Aiming to Get Into Smaller Devices, Intel Announces Big Push Into Arduino

Intel’s latest effort to expand beyond its PC roots involves reaching out to hobbyists.

At Maker Fair in Rome, the chipmaker is announcing plans to partner with open source hardware specialist Arduino. Intel is creating a custom board that pairs one of the company’s new Quark processors with the other hardware necessary to build Arduino-based devices.

“It comes back to the basic premise if it has computing inside of it, it should have Intel inside of it,” Mike Bell said in an interview.

Even as Intel has struggled to get its chips into phones and tablets, the company is working to land in even smaller devices. At last month’s Intel Developer Forum, the company announced its Quark effort for wearables and other small computing uses. The Arduino effort will make the first commercial use of Quark.

The company said it will donate 50,000 of its Galileo development boards to 1,000 universities in the coming year and a half. It also plans to sell them through distributors for around $60 or less.

Bell, a former Palm and Apple executive, had been co-leading Intel’s mobile push before shifting to his current role. Bell, whose new products unit is looking at wearable and other devices, says his goal is to get Intel’s chips anywhere they are not yet as well as into the many new areas where computing is entering.

“My group and I are chartered with helping figure out what’s next for Intel,” Bell said.

Courtesy: allthingsd

By: Unknown On 4:45 AM

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Lenovo Drops Intel for Qualcomm in Latest K-Series Phone

Intel has had a tough time convincing big name phone makers to use its chips in their Android devices.

The Lenovo K900

And the path to acceptance appears to be getting bumpier.

One of the company’s few well-known customers is Lenovo, which used Intel’s Atom chip to power its K900 smartphone. However, when it came time to creating the successor device, known as Vibe Z and also by the K910 codename, Lenovo decided to use a chip from Qualcomm.

Intel acknowledged the change, but downplayed the notion that it meant an end to its place inside Lenovo phones.

“Intel’s relationship with Lenovo is longstanding and productive across a broad range of devices. Just recently, they were among our launch partners for Bay Trail,” Intel said in a statement to AllThingsD. “We’re taking a long-term view, and continue to work closely with Lenovo on current and future mobile products.”

In June, Lenovo started selling the Intel Atom-powered K900 in Thailand and Malaysia, bring to eight the number of places the device has been sold.

Motorola is the only other prominent phone maker to include Intel chips, using them for the Razr i that shipped in Europe. The company’s chips have also been used sparingly in other devices, including a phone in India from Lava, from Megafon in Russia and a handset sold by French carrier Orange.

One of Intel’s challenges has been the lack of built-in support for a broad range of networks, including the fast LTE networks. However, the chipmaker says it is working to add LTE capabilities into its upcoming chips.

Courtesy: allthingsd

By: Unknown On 2:48 PM

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Intel To Buy Security Company Sensory Networks For $20M

Intel has acquired Sensory Networks for $20 million to further extend its security capabilities.

Sensory Networks, based in Palo Alto,  was founded in 2002 as a hardware company, providing high-performance technology that maps networks by looking for patterns such as spam, malware and other types of intrusions, said Matt Barrie, one of the company’s co-founders who is now chief executive officer at freelancer.com.  Over time, the company moved from a hardware to a software model. Today, the technology runs at 160 gigabytes per second on Intel processors.

Barrie said the challenge with a startup in the high-performance networking space is getting the attention of a company like Cisco that could get considerable value in integrating the security technology. Intel, though, has long-term credibility that would help in forging a relationship with such a networking giant.

The company’s clients include McAfee, which Intel acquired for $7.7 billion. In that light, the acquisition by Intel makes sense when considering the chip maker’s focus on security. In May, the company acquired Stonesoft a firewall company for $389 million.

Intel has made some big bets on security technology . But often overlooked is the company’s focus on software. Software helps Intel differentiate and be more than just a chip provider. That’s important as software increasingly does what was once required of hardware to do.

Courtesy: techcrunch

By: Unknown On 7:00 PM

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Intel Looking for Help from Amazon or Samsung to Keep Its Web TV Project Alive

Intel executives, who have promised to launch a Web-based pay TV service by the end of 2013, are now looking for a strategic backer to help them fund and distribute the service. If they don’t find one soon, it’s possible the project will be scrapped.

People familiar with Intel’s plans said the company has been talking to both Amazon and Samsung in the hope of keeping the service afloat.

Executives from Amazon and Intel declined to comment; I’m waiting to hear back from Samsung reps. [UPDATE: No comment from Samsung, either.]

Erik Huggers

In February, Intel executive Erik Huggers said he planned to start selling an “over the top” pay TV service that would contain a full compliment of broadcast and cable TV networks, by the end of the year.

Other technology players, including Google, Apple and Sony, have pondered a similar service, though none of them have publicly committed to the idea.

But Intel has yet to finalize a deal with a major TV programmer. And new CEO Brian Krzanich, who took over the company in May, has made a point of striking a tentative tone when discussing Intel’s TV ambitions.

“We’re being cautious. We’re experts in silicon, we’re experts in mobility, in driving Moore’s law,” Krzanich said in a June interview. “But we are not experts in the content industry and we’re being careful.”

Intel has more than 300 employees, most of whom it hired from outside the company, working on the TV project under Huggers. And it is currently testing a version of its service, which is supposed to work with an Intel-designed set-top box, with more than 3,000 Intel employees. Intel has planned on marketing the service under a new “OnCue” brand.

OnCue is supposed to work like a traditional pay TV that competitors like Comcast and Verizon provide, except that it’s delivered over the Web. Intel also plans on offering a couple of differentiating features, like a slicker user interface, and a cloud-based DVR that would automatically provide access to any program that had aired in the last 3 days, without requiring users to save a specific show.

But none of that will work without programming deals, or support from Intel’s top executives. A deal with Amazon or Samsung could theoretically bolster the service’s chances, by providing both cash and distribution.

Samsung is already a power in “smart” TVs, so you could imagine a scenario where Intel’s service comes bundled with the Korean company’s screens. And Amazon has already been spending heavily to build up a presence in Web video, and plans to roll out its own Web TV box later this year.

Courtesy: allthingsd

By: Unknown On 12:06 PM

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