with innovative people.

Dadi’s cast of characters during this keynote was colorful, with cameos from both Mooly Eden, VP and GM of the mobile platforms group, and John Saw of Clearwire, who gave his address through a live streaming feed. John’s 4G (WiMax) feed was impressive. The video did not resemble the dubbed kung-fu movies of the late 70s, as the slower 3G feed did, but rather was a proper stream that was in sync and clear enough for us to see the patterns of his Hawaiian shirt, set against an intriguing woodland compound that I assume was the Clearwire headquarters in Portland, Oregon.

To be candid, my personal focus is largely on mobile phones and handhelds and the consumer and brand world. Many of us from that world have walked past the decked-out Intel booths at events like CTIA and GSMA without taking much notice. What we’re learning quickly, especially here at IDF, is that we within the mobile arena need to be paying much more attention to Intel, and Dadi gave us three reasons why:

1. Faster (mobile) processing. I was impressed by the Turbo Boost Technology that shuts down half the active cores with each level , then increases the speed for the rest of the cores. This should result in a faster response to the foremost active program. Given that video viewing on mobile is rapidly rising—NBC has seen almost 1.3mm full streams of its network episodes—video playback performance would benefit from this.

2. Faster wireless broadband. WiMax (4G) is five to ten times faster than 3G, and is rolling out in several cities with more on the way. No longer will we be hesitant to browse on our phones for information or worry that a download will take longer than the micro-moment we have.

3. Lower power usage, which equates to longer battery life—the main gripe of many smartphone users. With a move to smaller processers with higher densities (45nm to 32nm to 22nm by 2013), we’ll benefit from their lessened electricity use and will no longer fear that playing our audio player now will result in dropping a call or missing a photo op later.

These advances allow developers to have confidence that the high-end assets they create, such as HD video, will have a home on the third screen. And we, as consumers and end users, can live in a world where we trust the connectivity in our hands to the point where mobile will be seen not just as cool, but as the necessary remote control for our lives.

The Eric Kim keynote kicked off with a demonstration of a variety of engaging, future-forward applications, for television in particular. Of course, the Star Trek analogies emerged. The special surprise was a guest appearance by LeVar Burton, who pumped up the crowd, calling for innovation and creativity, and reminding us that flip phones started life as fictional tricorders.

What all that led up to was that we need innovations—specifically in user experience—and business models to move this technology into living rooms.

Breakthrough technology, a good user experience (content service, purpose), and a solid business model. All three must converge. Radio, telephone, television—innovative technologies that took years (and sometimes full generations) to realize successful business models.

Fortunately, there are plenty of innovations in user experience right now. Here are some of my takeaways from recent sessions.

CE3100 launched last year Q3, enabling unique capabilities for rich interactive TV. Suri Medapati came out to do a demonstration, and talked about emerging codecs. I hadn’t heard of White Wine before, but it enables high-def video experiences. It allows implementation of new technologies as customers demand them.

Then there’s CE4100—the 45nm generation single chip-SOC. Blu-ray, digital TV, and other devices. Backward compatible with CE3100.

Cisco’s Malachy Moynihan stepped in to talk about how they are focused on delivering premium video, and how they have made company acquisitions (most recently Pure Digital, the makers of Flip cameras) to drive that. They are preparing for the expected upcoming transition—that 60% of video will be consumed by consumers, and that 60% of that consumption will be via IP technologies.

Screen choice by consumers is becoming hard to predict. They may watch video on their TVs, on their computer monitors, or on their mobile devices.

The Beijing Olympics were the first IP Olympics. Video shot in Beijing was sent to New York, where it was edited and then published online. So it didn’t matter what major networks were showing which sport, if any. Users could get their sport of choice any time.

Cisco calls this type of network for rich media a medianet. Soon service providers will become experience providers.

“Don’t make my TV work like a PC.” It’s what Intel has been told by consumers over and over. But we do need to create rich experiences. How can we give them the richness of the Internet, while keeping it simple?

Widget was launched last year to bring one-click access to television.

