How one man is staying ahead of his cancer by finding the genetic factors that fuel it. 

The thought of leaving behind his wife and seven-year-old daughter is driving Bryce Olson to the edge of life sciences, where computational analysis of human DNA is pushing bioscience and healthcare into a new era of precision medicine.

“When my doctor told me I had prostate cancer, those two words turned my world upside down,” said Olson.

In spring 2014, at age 45, Olson was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer, which has a five-year survival rate of just 28 percent.

Olson is one of 2.8 million Americans now living with the disease. The average age for being diagnosed with prostate cancer is 66, according to Cancer.org.

“The stats for people like me are gloomy, but I’m set on staying ahead of it by finding the right treatments that will slow down or even stop my cancer,” said Olson.

He has been through prescribed surgery, hormone therapy and chemotherapy treatments, all of which temporarily wrestled his cancer into submission.

It’s a matter of time before his tumors begin to grow again, so he’s leaving no stone unturned in his fight to stay alive. It’s a fight he believes will benefit others living with cancer now and in the future, especially if they better understand the new world of personalized, molecular treatment.

Olson is a global marketing director at Intel, a place that’s seen its share of brave people fight against diseases. Former CEO and Chairman Andy Grove was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1995 and the following year wrote a Forbes’ cover story “Fighting Prostate Cancer,” which outlined his analytical approach to finding the right, state-of-the-art treatment.

Eric Dishman, an Intel Fellow and general manager of Intel’s Health and Life Sciences, was diagnosed with two rare kidney diseases at age 19. After trying a variety of treatments, he underwent a successful kidney transplant in late 2012.

A long-time surfer, Olson sees himself dropping into a giant peak-shaped wave, where the forces of technology and bioscience are coming together to help improve early detection and attack advanced cancer.

In his fight against cancer, the Oregon resident decided to have his tumor DNA analyzed to gain better understanding of his cancer at a molecular level. By uncovering the cause of his aggressive form of cancer, he hopes to find clues that will lead to the right treatment.

“Genomic sequencing will help guide my future treatments,” Olson told iQ.  “Unfortunately most people with cancer have no idea what specific genetic mutations are actually fueling their unique cancer growth, and not knowing that is dangerous.”

He had his tumor analyzed at the nearby Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), which helped pioneer personalized medicine and is an international leader in research and cancer treatment. OHSU is working with Intel to use high-performance computing and cloud technology to speed up and lower the cost of analyzing DNA, so that precision care becomes the standard for treating diseases.

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the chemical that carries instructions to cells in the body. Chromosomes from each parent combine to create a person’s genome, which consists of six billion individual DNA letters.

When chemicals that carry instructions deviate from the norm, cells can grow out of control and mutate. Mutations can be inherited or triggered by environmental factors or lifestyle choices. Typically it requires several different mutations to result in cancer.

Genome sequencing is the process to figure out the order of those individual letters that make up a person’s DNA.

While gene sequencing at birth or an early age could help people understand their own health risks and potential health risks of family members, until now the process has been used primarily for people diagnosed with terminal diseases.

Sequencing presents huge promise, but it has yet to spark a widespread revolution in healthcare outside of leading cancer institutions, according to Christopher Corless, M.D., Ph.D., director and chief medical officer of the Knight Diagnostics Laboratories, which are part of the OHSU, Knight Cancer Institute.

“There is a fundamental shift underway, but it’s incomplete,” Corless said. “Only some people understand genes and the implications of mutations. Democratizing this is a ways down the road.”

At academic centers sequencing is becoming more routine, but not yet at smaller clinics and hospitals, he said. The challenges include costs, insurance reimbursements and the proper medications for targeting those mutations.

This is where Olson finds himself, between a hospital treating him using traditional means and a research facility that is helping him uncover more precisely what’s driving his tumor’s growth, and to work this into clinical decision making.

Even if sequencing helps analysts find the problems, there may not be an FDA-approved medication that meets Olson’s specific needs. But sequencing may help doctors find a new clinical trial in which Olson could be offered an experimental drug that could be the best treatment option for his specific disease.

While this may seem an uphill battle, it’s not insurmountable, according to Dr. Brian Druker, M.D., director, OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.

“When we understand what is broken, we can fix it,” Druker said.

Druker’s research nearly 20 years ago led to the development of Gleevec, the first molecular targeted drug able to kill cancer cells while leaving healthy tissue unharmed. It was first used to fight chronic myeloid leukemia, but has since been determined effective in treating about 10 types of cancer.

Controversial at the time, Druker’s specific targeting of a cell’s mutation is leading to molecular treatments that, for many, are less toxic than carpet-bombing therapies like chemotherapy.

Druker said we can defeat cancer. It requires knowledge, and computer technology is accelerating that collective understanding.

“The first human genome was sequenced in 2001,” said Druker. “It took about 10 years and cost $100 million. Today, a person can have their DNA sequenced in about four weeks for about $1,000. We have a remarkable ability to generate data and it keeps improving.”

Each time someone gets their full genome sequenced, it generates information for 30,000 genes, which means terabytes of computer data. Analyzing that data into meaningful, actionable results is expensive and time consuming.

