IDF: Five tech predictions

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Apps for netbooks

This one seemed like a bit of no-brainer when it was announced at IDF: app stores for netbooks. Smartphones like the Apple iPhone have thousands of applications to choose from that were designed specifically for those platforms, so why not netbooks? Sure, the cheap and cheerful mini-notebooks run the same hardware as their fully specced cousins, but why not have applications designed specifically for the platform?

Based on the success of the Apple App Store, it’s a surprise this hasn’t happened sooner. To help it happen for its own Atom platform, Intel is helping manufacturers like Asus, Acer and Dell set up storefronts, while at the same time creating a framework for developers – and kicking back 70 per cent of revenue to those developers for their efforts.

All good then. But there’s one small thing: Intel itself spent much of the conference going on and on and on about developing once across all platforms. In other words, applications should run on super powerful desktops, web-friendly netbooks and even smartphones.

Chief executive Paul Otellini said: “The goal we have for developers is very simple: write once, run on all devices.”

So, then, why do netbooks need their own app stores if they’re going to run the same programs as everything else?

Either way, if this brings the same extras to netbooks that smartphones have enjoyed, consumers are sure to jump for joy – and start typing in their credit card details.

Performance is king

Moore’s Law is Intel’s mantra. Executives and researchers from the firm repeatedly say that it still applies, that Intel is sticking to the belief it can keep doubling capacity every couple of years.

It’s easy to see how people might think otherwise. How much smaller can the process get? The 32nm process has just kicked into production, with 22nm in testing to arrive for 2011. Intel is already talking about 12nm, if you can believe it. So what’s next? 6nm? 3nm? Something’s got to give, right?

Not so, according to Intel. We just don’t know what’s going to happen next, or what new materials or techniques will be uncovered.

The same goes for the performance side, according to Intel's head of mobile platforms Mooly Eden. “The application you run five years from now will not play on today’s processor,” he claimed, adding that we simply don't know what sort of applications we'll want to use in the future.

“Our competitors say it’s not about performance, it’s just about graphics,” Eden said. “But of course they would say that.”

We will all have devices

There are more phones in the world than people. Not all are web friendly, but it’s still an amazing statistic. Intel thinks computers are tracing the same path.

“You do not want to share your phone with anybody else,” he said, because it's your personal device. Computers are becoming more and more like that.

And price is no longer the issue, Eden claimed. "It’s not an issue of affordability. A lot of people can afford it... do they desire to have it?" he said.

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