Intel World Tour Promoting Benefits of Ultrabooks and Convertibles

Intel launched an eight-city global tour Friday called “Experience Intel. Look Inside.,” aimed at introducing consumers to Intel-loaded devices including Ultrabooks, convertible laptops, tablets, all-in-one PCs and smartphones. In our tour of the New York pop-up booth, a 40-by-40-foot balloon tent, Intel staffers walked consumers through two interactive sections and a “Clinique” case where products were shown under glass. The tent was erected in the trendy Meatpacking District on the west side of lower Manhattan, a few short blocks from an Apple store.

At the first stop, visitors used convertible PCs to develop a game, supplied by Hide & Seek, in tablet mode and then play the game in laptop mode, said Trent Nate, a marketing representative. In the other interactive section, visitors made drawings on Ultrabooks using a program designed by Matt Pyke of Universal Everything, which transforms drawings into what Intel called “a digital flock of wings” projected on a large video wall. Users “threw” their drawings to the display via Bluetooth, Nate said. Typical user time for the events is about five minutes, he said.

Products will differ according to the venue, an Intel spokeswoman told us. At the New York event, we saw products from Samsung, Lenovo, Asus, HP, Dell, Acer, Sony and Toshiba. Vizio and Fujitsu chose not to participate in the New York event, but Fujitsu products will be featured when the road show hits Tokyo June 20-23, the spokeswoman said.

Customers who completed the auditions at the two interactive sessions were given a coupon worth up to $100 off select Ultrabooks at local retailers J&R and B&H. J&R required consumers to redeem coupons in store from May 16-22, and B&H’s $100 rebate can be applied at www.BandH.com/Intel, it said, from May 17-31.

The event also included laptop recycling spearheaded by local e-Stewards recycler 4th Bin. We took advantage of the recycling opportunity and handed over a bulky, heavy laptop from the Windows XP era. Mike McHale, a salesman for electronics dismantler EcoTech, told us older laptops brought in more coveted precious metals than more recent lightweight laptop designs. He estimated the recycle value of our generations-old Dell laptop at $6. EcoTech is 4th Bin’s “downstream vendor” that disassembles products, looking primarily for precious metals and then separating gear into plastics, batteries, memory, processors and motherboards before sending them to smelters in Sweden and Belgium. “We're second to end of life,” McHale said, adding that the company takes apart a product “as far as we can” before sending the rest of the parts further downstream. “Everything has a value,” McHale said.

We asked what would happen to the data on our hard drive, and John Kirsch, senior vice president of business development for 4th Bin, told us 4th Bin will erase the data and then send a certificate by email telling us the data has been expunged. “We take on legal liability,” Kirsch said. “Once I touch your computer, it’s up to us to erase the data.” McHale of EcoTech was surprised to learn 4th Bin handled data erasure since hard drive destruction is performed by his company. EcoTech’s process uses manual separation and once the hard drive is pulled, “it’s stored in a locked cage until we're shredding,” he said. After a drive is shredded for the fourth time, “you really can’t tell it was a hard drive anymore,” he said. Data wiping gets into a “gray area,” he said, where it could be refurbished or reused “and there could still be some data on there.” EcoTech is a member of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries and is awaiting R2 certification as a responsible recycler, McHale said.

The juxtaposition of including a recycler at an event that promotes cutting-edge technology isn’t always a smooth fit, Kirsch said. CEA hire 4th Bin to participate at CES in January, but “no one wanted to talk to us,” Kirsch said of large electronics companies. “They're very careful about highlighting the latest and greatest part of the business,” he said. He applauded Intel for taking the initiative, “especially in New York City,” where he believes 80 percent of end-of-life electronics aren’t recycled. Discarded electronics are collected and then “scrapped” for whatever value can be pulled from them and then “who knows what happens to them,” Kirsch said.

4th Bin doesn’t do many events for consumers anymore because of the expense involved, which can be in the “thousands of dollars” for large events for staffing, labor and truck costs, he said. A house call to pick up our laptop would have been $25, he said, including the data wipe. Intel paid 4th Bin for its participation, he said, declining to specify the fee. Most of 4th Bin’s work comes from business clients, he said, because they're required by law to recycle.

Kirsch estimated the Intel event would snare 50-100 laptops. When 4th Bin launched, it did more consumer pickups but now that there are more options through Staples and Best Buy, “there are legitimate outlets for people” to recycle, he said. But, he added, “Most people just throw it away.” Since, by law, businesses have to recycle, they're more serious about doing it, he said.

Additional cities on the Intel tour include Chicago, June 6-9; Beijing, July 11-14; London, July 11-14; Sao Paulo, Aug. 29-Sept. 1; Moscow, Sept. 6-8 and Sydney, Oct. 10-13.