Internet application development framework for television is needed. Flash has the largest developer community behind it. It blends interactivity, video, and animation. David Wadhwani from Adobe spoke about Open Screen Project, which will open up Flash, data, and media protocols and eliminate license fees. He also demoed Flash Player 10. Immersive TV experiences, built with Flash 10, will reshape the way consumers interact with their televisions.

This is about evolving the user experience, and also generating revenue.

Internet video advertising is going up from 3.2 million to 1.6 billion per year.

Analog advertising dollars become digital advertising dimes. How do networks attract an audience in the first place? There are infinite choices for the consumer. What can networks do to leverage capabilities?

George Schweitzer—CBS marketing

The CBS widget is about to go live. The call is for us (the audience) to create great experiences that not only meet, but exceed consumer expectations.

Direct gaming experience—Flash games are likely to be ported and designed for TV. Intel is interested in running PC games on Linux boxes to bridge the gap for consumers who love the old games that are not compatible.

We also heard from Vikas Gupta, CEO of Transgaming. Transgaming created an engine to allow software designed for the PC to be easily portable to Linux-based machines, including Mac. Now, they are working on the C platform to very quickly port games to Flash for immersive TV experience.

Transgaming’s Gametree.tv is their on-demand gaming service built to integrate with in-home architecture. They are developing an SDK and a content delivery network where developers can upload their converted or unique games. Users will be able to subscribe through ad-supported gaming experiences. Custom peripheral devices are expected to drive the experience. Consumers don’t want keyboards or mice in their living room. Transgaming expects an early 2010 service launch.

The bottom line is that we have the power to create amazing experiences. The C reference platform and development kit is available now. Go. Hurry. Get it. And grab one for me.

The future of entertainment is in Moore’s law now.

[2:05pm] Why didn’t you play yourself in the ad? - Anil Das

Acting is not my forte. I’m not really comfortable with acting. I do a lot of things well, acting is not one of them. Customarily, when you make a series of ads, it is good to use actors. What we were trying to portray is that we have some cool guys who work on some exciting stuff. Our rock stars are key technologists that are just as good in their own field. But they’re different from a regular rock star, and that was the concept. I was on board from the beginning.

[2:07pm] Prior to the ads did you find the same enthusiasm among the tech audience?

Among the technologists I’m very well known because I’ve been doing this for quite some time. Mind you, USB was originally conceived in 1992-93, so this is a little belated. I’m known for other technologies. I moved on years ago. USB goes on, but I moved up the chain. My role has been different. Again, USB is something that all users know. I use it. Everybody uses it.That’s why I think they picked USB as a case because the common person can relate to it.

[2:09pm] Are you your own user? Are you carrying anything USB today?

All the time. You’re never away from USB. My camera, my iPod, my computer, my storage stick. USB is everywhere. And by the way, originally I conceived USB as a user because I was trying to install something in the platform. And I struggled as a user. I said there has got to be a better way. That was my inspiration for creating. I said why can’t I make something that’s as easy as plugging in a table lamp and turning it on. Why does anything have to be so complex?

[2:12pm] Take a look at the wikipedia page for USB, and you’ll see no less than 6 connector types for USB (type A, type B, mini-A, mini-B, micro-AB and micro-B). I realize that “universal” refers more to the signaling schema, but how many more connectors will it take before the “U” in USB becomes a joke? -Steve Pomerantz

The name is somewhat dated. When we created USB, there was only one type. As the technology became very popular, more and more users came to USB. Some things that didn’t even exist when we invented it have come to reality now. And those requirements were not conceived originally. Clearly this is an evolution. Sometimes that evolution in a different market segment requires market-specific thinking. One thing is very clear, that when it comes to computers, most have A type connectors. The B type only refers to the device. I realize that forces users to buy a new cable, so I sympathize with them, but clearly it is an artifact of evolution.

