Intel Touts Device For Home Energy Management

Intel is touting a device that it said can be used to monitor in-home energy consumption, allowing consumers to “make informed decisions to reduce energy use.” What Intel called the “proof-of-concept” device, powered by Intel’s Atom processor and running on Windows, was demonstrated during a technology showcase it held for reporters in New York.

A device like the one demonstrated by Intel could reach the market “within a year,” said Ed Hill, director of marketing for Intel’s Embedded and Communications Group. The device demonstrated Wednesday was manufactured for Intel by design firm IDEO, Hill told us. Neither Intel nor IDEO, however, would be the company that would take such a device to market, he said. The companies would instead work with unspecified electronics manufacturers or utility companies, he said.

The device “needs to be less than $500,” and could be sold at a CE store or via a subsidized business model like cellphones and DVRs, Hill said. The device shown was intended to be mounted on a wall, but it can also be placed on a table or other surface, he said. Such a device is necessary because it’s estimated that there will be 13 percent more demand for energy than supply over the next decade, Hill said. Flat panel TVs, in particular, consume a lot of energy, he said.

The home energy management system would, among other things, allow users to shut devices off in their homes when they're not in use, even if they're not at home. It could also allow users to set a targeted energy use goal for a certain period, and update users to show them whether they're on track to reach that goal. There are already systems on the market that enable energy management, but Hill said Intel’s research indicated consumers wanted a device that could also perform other functions, including running video, which the device demonstrated by Intel could do.

Some of the other technologies demonstrated Wednesday might not translate into products anytime soon. For example, Sean Koehl, an Intel Labs researcher, demonstrated results of a research project in which the company said digital photography can be used to “allow amateurs to create rich 3D visual content.” But Koehl said the implementation of such technology is years away and Intel, in the meantime, is trying to optimize its processors to be ready in five to 10 years, when applications will be “much more realistic” and “intelligent” than now. “In the future, users will be able to create detailed 3D models and lifelike avatars from real-life images without any special equipment other than a standard digital camera and a PC,” Intel said. The project is being run at Intel Labs China and is just “one example of research at Intel aimed at accelerating the transition to a 3D Internet,” it said.

Mark Yarvis, senior research scientist at Intel Labs, demonstrated a personalized TV research prototype that the company said will help users identify TV content across multiple sources -- including broadcast, pre-recorded and streaming -- as well as discounts and opportunities that fit their interests, goals and daily routines. The recommendations can be personalized by automatically tracking users’ TV viewing and Internet browsing patterns, as well as their daily activities, Intel said.

Intel demonstrated an experimental 48 core processor, but Chris Anderson, an Intel Labs researcher, said there’s no such product planned for the market. “We will learn from” the experimental processor and incorporate that into “future products,” he said. “The long-term goal” of Intel is “to add scaling features to computers that spur entirely new software applications and human-machine interfaces,” it said. Such a processor could enable computer users to interact with a computer for virtual dance lessons or go shopping online with the help of a 3D camera and computer display that would show a “mirror” image of themselves wearing clothes they want to buy, it said. This “could eliminate the need for keyboards, remote controls or joysticks,” Intel said.

Research that Intel said was “still very exploratory” is showing that the human brain can be used to interface with computers. As part of a joint project among Intel, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, the chip maker is “investigating what can be inferred about a person’s cognitive state from their pattern of neural activity,” Intel said.

Intel also said it’s working on a Socially Enabled Services (SENS) concept device designed for “multi-tasking.” But it didn’t show a proof-of-concept or prototype device, instead just demonstrating what the device would conceivably do on a computer monitor. The SENS system would use information from sensors on the device to make sharing information “real-time and automatic,” Intel said. It’s “not quite a product yet,” said Wendy March, senior researcher and research manager at Intel Labs. But it’s “on the cusp” of becoming a real product, she said.

Intel also spotlighted its wireless display technology that allows consumers to view and share content wirelessly from their laptop computers for display on their TVs. But that technology is already featured in laptops from Dell, Sony and Toshiba that are powered by Intel’s 2010 Core processor and sold through Best Buy’s Blue Label program, Intel said.

An Intel processor also powers the CPro fitness system from Core Performance, Katie Burke, Core Performance brand manager, said. The system can only be used now at Intel’s digital fitness center in Chandler, Ariz., and Core Performance’s Santa Monica, Calif., facility, she said. The fitness system will “likely” also start being sold to gyms, she said, not saying when. There’s no current plan to sell the system at retail to consumers, she said, noting it’s a “very high-end device” that requires coaching to be used correctly.