A laptop in the Intel booth displays information on a new line of Intel "Core" processors at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada January 7, 2010.STEVE MARCUS
Intel is so proud of its new line of processors, it's including a widget to show users just how clever it is.
I sat down with Shmuel (Mooly) Eden, Intel's Vice President and General Manager, PC Client Group, to talk about the chipmaker's offerings this year. Mr. Eden quickly loaded up a PC and got to displaying what he describes as a revolutionary product (disclaimer: pretty much everyone here describes their products as revolutionary).
The idea behind Intel's new Core processors is all about sharing power. Say you have two cores in the machine. Mr. Eden says the system will recognize when only one processor is doing something, and will shift power accordingly. The net result is that the task will be accomplished faster and the unit will go to sleep, saving time and energy.
The power-switching even works within the individual processors, down to the individual blocks such as arithmetic units inside the processors. There's even a floating widget on the desktop showing users how the power is being distributed: load up a program, and the power is diverted to whatever core processor is doing the work.
If this all seems geeky, that's because it is. Intel knows this, and so has packed its display space full of eye-candy. The most impressive portion of their display is a massive multi-touch screen showing a bird's eye view of a slowly rotating cartoonish city. Each block is a live story from Google News. Touching a block instantly pops it up, showing more of the news item.
As far as attention-getters go, this one worked: people have been gawking at the thing since I got here.