Outside Intel, Mad Scientists are Hard at Work

A popular Web comic portrays a stick figure feverishly typing at a keyboard. "Are you coming to bed?" he's asked, off-panel. "I can't," he replies. "Someone is wrong on the Internet!"
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What if someone else could do that work for you? An Intel project that the company presented at its R&D day at U.C. Berkeley envisioned just that, together with steerable antennas, crowdsourced air quality controls, remote controls that know who you are, and a game to create the most realistic virtual world through pictures.

Intel operates three laboratories in conjunction with universities, at U.C. Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Washington. At each, the chipmaker works with students and professors on pure research, which may or may not end up as a product. Intel executives have said many times that a downturn is the best time to come up with new products, to capitalize on the recovery when it arrives, a sentiment Justin Rattner, the chief technology officer at Intel, said in an interview on Thursday. "It's counter-intuitive, but a recession is the best time to be introducing new products," he said.

Below are a few highlights of the technology day. We've also included others, such as what might be called the "Touchpad Theremin," in the accompanying slideshow, with additional descriptions.

Think Link
Think Link, or what Intel refers to as "confrontational computing," attempts to present an opposing view on Web pages that aren't necessarily interested in presenting one, such as a Web page describing global warming, or intelligent design. "We're not trying to you the truth – it's just the opposite," said Robert Ennals, a senior researcher and the lead member of the project team. "We're trying to expose something to you that might not be the truth."

Think Link is a tool – either a Firefox plugin, a software tool, or even something that can be embedded on a Web site – that can be used to provide a more accurate representation of a particular issue. The Firefox plugin is currently in a limited public beta, Ennals said.

Here's the way it works: Think Link is dependant on users "crowdsourcing," or working together to find controversial passages in an online book or Web page. When they've done so, the text can be highlighted and identified as an argument that can be investigated. The users presenting the opposing view have just a few links to present the best source they can for an opposing argument; the thinking is that if the reader examines the links, he or she may either adopt the opposing view, or at least gain a knowledge of both sides.

Intel or other researchers could also use the data to learn in which regions particular beliefs are held, or simply the sources of the most convincing arguments.

PhotoCity
RememberMicrosoft's Photosynth? This free application from Microsoft turns 2D photos into 3D images. Kathleen Tuite,a student at the University at Washington, envisions a game where users could gain points for 3D "points" that were uploaded through geotagged photos. The idea would be to provide an incentive for users to contribute to a crowdsourced database of virtual buildings, taking the 3D imagery in the mapping applications from Microsoft or Google to another level.

Common Sense
Although U.C. Berkeley is right next to the relatively clean air of San Francisco Bay, plenty of places around the world are choking on pollutants and greenhouse gases: Los Angeles, cities in China, even in inland Middle America. Although weather forecasters and meteorologists provide data on pollen and pollutants, the Common Sense program was set up to develop a number of portable air quality sensors, whose data could be compiled and recorded.

Intel is trying out a number of different solutions. The company is working with the city of San Francisco to mount portable sensors in street sweepers, tethered to a mobile phone. Similar devices are being designed to fit inside plastic shells that can be clipped to a backpack. Inside the devices are sensors that can sample the air every 15 seconds or so, tag the information with GPS data, then upload it using a 3G modem. Similar sensors also sniff the air for particulates, "weighing" the accumulated matter with an electronic MEMS scale.

"In some ways, we're out to shock people into thinking, something needs to be done," said Paul Aoki, the lead member of the team. Someone in a Third World country, for example, might use the data and say, "'I haven't had a tune-up [for my car], and the people around me haven't had a tune-up. What effect is this having?'" he said.

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BY Mark Hachman
Source:PCMAG

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