Intel Developer Forum roundup

Google, McAfee and Microsoft shared the stage with other industry giants at this year's Intel Developer Forum

The three-day Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, which played host to several key announcements and themes, finished yesterday.

Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini, outlined in a keynote Intel's plans to work more closely with software giant Google to develop open-source operating system Android for Intel's family of low-power Atom processors. This is intended to help speed up the launch of Intel technology-based smartphones running on this platform.

This work will enable mobile device manufacturers and wireless operators to more easily use the Intel architecture and tap into the scale of the x86 developer ecosystem to help drive the adoption of the Android platform.

Otellini was joined on stage by Candace Worley, senior vice president and general manager of endpoint security at McAfee, to discuss how Intel and McAfee are working together on a range of hardware-assisted software security solutions.

Worley introduced a new Deepsafe technology platform that works with hardware capabilities in the Intel Core i3 i3, i5 and i7 processors. The technology offers a different vantage point as it is situated below the operating system. Intel and McAfee are also working on security solutions for embedded devices and the cloud.

The company also announced its latest solid-state drive for the enterprise, the 710 Series, a purpose-built multi-level cell data centre SSD and replacement for the Intel X25-E Extreme SSD.

While the Intel X25-E was based on more expensive single-level cell NAND flash memory, the Intel SSD 710 uses compute-quality Intel 25-nanometer MLC NAND flash memory with Intel high-endurance technology able to manage financial data, search engine traffic, and other demanding storage and server applications.

There was a lot of hype around the company's Ultrabook - a type of ultra-portable laptop announced in May - which the company expects "will change the shape of computing". The first devices are scheduled to be available this winter and will be based on second-generation Intel Core processors.

During a keynote on the Ultrabooks, Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager of Intel, shared the stage with Brett Carpenter from Microsoft's Windows ecosystem group, who demonstrated Windows 8 running on both a tablet (with a 32nm Intel Atom processor) and on an Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook.

Eden also gave delegates a preview of the processor that will power 2012 Ultrabook devices - the third-generation Intel Core processor called Ivy Bridge. Expected to be available in systems in the first half of 2012, it will deliver improved performance and energy efficiency.

Intel has also redesigned the processor graphics to provide better video and gaming experiences.

Yesterday, on the last day of the conference, technical officer for Intel Justin Rattner reiterated his company's commitment to many-core computing, with the promise of a drop in CPU power consumption by 99.7 per cent over the next 10 years.

Speaking to attendees at IDF's closing ceremony, Rattner claimed a radical power drop, equivalent to taking one of the company's 100W desktop processors of today and making it run at the same performance on just 0.3W, will be necessary if many-core computing is to succeed.