Intel Hopes Sci-Fi Will Help Future Products
Have been far better at designing chips geared for consumers’ needs. Users “don’t care about the technology anymore,” says Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at researcher In-Stat. “They care about how they can use it. It’s cultural change that needs to happen” at Intel, says McGregor.The chipmaker is trying to speed along the change by reaching engineers in a language they understand: science fiction. Last year Intel hired four sci-fi writers to study the company’s latest research projects and produce an anthology, The Tomorrow Project , a couple dashes from Paris to the south coast of France to provide an injured relative with a blood transfusion. They travel in a car that navigates and drives itself. Medical information is wirelessly beamed to the vehicle’s dashboard and into mobile phone-like ear studs. In another story, robotic automation has rendered jobs a thing of the past, and one human mulls what to do with his free time. “It’s an incredibly useful technique for those of us who grew up watching Star Trek , or still do,” says Jack Weast, an Intel engineer.
Intel’s sci-fi publishing arm is an extension of its 12-year-old social science division. The division assesses technological trends by sending anthropologists and sociologists to hang out in living rooms, senior care centers, and hospitals. The logic behind the effort: Understand how technology is used and you’re more likely to design chips people will buy. “The world of computing isn’t what it used to be,” says Johnson. “It is my job to get out in front of our tech-nology road map.”
Johnson worked closely with Weast while the engineer’s team designed Intel’s E3100 and E4100 chips, processors for Internet-enabled televisions and set-top boxes. The company started work on the chip specifications five years ago under the assumption that viewers would want to stream movies and shows from the Internet to their TV. Johnson’s research, which included surveys and observation teams, showed that consumers don’t just want to stream videos—they want to browse the whole of the Web on their big screens. In response to the research, Weast’s engineering team redesigned the chips.
That hasn’t exactly led to a home run. TV device, introduced in October, was off to a “slow start.” The price has been slashed by a third, to $99, in the face of weak demand. In Europe, the Intel-based devices have fared better and are selling at a rate of “tens of thousands” a day, according to the company.
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The chipmaker is trying to speed along the change by reaching engineers in a language they understand: science fiction. Last year Intel hired four sci-fi writers to study the company's latest research projects and produce an anthology, The Tomorrow
A fact: Thanks to editor John W. Campbell, golden age science fiction writers Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and L. Sprague de Camp were hired by the Navy to work on military research at the Philadelphia Naval Yard during World War II.
Pegg plays comic book artist Graeme Willy, and Frost is unsuccessful sci-fi author Clive Gollings. They're super nerds of the British variety who reach the pinnacle of nerdness by heading to America to attend Comic-Con, home of countless Princess Leias
I also must include Octavia Butler and Steven Barnes as the sci-fi authors who have influenced my thought process. Finally, James Patterson's Alex Cross character is very influential in my own character development. I love to read independent writers,
It's a theme, said Digital Science Fiction President Michael Wills, that developed organically from the authors' submissions. "Therefore I Am features excellent character studies of uniquely human emotions and traits as well as stories that give us an
10 Real Places From Scifi Adventure Tale 'The Astounding, the ...
, my new novel, is what I like to call faction — a hybrid of fact and fiction. A fact: Thanks to editor John W. Campbell, golden age science fiction writers Robert Heinlein , Isaac Asimov , and L. Sprague de Camp were hired by the Navy to work on military research at the Philadelphia Naval Yard during World War II. A fact: L. Ron Hubbard was a pulp science fiction writer, a friend of Heinlein’s, and was court martialed for, well, basically incompetency during the war — yet he always claimed he was off on super-secret missions in the Pacific. A fact: Nikola Tesla built a strange communication tower at Wardenclyffe, Long Island. A fact: a legend has grown up since the 1960s that experiments in Philadelphia may have led to a ship being transported from the harbor, to Virginia, and back again. A fact: a spring-fed river appears under the Empire State Building and runs underground to Washington Square. Somewhere beyond those facts, my fiction begins.
I do a tremendous amount of research preparing for my novels. I have a responsibility to the real lives of the people I’m turning into characters; to plausibly connect what we know about their lives with what we don’t. One thing I really like to do, whenever possible, is visit the locations I’m writing about. Two things that I write about often in describing a locale are smells and sounds — two things that I don’t have to imagine if I visit a place. So, I thought for this Geeks of Doom guest blog post that I’d share some of the real world settings I visited and photographed (and one I visited but didn’t photograph and had to borrow photos from).
Now available on the Speculative Faith Library: all fantasy/sci-fi/horror novels by Shane Johnson: .
Good! RT @: Now that's a good job for a writer! Intel hires Sci-Fi authors to imagine future chip use. via @
Now that's a good job for a writer! Intel hires Sci-Fi authors to imagine future chip use. via @
hopes Sci-Fi authors Will help future products via @
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