[2:16pm] Every project, no matter how well-designed, seems to involve inelegancies that frustrate future engineers. Comment on how these things happen, and how they can be recognized and mitigated earlier in the process. -Paul Showwalter

There is no such thing as a perfect solution. When you define anything, there is always a compromise because you have to balance cost, complexity, usages, market needs. So I wish I could do some ideal thing that was perfect. Engineering is all about compromises. When you try to buy a house, there is no such thing as a perfect house. Even when you build it, there are always things that you would do differently as you learn about things after the fact. You make your best judgment based upon the environment you are in. I never thought USB would have this kind of longevity. I never thought USB would have such popularity. I was totally surprised by that. I knew we were solving an important problem. I never knew it would be so pervasive and so universal. And I’m saying this 17 years later. It’s been a while. It’s been a learning process.

[2:20pm] You’ve written about the hurdles in convincing senior decision makers at Intel to buy in on the work that the PCI Express Team was doing. At what point did you recognize the need for transition from AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) to PCI Express? And how long did it take to realize that vision? - Anonymous

Right after we finished AGP I knew that AGP that had a limited life. Usually these things last anywhere from 5-10 years, and AGB was getting to the point where it was showing signs of age. So we knew we had to do something different. Once the opportunity was realized by us, then I wanted to subsume many more usages. We wanted to reuse the same technology for multiple users. It took me about a year to look at candidate technologies. It also took me a while to get to a point that I knew exactly what it was I didn’t want to do. I had to take time to determine what it was I wanted to avoid. Once that became clear, we started in earnest in 2000. By the end of 2002 we had finished the spec, and we had consensus with other people. By 2003 we had some early products. In 2004, we went into mass production. The rest is history.

[2:24pm] Would you consider that an average cycle from conception to market?

Usually conception to market takes anywhere from 2-3 years.

[2:25pm] Across any of the technologies you’ve worked on, are there key elements that you would do differently?

You will always want to change things. For example, USB—if I was to do this all over again I would make it a lot more power-efficient. But hindsight is 20/20. For AGP there are things we had to do for backwards compatibility. I wish I would have avoided them. There are deep technical things that I don’t have time to get into, like address mapping scheme; I would avoid that. On PCI Express we could have further cost-reduced it. So you can always do things better next time. You apply your best judgment, crisply define the problem, and go after that. Technology before its time is no good. Technology after its time is no good. So you really have to time it. There is a perfect window of opportunity that one must hit. You can’t be on the drawing board tinkering forever.

[2:28pm] Would USB ever be able to replace iSCSI/SATA/Fiber, particularly for storage, and create a true uniform interface for all devices? -Gagan Bajpai

The short answer is perhaps. Perhaps. There are no fundamental barriers, technically speaking, that would prevent one from creating a solution like that. The barriers may be related to business consideration, manufacturing, and managing the transition. I see most of the issues being business-related. Technology-wise it is pretty good on certain things, I suppose SATA and iSCSI might be much more suitable because they are specifically designed for storage. USB on the other hand is primarily designed for add-in devices from outside the computer to the computer. But there is reasonable overlap where I could see someone successfully doing something like that.

[2:31pm] Is there anything at IDF or anywhere in technology that excites you today?

A few things come to mind. Clearly the USB 3.0 camera down on the demo floor. It’s terrific. The quality; the speed. I’m quite excited about the developments on USB 3.0. I’ve seen some demos of wireless band personal area networks where you can create adhoc networks with Wi-Fi enabled devices that do the file transfers. And if you have support in your mp3 player, you could wirelessly sync your mp3 music list. Those technologies are quite intriguing.

[2:33pm] What was the most unexpected device that applied USB?

Oh there’s a whole host of them. There’s a whole host of devices that we never… USB charging was never conceived, but it’s so ubiquitous; it’s everywhere. That was pretty interesting. Even Apple adopting USB was quite a surprise to me. Apple was on 1394 Firewire, and they were so strongly behind that technology, but in the end when USB was done, Apple was the first one to deploy USB ahead of a lot of others. So that was a rather pleasant surprise.

[2:35pm] Why hasn’t Firewire taken off quite as much as USB?

