kenekaplan Events, Intel, PodTech

CES 2008 — New Kind of Chip on the Vegas Strip

Building on a creative video monologue by PodTech’s Paul Lancour about the wonder of Intel’s latest 45-nanometer transistors, the Intel team doubled down at CES and took a new Penryn chip (a sliver of silicon etched with Intel’s newest dual core processor) to the Las Vegas strip and asked people “what do you think this is?”

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Here’s what people said when they held the chip inside the Intel booth at CES:

kenekaplan Energy Efficient, Intel, video

Intel and Sunflowers?

Making creative connections to expand and extend a story, that’s what the sunflower gig is all about.

Sunflowers, with the unique ability to pull lead and other metals from the dirt, improving the soil and environment, are a metaphor to promote Intel’s innovative new lead-free processors. Intel will donate $1 in your name to the Boys & Girls Club – find out how at sunflowers.intel.com.

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/11/PID_013060/Podtech_Intel_111907_Sunflower_New_Yor.flv&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/home/4592/intel-and-sunflowers&totalTime=94000&breadcrumb=6f3e51c79cd24135bb64603691c9ff81]

kenekaplan Intel, Podcast, PodTech, World Ahead

Intel World Ahead Trips through Africa

PodTech’s Jason Lopez packed his camera, audio equipments, a change or two of clothes and all of his gumption to follow Intel Chairman Craig Barrett on visits to several key spots in Africa. The maze and patchwork of buying the right flights on the right airlines on the right days. The ability to grab a cab that would take him to a place on an agenda, a place he’d never seen before. Why? He was the right guy to live, capture and tell the stories of how new ideas, education and technology can open new possibilities for developing communities.

Here is a series from that trip in late October 2007:

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[podtech content=undefined&postURL=undefined&totalTime=undefined&breadcrumb=1175ef86c63f4fb589d5cdfac0f5eb4f]

kenekaplan Intel, IT, open port

When IT Pros Rock

When individuals shatter stereotypes they bust down walls, rip apart limitations and force everyone to see there are always new possibilities. Josh Hilliker has been relentless and always willing to step into the pit, mosh a bit and show people can join together, try new things and learn from one another. He does this out of pure interest in the power of people he meets. At IDF in San Francisco Intel hosted a discussion “Social Media: Friend or Foe of IT?” Josh is the guy who’ll stop at nothing to get friends and foes to talk, hash things out and get movin’ ahead rather then stay stuck in the mud.

This is a cool subterranean, beat-driven cocktail lounge chat about the video competition Josh has going for IT pros. He wants to get the proest of IT pro talking…and havin’ some fun facing today’s most major enterprise computing challenges. Bust out your best!

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/11/PID_013085/Podtech_Intel_Rock_Your_World_Contest.mp3&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/home/4612/intel-rock&totalTime=377000&breadcrumb=6f1ca757062a49759b91f4555e604601]

kenekaplan IDF, Intel, Intel Developer Forum, KenEKaplan, Social Media, Web 2.0

Social Computing Comrads Connect & The Next Thing You Know…

I had the pleasure of meeting Douglas Pollei at Intel headquarters the second week in November, just days before taking my sabbatical. We had a great talk about the state of corporate social media (can you say that?) that ended when we looked around and saw the once-buzzing cafetteria empty.

Douglas keeps a cool blog by night and for his day job he’s the VP of Internet Strategy and Corporate Development for IKANO Communications Inc., a portfolio company of Insight Venture Partners in New York. In other words, he’s a social media brother of another mother singing that same song about opening up, connecting and creating new opportunities.

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We met through Forrester Research’s Jeremiah Owyang, who personally invited Douglas to check out the September Social Media: Friend or Foe of IT panel at the Intel Developer Forum. We exchanged emails — he even politely kept in contact after a very late response I sent after IDF — then during a business trip to Silicon Valley he saved some time for us to meet. If he were a vendor, I’d have respectfully declined, but the chance to explore accomplishments and conflicts about social media? No way would I miss a chance! Here are some highlights from our talk, as Douglas posted on his blog:

* Intel is seeking to involve more employees in the conversations with outside world. These employees must be not only observers but active contributors in the conversations, otherwise they don’t fully understand and move with the current. The IDF is a great example of the beginnings of this reach out and I believe it will continue to be.

* The intersection of the control and openness mindset creates conflicts in organizations. The true goal is to find the human intersections and how to understand, internalize, and communicate these findings going forward.

* Enterprises can create boundaries of communication, like a walled garden. Some areas are open and others are closed. The key is to organically let those with a voice contribute and potentially elevate these individuals to a higher status of job authority with regard to new media tools (social media, video, audio, etc..). When employees don’t reach out, it is comparable to being at the party and not talking to anyone but expecting value from it. You must mingle to be inspired and know the true and unscripted pulse.