Since 2013, OHSU has been working with Intel to shape how this data can be generated faster, cheaper and securely so it can be shared quickly with the right people at the right time.

The notion that everyone is unique could lead to a future of infinite complexity, creating a Sisyphean task for medical scientists and doctors who need to make sense of all of this data. However, Druker believes that as more genomes are sequenced, patterns will emerge.

“Computation will make it clear,” said Druker. “It will help us more rapidly identify which drugs will help. It will take days to weeks instead of years.”

And if no drug exists and there’s a significant need for it, pharmaceutical companies can start working on those right away. In Olson’s case, searching for precision treatments that go after his specific mutations is where he’s focused now.

“Things are more clear and at the same time more scary now,” said Olson.

“Most prostate cancers feed off of testosterone. They are stymied by therapies that either reduce the level of testosterone in a guy’s body or prevent the cancer’s cell’s receptors from binding to testosterone,” he said.

Sooner or later his prostate cancer will learn how to survive and grow even in low- to non-existent circulating testosterone levels. It feels like he is in no-man’s land because there are very limited FDA-approved treatments for fighting prostate cancer that resists hormonal treatments.

“Genomic sequencing opened my eyes to something called the PI3K signaling pathway that actually drives resistance to hormone therapy and stimulates tumor growth. It’s scary knowing that my tumor appears to be using that actual pathway to grow.”

To Olson, this discovery means that he needs to avoid spending time and insurance money on population-based treatments, which don’t impact his specific needs. Instead, he and his doctors will spend more time getting him on clinical trials for experimental treatments that could attack his cancer more precisely.

Nearly 12 people die from cancer every minute, leading to more than 1,700 deaths each day, according to World Cancer Death Clock. Cancer accounts for one in seven deaths worldwide. In the United States, Cancer is the second-most common cause of death, exceeded only by heart disease, and accounts for nearly one in every four deaths.

According to Corless, today’s gene sequencing focuses on panels of genes that are known to play a role in cancer. This type of sequencing zeroes in on the most important information needed urgently.

“In our first foray into using modern sequencing, we’d look at 23 to 76 genes, depending on the cancer,” said Corless.

He said that this kind of targeted sequencing has generated a lot of data and has helped many patients. It can find mutations that are interesting and important in 50 to 60 percent of patients.

“Today, targeted sequencing has a potential impact on patient care in about 20 percent of cases. We think that number will go up when we go to exome sequencing.”

He and his team at OHSU are now shifting from focused panels to broad-based, ‘whole exome’ sequencing that looks at all the protein-coding regions of the genome (about 1.6 percent of the total DNA).

“We are scaling up from an average of 50 genes for one patient to an average of 20,000 genes,” said Dr. Corless. “It’s a massive step forward.”

Gene sequencing is accelerating the availability of new treatments beyond chemo, he said.

“There are 500 different compounds in clinical development. Some are being developed in conjunction with universities, others in conjunction with pharmaceutical companies.”

Using genomic sequencing in the treatment of cancer has profound implications for the future of cancer patients everywhere. Instead of throwing darts at a blank wall, as Olson puts it, doctors and patients will be able to learn what drugs successfully treat what mutations.

OHSU’s work with Intel to build a huge database or so-called “cancer cloud” could allow researchers in Oregon to privately share critical information with doctors across the nation and around the world.

“This will one day become a reality for all patients, where targeted therapies can attack the genetic abnormalities that are driving a person’s cancer and stop the tumor in its tracks,” said Olson.

For now, Olson is navigating new ground that he believes could lead to identifying new drugs or help doctors find the right combination of drugs to halt his cancer.

“I’m going to fight this thing as long as I can,” said Olson. “If it does take me down, I’d like to think that my efforts are accelerating personalized cancer care opportunities for others. This experience is showing me and my family how critical new technology and gene analysis are to our lives.”

Editor’s note: Learn more about Intel technology’s role in advancing Health and Life Sciences here.

The post Technology Powers Bioscience in Fight Against Cancer appeared first on iQ by Intel.

Fashion news and tips, daily horoscope and other internet-connected services make women’s wrist accessory more useful for work, social and family life.

A stylish bracelet for women created out of a cross-industry collaboration is now evolving into something even more useful for fashionistas as new lifestyle apps take advantage of nearly invisible computing technology nestled inside the precious-stone-adorned wrist accessory.

MICA, short for My Intelligent Communication Accessory, is a smart bracelet designed by Opening Ceremony and engineered by Intel. It first became available in late 2014. While it is designed to be eye-catching, the technology inside is bringing new capabilities to MICA wearers by adding features powered by Refinery29 that include fashion alerts and daily horoscopes. These enhance the current features, which include text messaging, emails, Google calendar, Facebook events, Yelp and intelligent reminders.

It is also creating new ways for fashion brands to connect with their loyal customers.

“To ask someone who cares deeply about fashion to wear an item every single day, it better be insanely good-looking and versatile,” said Connie Wang, Fashion Features Director at Refinery29, the new-media company behind some of the new services available on MICA.