Firewire is an elegant technology, but what we managed to do with USB was to manage cost, complexity, and feature set. So we had incredible focus on making sure it didn’t cost as much. On the other hand we didn’t want to compromise functionality or performance. First and foremost our goal was to make USB so inexpensive that we could give it away on every laptop. And we worked really, really hard with all the peripheral manufacturers. We gave them technical know-how and support to make them successful. So the grass roots efforts we put in was very important to USB’s success.

[2:37pm] It seems that Intel is good at partnering with other companies.

I personally believe that when it comes to creating standards we must be good citizens. We must bring our best ideas, and put them on the table, and make any standard that we participate in as good as possible, or even better. So we work really hard to help everybody out. Then when it comes to competition, we also feel that we are as fierce a competitor as anybody else. So we create the standards first, and once the standards are established we strive to make the best products that people would want to buy.

[2:39pm] How do you foster innovation on your team?

You foster innovation by being easily approachable. You constantly listen to people who have good ideas. At the same time you also listen to feedback from people who act as devil’s advocate. You listen to both sides of the argument. You propose your idea as a starting point. You always be open to new creative thinking that could improve your idea. If somebody has negative input you want to get them as early in the program as possible so that you can make course correction. Innovation is all about starting with a vision. Once your vision starts to materialize, and you turn it into the product, along the way you have technology reality. You need to think about who’s going to implement this. Who’s going to pay for it. Who’s going to use it. How much money are you going to make. How much money others are going to make. Will it make a huge difference to somebody’s life? So you really have to look at every aspect of your innovations, and then pursue it. It’s not just about technology. It’s also about technology in business realities.

[2:41pm] What’s next for you?

I am lately working on a new laptop. I would love to have a laptop that is totally untethered. That is totally wireless; even charging of the battery. Which is always on. Always connected via any means. It is always accessible. As soon as I open the lid its available for me to use and I don’t have to wait for my computer to respond to me. That’s my ultimate vision. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I intend to keep working on it.

[2:43pm] Do you have any advice for the young engineers and developers out there?

I sure do. I would suggest a few things. Think differently. Before you start building something, decide what is it you don’t want to do. What do you want to avoid? Be very persistent. At the same time, be very open to feedback. Invite ideas from others, both positive and negative. And if the idea is good, accept it readily. If the idea is irrelevant evaluate it carefully and reject it. And next time the same suggestion comes in you don’t have waste time. Try to be open to others ideas and criticism because it will only make your ideas better.

I really liked that I could listen to the keynote session over the PA system when I wasn’t able to be in the hall. (Though I preferred being in the hall, because the video and live demos are a big part of the talks.)

The white boards that are installed throughout Moscone Center encourage discussion with questions posed at the top of each board. There is creative collaboration happening all around the IDF.

When I made it into the exhibit hall around 7pm, there were so many vendors I wanted to talk to and watch demos for that I knew I would be back to this space every day to get through all the booths. Once I got them talking, these guys were so engaging that I missed out on the food being served in the middle of the space.

I’m just one of those people who sees opportunities everywhere, and when I was talking to vendors, I gathered cards for my enterprise support services team, for a friend’s data storage company, and for myself—scoring a year license for some really fine anti-virus protection from Kaspersky after a great conversation about the future of mobile security services.

As planned, I did hit the Q&A on design school perspective on innovation, and talked to Joy Medford, the facilitator of the student design program, and Intel senior designer Wendy March, who manages the program. Students and professors talked about the process they went through, and described a few of the projects being displayed. Joy has been running some version of the program in pretty much the same way for over 20 years, and touted the innovation driven by student designers creating for Intel technologies.

Joy talked about the reduction in R&D dollars being spent by U.S. corporations in an effort to save money. She pointed out that, while other nations are investing in innovation at the corporate and public level, the U.S. is at grave risk for losing our ability to compete with new, creative uses of technology. It is in the classroom that innovation thrives. And over the course of the program, technology advances have made it possible for students to not only conceive of amazing new things, but also to prototype them. Intel is leading innovation—not only by engaging students, but by empowering companies to create new and amazing things through direct collaboration with Intel and across companies.

