Intel wants Edison to power future wearables
So far during CES, we've seen Intel show off reference designs for smartwatches and a voice assistant headset, but of course Intel isn't really that type of hardware company. Intel is a company that focuses on processors and lets its partners deal with the consumer products. Now, we're seeing Intel's plans to power future wearables with its new Edison chip.
To be fair, Edison isn't a processor; it's actually a full computer packed into the footprint of an SD card. The Edison offers full Linux support (or in the case of wearables, that should probably read Android support), and offers a dual-core x86 processor, built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, and an on-board microcontroller to process I/O in real-time. Interestingly, the device also has the capability of connecting to an Intel app store.
The tiny microcomputer is based on Intel's Quark family of chips, which it first announced back in September. The selling point of Quark is to be one-fifth the size of the smallest Atom processor, and use one-tenth of the power. That's an impressive comparison within the Intel world, but ARM processors have been occupying that space for a while now as proven by the chips you'll find in the first generation of smartwatches already on the market.
Intel still has a way to go to be a real competitor to ARM in the mobile space, but obviously the company doesn't plan on quitting.
source: Intel via ReadWriteWeb
FCC OKs Cingular\'s purchase of AT&T Wireless
Things that are NOT allowed: