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Intel Researcher Shares Insights on Campus
From personal computers and digital cameras to high-definition televisions and entertainment systems, "everything in the home is going digital," says Mark Abel, director of solutions architecture and innovation in the Intel Desktop Platforms Group. The challenge for technologists is figuring out how to connect all these different devices and create seamless home networks for sharing information in new ways.
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"Students are searching for the next big thing," Abel says. "They're wondering what they should work on, what kinds of problems industry cares about. The subject of the digital home is exciting. It's a new area, a different way of looking at a set of problems and how we address them. It's a broad, solutions-oriented look at solving problems for real people."
All that makes the digital home an ideal topic for the higher education lecture series, which fosters collaboration and intellectual exchange between Intel and select universities. Leading Intel engineers and researchers are available to cover a range of topics, from wireless technologies to manufacturing issues to new applications of technology in fields such as home healthcare.
Innovation at Home
In the digital home arena, Intel's long-term goal is to promote innovation, Abel explains. Intel is a founding member of the Digital Home Working Group, a collaborative effort launched in 2003 by 17 industry leaders from the fields of consumer electronics and personal computing. The group is developing industry standards that will enable digital devices to connect and share information.
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Already, Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) standards are helping to make the digital home possible. Developed in part by a team in the Corporate Technology Group at Intel and by Abel's Desktop Platforms Group, the standards make it possible for devices to communicate and exchange capabilities.
The new standards "will help make sure all of that stuff works well together and is relatively easy to use for people who are not technologists," Abel says. Ease of use is not the only goal for this platform of interoperability. "Innovators will start seeing new product opportunities in the digital home," he predicts. "Look at what's happened with the Internet. It started with a foundation of a few simple protocols, and has allowed people to create companies, create products, and innovate. We're trying to make sure that happens in the home."
Researchers see the personal computer playing a critical role in the digital home. "We want to make sure the personal computer has a really solid role here," Abel says. "Of all the devices in the home, the PC has the best processing power, the most storage, the best networking capability."
On Campus
Abel has delivered lectures about the digital home on U.S. campuses, such as the University of Illinois, University of Michigan, and the University of Southern California, and in other countries, as well. Last year, he spoke to Chinese audiences at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and ZheJiang University.
Typically, he sets the stage by recapping ethnographic studies conducted by the Intel People and Practices Research Group. Social science researchers have developed usage models to describe "the kinds of things people want to do with technology in the home, but can't yet," he says. "From there, we break it down into what kinds of technologies are required. What kinds of things are missing to make this vision a reality?"
For example, Abel's group has driven industry development of a device called the digital media adapter that can be used to bridge the PC-consumer electronics connection. "Imagine a wireless PC peripheral that sits in your living room. It allows your television, DVD, and stereo system to become networked. Now this becomes a window for the Internet and for all the information you have stored on your PC. You can distribute data around the home very easily." For instance, users can display digital photos or video clips on their large-screen televisions or play music downloads over their home stereo systems.
Before long, Abel predicts, applications will move beyond home entertainment. "The goal is to allow a broad range of usage models around the home. We're starting with entertainment," he says, "but we'll certainly extend this to other areas of the home eventually."
The Buzz
When talking to university audiences, Abel knows he is speaking with some of the innovators of the future. "These folks eventually will be our customers, our partners, our employees. We want these people to know about the technologies we're working on." It's common for students to linger after a lecture ends, asking follow-up questions or inquiring about career opportunities.
Benefits extend beyond the lecture halls. When Intel researchers are on campus to deliver a guest lecture, they also make time for informal conversations with professors. Those discussions might lead to research proposals that Intel will consider funding. On the lecture circuit, Abel adds, "you spend most of the day talking to people, making connections you didn't have before."
The Intel researcher also enjoys the chance to learn something new himself. "When I go to campus, invariably I learn or see something new just by being there," he says. A few years ago, he happened to talk to people at the University of Michigan just as a brand-new program was taking off in popularity. "It was called Napster. It was the buzz on campus, and Intel was not yet aware of it. A lot of times, things happen on college campuses first, and it's not always from a professor doing research."
To learn more about the Intel Technical Lecture Series, go to www.intel.com/education/lectureseries.
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