There was an intimate crowd of self-proclaimed geeks huddled around the stage at the Maroon 5 show after the technology showcase closed. It was probably the most polite crowd at a show that I have ever seen, and coming from Austin originally, I’ve spent a lot of time watching live music. No one pushed, shoved, or even bumped each other, even those who had their arms raised to capture video or photos. It may have also been the highest percentage of people recording with mobile devices I’ve ever seen. I even spotted someone shooting video with one of those new iPod Nanos. I got to compare my Flip HD Ultra to the original Flip Ultra—with people who were just as jazzed as I am about the move to microtechnology. IDF is truly a gadget geekfest. I can’t wait to get back to the technology showcase.

Imagine these scenarios: (a) At a coffee shop, you are wanting to share pictures on your home PC with a friend, (b) Online movie distribution service downloads movies, on-demand, to your Home PC, or (c) Enterprise or personal online PC manageability Service Provider updating your PC with latest security patches responding to a PC malware outbreak.

In all these cases, and more, current technology requires the PC to be operating in their “full energy” consumption mode, 24 X 7. A PC, today, continues to consume its maximum power (say, 150W) even when it is doing nothing! That’s just one PC - now, imagine millions of PCs and other Internet connected devices that are consuming close to their maximum energy when doing nothing!!! It quickly assumes a rather serious energy crisis in scale when scaled across a country, or worse, the world. Personally, this feels very wasteful, and on a global scale, this has caught the attention of various regulatory bodies. Could we get a little smarter in enforcing “workload proportional” PC energy consumption?

Yes, we can. Our Network Proxy technology, now being standardized at Ecma TC32-TG21, allows PCs to maintain Internet connectivity using an ultra low power Proxy (say, 0.5W). The Network Proxy drastically reduces PC energy footprint (say, less than 1/100th of its max energy usage), while making PC “Always Available” to the network and server applications, and waking PC, when more processing is needed. The PC intelligently wakes up, services the request, and goes back to Sleep automatically. And, it does so reliably and predictably, maintaining the same high-quality user experience.

I am delighted to share insights into this technology at the Intel IDF ‘09 Session RESS005 on “Reliable Low-Power Network Proxy for ENERGY STAR*”. We are also excited to share with you our ongoing research proxy prototypes for wireless and remote access at our Demo Booth #484, located at the center of the IDF Technology Showcase, at the Intel Labs pavilion.

Please join us in fueling an energy conscious PC growth - the next Billion Internet devices should not require spending billions firing new power plants.

You can’t help notice how the place is decorated with signage and whiteboards showcasing a theme of innovation and ideation that is part of Intel’s DNA. Across each floor you see the whiteboards and markers encouraging the attendees to express their own ideas. Titles above these boards include statements like. What’s you’re big idea? What will your kids think is cool? What does tomorrow look like?

So far it looks to be a good show this year, and I definitely look forward to seeing what ideas the attendees scribble around the event.

During his keynote at IDF today, Paul Otellini announced the Intel® Atom™ Developer Program, a framework for creating and distributing applications designed specifically for Intel Atom processor-based devices. For the next level of detail, tune into Renee James’ IDF software keynote tomorrow at 10 a.m. PST where she will go into the program’s specifics and describe the benefits for software developers, ISVs and OEMs. For now, please refer to the Intel Atom Developer Program announcement and appdeveloper.intel.com for more information.

Although the program has just launched, we’ve already received some encouraging words of support from software companies and hardware manufacturers alike. Here’s what some of our partners are saying:

• “The Adobe Flash Platform enables developers to create and deliver the most compelling applications, content and video to the widest possible audience. We expect the Intel Atom Developer Program will be a great way for the Flash Platform community developing on Adobe AIR to monetize their AIR applications, and we are working closely with Intel to deliver the necessary technology to enable this opportunity on the Atom platform in the future.” - David Wadhwani, General Manager and Vice President, Platform Business Unit, Adobe
• “Customer adoption of our Intel Atom-based netbooks is exceeding our expectations. Acer is excited to see Intel’s effort in bringing new and innovative applications to netbooks and will use the Intel Atom Developer Program framework to open an application storefront.” - Jim Wong, president, IT Products Global Operations, Acer Inc.
• “The Intel Atom Developer Program is an integral element of providing a holistic netbook experience for our customers. Asus sees this new development model as an opportunity to encourage developers and ISVs. Asus plans to offer an application store based on this framework in order to make exciting applications available to our customers.” - S.Y. Shian, Vice President and General Manager, System Business Group, Asus
• “Dell is passionate about providing value for developers. The Intel Atom Developer Program will open a new world of innovation and business opportunity for developers and we look forward to working with Intel to foster the creation of exciting new Windows and Moblin-based netbook applications.” - John Thode, Vice President, Small Devices, Dell Inc.

