Intel shows it’s branching out with software

Intel shows it’s branching out with software

SAN FRANCISCO — As Intel Corp. branches beyond its core business of microprocessors for laptop and desktop computers, the chip maker is doubling as a software company. The goal is to make sure many kinds of devices work well with Intel’s chips.

One example: Intel is backing an open-source project called Moblin, an operating software for mobile devices.

At Intel’s forum for technology developers recently, CEO Paul Otellini also showed off software that computer makers can use to build application stores like the one Apple offers on the iPhone.

Smoke on the water — and in the microphone?

NEW YORK — What do you get if you combine a smoke machine, some tubing, a laser pointer, a fan and a piece of toilet paper?

Answer: a microphone unlike any other.

Inventor David Schwartz says the device, still a prototype, could be a big leap for microphones because it picks up sound almost out of thin air. It doesn’t need a “diaphragm” — the thin membrane in a conventional microphone that responds to vibrations in the air.

The diaphragm can distort and weaken the sound picked up. Since it doesn’t have one, the “smokrophone” could be a high-fidelity recording microphone, or a supersensitive long-range microphone for spying, Schwartz suggests.

Here’s how the prototype works: A clear, vertical plastic tube has a small smoke machine at the bottom, and a fan at the top. The fan pulls the smoke in an even stream past a laser beam, which is pointed at a sensor. If you talk into a hole in the tube, you disturb the smoke stream, affecting how the sensor picks up the beam. Toilet paper over the hole keeps the puff of your breath from blowing away the smoke.

In the first demonstration outside Schwartz’ workshop, the microphone could pick up his voice. It wasn’t particularly clear, but then the setup is still crude: the laser is a $7 pointer, for instance.

Schwartz said he got the idea at an Italian restaurant in 2004, when he noticed that every time his wife spoke, the thin stream of smoke from a candle would waver. He soon bought a disco fog machine for experiments. In October, he will show off the microphone before the Audio Engineering Society in New York.

Verizon Wireless to support e-book reader

NEW YORK — Verizon will be providing wireless book downloads for an electronic reading device, joining AT&T and Sprint in supporting electronic books.

IREX Technologies, a Dutch company, said last week that it would start selling an e-book reader this fall for $400. It will have a screen with an 8.1-inch diagonal, in between the size of the two models of Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle.

Associated Press