* There will be many who will oppose these types of movements in a large organization but as they join in and see the value, many C’s including CEOs will be endorsers of the openness to know where to take the company, and how to raise stockholder value through innovation.

* VCs, private equity firms, and serial entrepreneurs are continually developing new media solutions that enterprises can adopt to enhance the communications with all channels of their business. Knowing the tech scouts who can see these in advance and know which products will win (and work) will be key to enterprises. Jobs descriptions in these areas are not currently on the enterprise org chart and so it is hard for many to understand their value. It is like telling someone to see a house built when only a floor plan exists.

We agreed to keep our conversation moving ahead. In fact, one thing we talked about was how I believe Intel has some wonderful stories to tell. Stories that are still coming together but will help directly connect Intel technology and innovation with social computing — from personal to commercial to developers and beyond. Intel’s new processor technologies can help people and businesses really get the most from Web 2.0, which seems to be growing and becoming more meaningful to everyone. Well, on the day Intel introduced it’s new Penryn chips — those featuring re-engineered, smaller, energy efficient, faster 45nm transistors — Intel CEO did it! Speaking at Oracle Open World, Intel CEO Paul Otellini (from ZDNet blog by Dan Faber):

“The enterprise is not immune from consumer trends,” Otellini said. Connectivity 24×7 and the need to socialize networks, as in Facebook, are key demands inside and outside the workplace going forward. “As this happens you need to think about how to rearchitect the infrastructure inside your businesses,” he added.

Otellini concluded that the “future in this sense is not very far away. The highly collaborative, interactive global social network is nearly upon us.”

It’s not a prophetic vision, but Otellini wants to make sure the Oracle crowd divines that Intel should be a core part of the rearchitecting of their businesses.

This is something many other companies are doing, or can be doing to help show how they’re relevant in making Web 2.0 and social computing more amazing and useful everyday.

Until we meet again, here is another topic we explored: Corporation being more human and actively finding their way in places like Facebook. This weekend I came across the Harvard Business Review’s “Why your company needs to be on Facebook.” Its was posted on November 9, 2007 by Charlene Li is a Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. Cluetrain Manifesto? There’s no turning back. There’s moving ahead, integrating, being smart, providing reason and value every step of the way…never without passion and zeal for helping and connecting with others.

kenekaplan Energy Efficient, Intel, Moore'sLaw, PodTech, Social Media, Tech, video

45nm…What Does It Mean?

A bit of theater antics about the transitor then, now and next. What’s amazing to engineers and techies often doesn’t carry a flicker of meaning for others. But sometimes it makes sense when the story is told in such a way using images and a little tongue in cheek. Bravo, Paul and the PodTech crew for your creativity and helping Intel celebrate the new era of the 45nm transistor. Moore’s Law is interesting when ou can look back, consider what’s happening now and wonder what’s to come.  Even my kids wanted to see this video again…and again.

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/11/PID_013011/Podtech_Intel_PenrynLaunch.flv&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/home/4543/intel-ships-new-45nm-penryn-chip&totalTime=145000&breadcrumb=60270c8d232247b68f118d448fd23a67]

kenekaplan Intel, Moore'sLaw, video

The World Inside Intel’s Newest Chip Fab

Flow through Intel’s newest 45nm chip factory, one of the cleanest places in the world spanning about 17 America football fields. See the many layers or floors of the factory and the automated shuttles whisking 300 millimeter wafers from one step to the next, ultimately ending up as brain chips running new consumer desktop and laptop computers in 2008 .

kenekaplan Energy Efficient, Intel, Tech

TIME Names Intel’s 45nm Chips in Best Innovations of 2007 List

Its tiny, shiny and about to change future computers. Intel’s new 45nm transistors were featured in the “Computers” category of TIME Magazine’s annual “Best Innovations of the Year” feature hitting newsstands tomorrow.

It didn’t beat out Apple’s iPhone, but it was picked among other top innovations like the $150 XO Laptop, flexible cell phone displays from Sony & LG. Philips, the WildCharger charging pad, Corning’s ClearCurve technology and Google Maps’ Street View. There were a dozen other categories of winners from health and automobiles to fashion and architecture.

820 million new Intel’s 45nm transistors will fit inside the first quad core processors hitting the market this month. Intel engineers add new elements to silicon, using a Hafnium-based high-k metal gate silicon technology that Gordon Moore called “the biggest change to how transistors are made in 40 years.”

These new, smaller on-off switches or engines will help make future PCs suck less energy while still improving performance with each new generation.

Here’s a warp-speed video showing the construction of a new Intel Fab in Arizona, where these new transistors will be made in maga-mass quantities.

kenekaplan IDF, Intel, Intel Developer Forum, Tech

A Chip is Born with 820 Million Pumpin’ New 45nm Transistors

It’s like those blockbuster movie reviews: “Sweet sensation!” “A thrill ride that rattled my bones and rocked my world!”

This week we got to see the first reviews of the soon-to-be-released Core 2 Extreme Edition designed with brand new Intel transistors. Manufactured in the new $3 billion high-volume Fab in Arizona, the new quad core processors:

  • are built using a new 45nm process technology based on Intel’s breakthrough in ‘reinventing’ certain areas of the transistors inside its processors to reduce energy leakage
  • have new smaller transistors (45nm vs. 65 nm) use a Hafnium-based high-k material for the gate dielectric and metal materials for the gate
  • have transistors that are so small that more than 2 million can fit on the period at the end of this sentence.
  • will be faster, more energy efficient compared to previous Extreme Edition generations, plus they’re lead- and halogen-free

You can read full reviews here. Some of coolest quotes:

“All signs point to, “Wow!”” — HardOCP

“The new Core 2 Extreme QX9650 is simply the fastest processor for gaming, media encoding and just about anything else you could do on your PC” — PC Perspective

“Less Noise, More Efficiency, More Speed and More Overclocking Potential!” — Tom’s Hardware

“Intel has pulled off a pretty remarkable achievement with the Core 2 Extreme QX9650’s…” — Firing Squad

“The Yorkfield-based Core 2 Extreme QX9650 is a success in every sense of the word” — Hot Hardware

“For now, the QX9650 represents the pinnacle of Intel desktop CPUs—and it’s simply the fastest desktop CPU on the market today” — Extremetech

See it in gaming action from this IDF video:

Here’s how the tiny, new transistors will make a big splash in future supercomputers:

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/10/PID_012909/Podtech_Intel_HPC_Richard_Dracott.mp3&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/home/4456/new-smaller-45nm-transistors-from-intel-making-a-big-splash-at-supercomputing-2007&totalTime=556000&breadcrumb=39c30e86edc548f2b288179f259aa775]

kenekaplan Facebook, Intel, IT, Jeremiah Owyang, Social Media, Web 2.0

Passion between IT & Social Media

I attended my first Social Media Club meeting in Silicon Valley when it was hosted at KNT-TV, the NBC affilaite, during a time when it was exploring citizen journalism and ways to get the community involved in its newsgather efforts. That’s when I sat next to Mike McGrath, who became the chapter leader along with my former Intel pal and now KNTV pro Meredith Smith.

Finally, my wish came true. I wanted to host a Social Media Club meeting at Intel, and that wish came true thanks to support from my boss and especially from many Intel pals like Mark Pettinger, Bob Duffy, Laurie Buczek, Josh Hilliker and Aaron Tersteeg. Thanks to several others like Lyn, Denise, Darold, Jason, Patrick, Chris and PodTech’s “Marketing Voices” host Jennfer Jones.

I list the people first because that’s what it’s all about. My friends made it possible to get time with Shel Israel, Dave McClure and Jeremiah Owyang. The evening attracted a somewhat small, but fully engaged audience of PR pros, enterprise tech experts and social media enthusiasts.

Several people pitched in to spread the word, including some who pointed out that the event was available live through UStream.TV (nearly 20 people joined online — see chat pasted below).

This was an evening of sharing, griping, laughing and opening up to directions we can take to implement social media into the companies where we work.

What hit me most what how Shel Israel got things started, warmed up the speakers, engaged the audience and helped make sense of things through his eyes, feelings, thoughts and desires.

Jennifer Jones from PodTech talked about how more marketing pros are getting their footing in social media. What a great mix of experience with PR and marketing history and new exploration with social media!

Dave McClure what the guy who best hit the them — Social Media and the Enterprise, Moving Forward — and Intel’s Bob Duffy showed how Intel is taking concerted efforts to move beyond corporate blogs into community building.

How-People-Use-Technology Guru and original IT@Intel blogger Eleanor Wynn painted historic and human aspects that brought to life the “how we got here” and “how can we face challenges ahead” stories. She is gifted with an ability to listen and understand people, but her present to the audience was some real insight into how people are using social media…peppered with humor and wonder.

Thanks to everyone who visited Intel headquarter and to those who watched when they could. Here is a collection of blog posts related to the Social Media Club, Silicon Valley held at Intel on 10/22:

What inspired me was the great follow up posts by Jeremiah Owyang, who grounded everything in reality and next steps. Here are one and two great posts that I hope spur more devotion to making social media fit into everyone’s work/life balance…with help of companies and their mighty IT departments….moving at the speed of business. Then Jeremiah “The Social Computing Prophet” finds time to involve more disciples by taking notice that I was sharing his posts with many folks inside Intel. Jeremiah’s posts got over 35 comments so far — wow!