A number of IDF attendees have already picked up their puzzle sheets and are out there trying to crack the coded messages. Let’s see how they do! And you should join them.

Here’s a short video that will tell you a little more about the Challenge. And check back here throughout the day today for hints that may help in cracking the codes.

For those of you here on site in Moscone Center, just go the main lobby of Moscone Center West. The Intel Code Breaker Challenge desk is across from registration. Fill out the entry form and pick up your game sheet to get started.

The goal is to complete the two puzzles and then take the timed puzzle challenge in the Technical Showcase. You must complete these challenges by the close of the Technical Showcase tomorrow (Wednesday) evening.

Watch for more hints and tips on the IDF Facebook fanpage!

That was the case with the University Design Expo, which complements “Intel’s Sponsors of Tomorrow” campaign by bringing together students from six design schools around the world to develop out-of-the-box ideas on mobile computing. Here’s a quick peek at what you’ll see if you can stop by today:

More details, photos and a list of competing schools here.

The Design Expo is located in the Golden Gate Hall at the San Francisco Marriott, and will be open for viewing from 4-6 p.m. on Sept. 21 and from 10:15 a.m.-1 p.m. on Sept. 22. For additional information on the Design Expo, specific displays and the Intel Developer Forum, please vgo here.

[9:59] We’re seeing a video produced that incorporates some of the suggestions. Very cool. Quotes range from “I want my computer to fix itself,” to “I want a taxi service that knows when I arrive.”

[9:58] Paul is closing on a discussion of what opportunities this continuum presents to developers. He’s talking about the Sponsors of Tomorrow digital billboards that ran in major cities (such as New York’s Times Square). The billboards allowed people to submit, via text message, what they wanted from technology in the future. Over 24,000 ideas were submitted per day. Paul said they found the ideas “inspiring.”

[9:54] Paul is closing the discussion of products on data center technology. The emphasis is on supporting the emerging trend of cloud computing platforms. He says this is specifically what Nahalem was built for.

[9:52] Moblin is said to be ready for the release of Moorstown, and they are showing demos here at IDF.

[9:51] Claire Alexander, the design and user experience lead for the Moblin UI, has come out on stage to demonstrate a MID running the new experience. Very impressive is the “Zone Panel,” which allows quick multi-tasking.

[9:48] Final Intel® Atom™ processor discussion is regarding handhelds. We’re seeing a video of the new Moblin 2.1 user interface. It looks pretty neat—very modern and attractive.

[9:46] We’ve moved on to discussing the role of the Intel® Atom™ processor for In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI), which Paul expressed he feels is a growth industry in the years to come.

[9:43] Paul is announcing that Intel is launching a new developer program, specifically for Atom application developers. It’s going to work on Windows, Mobiln and major runtimes, and there is going to be an application marketplace. It’s being supported by Asus, Acer and Dell, and we have some videos from their respective CEOs expressing their investment.

[9:39] Paul is talking about the development effort now, and the goal of being able to write once, and then publish to multiple devices. He’s started talking about the new possibilities made possible with Intel® Atom™ processors, and the various partners helping to make that happen.

[9:37] Now we’re seeing some mobile device technology, such as video conferencing on a MID, made possible by Intel architecture, such as video conferencing on a MID. Paul wraps this up explaining that this is the goal in building the continuum of computing: the same experience, the same architecture, with the experience simply scaled to the device.

[9:34] The high-end desktop is running Sandybridge! Very cool, we’re seeing a running system that’s two generations ahead.

[9:32] Now onto consumer. Art has come out on stage and is demonstrating interoperability between a few different consumer devices (a MID, a laptop, and a high-end desktop), running various builds of Windows.

[9:27] First up in the PC demos is Enterprise, focusing on new security tech. Andy has come out on stage. He’s delivered a remote “poison pill” to an enterprise laptop from his MID that essentially bricked the entire system, including hard disk function, until it was returned to an IT manager. Very neat.

[9:25] We’ve moved on to talking about specific products, and starting with PC processors. The Intel Core™ i7/i5/i3 branding is going to stick around, representing the various levels of the offering.

[9:23] He’s wrapping up his discussion of the fundamentals of the continuum of computing with software, and how today we have the same development tools across several device types.

[9:20] We’ve moved on from Moore’s law to architecture, specifically Systems-on-Chip (SoC). We’re seeing a slide explaining that, with new Intel architecture, unprecedented flexibility between performance and efficiency can be achieved with the same architecture.

[9:15] He’s been explaining how Intel has continued on a relentless pursuit of Moore’s Law, continuing a two-year cadence of reducing transistor size. He’s touched on the forthcoming 32nm architecture, and has showed us a picture on the slide! Apparently this is the first time a photo of the 32nm transistor has been revealed.

[9:10] Paul is talking about how IDF has changed as the technology has expanded. When it began in 1997, IDF was largely a PC event, but today there are people from several industries. “While Moore’s Law is predictable, the continuum is not,” he says.

[9:06] After a very nice intro video, CEO Paul Otellini has taken the stage. He’s talking about how Intel architecture is moving into places beyond the PC, such as consumer electronics and handhelds.

[9:00] They’ve dimmed the lights, right on time. Sean Maloney (Executive Vice President General Manager, Intel Architecture Group) has taken the stage to start. He’s giving a brief introduction to the events of the week, the social networking activities happening at IDF, and some of the sessions.

[8:55] We’re about 10 minutes from the keynote starting. People are starting to file into the ballroom here at the lovely Moscone Center West.

But as I really started digging into the technical sessions for IDF, I was pleasantly surprised to see such a broad mix, including the Q&A session: “How Do You Innovate? The Design School Perspective”—a far less tech-heavy session than I expected. Like a lot of the IDF sessions, this one seemed to blend art and science. Then the scheduling dilemma emerged. That Q&A overlaps by 15 minutes with “Enterprise Research and Usage Exploration for Cloud Computing.”

Is anyone else having a hard time prioritizing their schedules? Are there any tools or techniques that are making it easier for you to identify your must-see sessions? I’m just getting started with the IDF schedule builder.

Over the course of the next few days, I’ll be posting about the sessions I attend, the people I meet, and undoubtedly some really interesting projects. There’s a strong possibility that I’ll get the chance to sit down with an Intel Fellow or two and live blog their answers to questions that are tweeted in as DMs to IDFFellow on Twitter, posted on our discussion board, or submitted in the Upload Lounge. Keep an eye on these posts to learn which Intel Fellows will be doing a special live-blogged Q&A, and follow our updates for answers to the questions you are asking. It’s such a treat to talk with people who are passionate about their work, particularly when they share insights they’ve gathered from working on some of the most cutting-edge technology advancements and enhancements.

The roster of speakers represents an incredibly wide variety of specializations and perspectives, reflecting the far-reaching touch of Intel technology solutions. I’m especially looking forward to Wednesday’s keynote from Dadi Perlmutter, entitled “Mobile Computing: The Definition of Cool,” followed by the technology insight session, “Moorestown: Intel’s Next Generation Platform for MIDs and Smartphones.” I’ll be getting more of my UX on later in the day, particularly relating to natural interfaces (voice, gesture, touch), in “Innovation for the Living Rooms of the Future”—that is, if I can tear myself away from the Industry Insight session: “Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century—We Need Your Collaborative Innovations.”

Some of the Intel research and emerging technologies have made science fiction science fact, and have made me such a fangirl. Soon to be fanless? I’ll find out in the Nettop session on how the next generation of the Intel® Atom™ processor will provide an affordable fanless solution. I’m enthralled with the wireless power work being done in the Seattle lab, and I’m bummed that I missed last year’s talk from Justin Rattner on the Wireless Resonant Energy Link project, or WREL (pronounced “whirl”). Luckily, his Thursday keynote—“Convergence Is So Yesterday: The Future of Television”—sounds enticing.

I’m certain that I will learn a lot over the course of three days, but I know that I am not going to be able to see everything I would like to. It’s nice to know that the videos of the keynotes will be available from the IDF site for me to refer back to and send along to colleagues who can’t make it to the conference. As I continue reading through the schedule, I just keep finding more and more fascinating topics. It’s possible that by Friday I’ll even understand how Intel’s Unified Extensible Firmware Interface will extend firmware beyond the BIOS.

Charlene Zvolanek, Senior User Experience Planner, MRM Worldwide

That story described the big picture possibilities that come from Intel technology and manufacturing innovation. It also hit on a theme I blogged about a few weeks ago — 32nm and Westmere. In that story I mentioned we were in the process of shooting video in Hillsoboro, Oregon.

In this video, Intel engineers from the Technology and Manufacturing Group and computer chip design and test teams show and tell how they helped create Westmere, the codename for the world’s first 32nm microprocesor. This multichip processor will be available in 2010, and will feature CPU, graphics, memory controller, Intel Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost all on one package.

Thanks to the Intel engineers in this video who shared their time and stories, and showed us how diligently they work to keep Moore’s Law moving into the future. They truly are our rock stars!

We’ll be on the look out for Westmere in action at IDF09.

Experience Intel is pulling in content from 70 sources including the Intel channel on YouTube, some of our latest tweets, to this post. If we are digitally publishing it somewhere, it’s very likely to show up in Experience Intel.

To make what could be a very cluttered experience easier to navigate, we decided to deploy a visual navigation. With this you can easily scroll across all of this content or filter in on specific content topics, content types, or types of websites Intel has. You can quickly check out a dozens sites, get a glimpse at our latest videos or get the pulse of our conversations from our forum discussions and tweets. We also include an alternative text browsing mode to aid visually impaired access.

What makes Experience Intel unique to intel.com is you can experience much of the source content without having to commit to going to the source. You can watch our videos, review blog posts, and learn about out our many online communities just from the preview windows. If you like something you can socialize it via your Twitter, Facebook, Digg or Delicious accounts, or visit the source site to engage deeper.

Whether you’re a customer, partner, analysts or media, Experience Intel can give you an immediate pulse on Intel. You can see what we are up to in sustainability, mobile products, innovative research, enterprise system, and so on..

So if you are IDF check it out. I’ll be near the bloggers lounge showcasing the experience. if you can’t make it to the show be sure to check out Experience Intel as we’ll be publishing all the IDF content and news: http://www.intel.com/experience.

With a theme of developing for the continuum of Intel platforms, Renee’s talk will focus on the experiences that are made possible by optimizing software to take full advantage of Intel hardware.

She’ll be joined on stage by some key industry partners and will provide updates on Intel’s developer programs and software for new mobile platforms.

Tune in and learn how Intel software is broadening the developer foundation, unleashing the possibilities of multi-core and expanding opportunities in graphics, embedded and mobile markets.

Renee will take the stage at 10 a.m. PT on Wednesday. If you’re not attending IDF, be sure to check the IDF pressroom for highlights.

There are some familiar gadgets like the BenQ, UMID, Viliv S5 and X70, but here we get to see a few new devices like the ones from Archos and Sony.

We shot this video on September 16, 2009 at Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, CA.

My teammate Mary Ragland invited me to shoot a quick chat with Bill Leszinske, GM, Intel Digital Home Group. He talks next-generation TV and how consumers can experience digital entertainment like 3D gaming and social networking on connected CE devices such as digital TVs and IPTV set-tops.

Mary is helping the Digital Home Group with a fun webisode series about our love for the TV and how many of us are eager to see the TV improve and blend with what we love about the Internet.