“It’s got to work with a wide variety of outfits, while also looking appropriate for a wide variety of occasions,” said Wang (pictured below).

Until recently, most wearable technologies were largely geared toward males and focused on health efficiency or fitness apps, said Ayse Ildeniz, general manager of strategy and business development for Intel’s New Devices Group, the team that developed MICA.

“With MICA, we wanted to create a piece for women who were busy and on the go, style-conscious and wanting to be connected to loved ones,” said Ildeniz.

She said [tweet_quote hashtags=”#wearables”] MICA was designed to help women stay in the know while staying in the moment.[/tweet_quote]

One bracelet design features black Ayers (water snake skin), pearls from China and lapis stones from Madagascar, while the other features white Ayers, tiger’s eye from South Africa and obsidian from Russia. Both feature 18-karat gold plating and integrated mobile technology that allows wearers to see their Google calendar, Facebook events, and receive Gmail notifications and intelligent meeting reminders.

The new R29 Fashion and R29 Horoscopes features are powered by Refinery29 and provide styling tricks and fashion news, as well as essential cosmic insights.

Currently available in the U.S. for $495 at Opening Ceremony and Barneys New York, MICA comes with a two-year AT&T wireless data plan.

The luxury cuff-style bracelet exemplifies how the fashion and technology industries, once considered strange bedfellows, are increasingly working together to bring new wearable technologies to the world. Big brand names in fashion and technology continue to team up, including Intel’s collaborations with eyewear maker Luxottica, SMS Audio, Fossil Group, and Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer.

While fashion is one of many market segments for wearables, which range from health tracking to industrial applications, BI Intelligence, the research arm of Business Insider, estimates the global wearables market will grow at a compound annual rate of 35 percent over the next five years, reaching 148 million units shipped annually in 2019, up from 33 million units shipped this year.

Ildeniz said that by interacting with fashion industry leaders, Intel is helping grow an ecosystem that could ultimately speed innovation around wearables by sharing best practices and driving down costs.

By bringing the two worlds together, Ildeniz said this convergence between industries will endeavor to make wearable technology address the needs of broader audiences. This is what’s needed to break away from what exists today, which she believes is overly focused on male consumers.

“Together we can make products for people who care about what things look like, and that’s happening because we’re getting input and having brainstorms between fashion designers and technology engineers.”

Refinery29’s Wang says that while style is essential, the people she covers in the fashion industry know that the most effective wearables need to be tech first, fashion second.

“It’s also important to get the fashion part right, but a product’s success is going to hinge on how well it works.”

The fashion industry is certainly influencing the wearable tech industry, according to Ildeniz. It’s encouraging companies like Intel to create user experience teams to conduct field research that can be merged with fashion industry insights to inspire wearable technology that offers the types of notifications and features that people desire in a wearable vs. other devices that they already own, like smartphones.

The collaborative work on MICA continues to be eye-opening as cross-industry interests and synergies are discovered.

“When we ask fashion experts what they’d like us to do, it’s clear they want us to make things that defy physics,” said Ildeniz. “But we also learned many want to find ways to stay linked with customers, not only after a purchase but also when the purchased item is being used.”

Could wearables become a conduit for nurturing relationships with loyal customers?

In the product development process, Opening Ceremony indicated that horoscopes and fashion tips would enhance the MICA experience and believed that Refinery29 would be the most appropriate content partner given their focus on fashion as well as on millennials.

Results from the Refinery29 March 2014 study, Her Brain on Digital: Inside the World of the Millennial Minded Woman, showed that two in three readers consider themselves early adopters. Nine in ten readers embrace technology and seek ways it can increase productivity. Four in five readers are experimental with technology.

The report also revealed that 86 percent of Refinery29 readers agree that “all of the available resources make it easier to develop my personal style” and that 87 percent of readers like when brands promote new product lines and launches.

Ildeniz sees the fusion of fashion and technology industries not only meeting the desires of fashion consumers, but also shaping the future of consumer electronics and the way people interact with them.

“With today’s interfaces, most assume we need to look at something like a screen, but voice will be a big factor in how we interact with wearable technologies,” she said.

She also points to how the world is bifurcating.

On one hand, smartphones are the hub or main computing and communication devices that feed wearable technologies. On the other hand, there’s the notion of having sensors distributed on the body and beyond to other devices, cars and objects at home.

“When everything talks to everything, the possibilities seem limitless,” Ildeniz said.

Although this distributed model may not hit mainstream for another 10 years, she said that it could render today’s form factor less relevant. The need for screens could diminish. Computing could happen anywhere and be communicated with a hat, a pair of glasses, a dress, basketball, car or almost anything we use in everyday life.

“Intel Curie has lots of potential because of its small, low-power ability to fit in tiny things,” she said, referring to the new button-sized computing module prototype first shown in January 2015.

“We’ll likely see interesting proof of concepts, but there’s lots of work to be done to improve battery life and other things, like making it washable,” she said.

Fashion and tech depend on each other, said Wang.

“Both are tools to help us live more expressive lives, and as technology becomes as essential as clothes are, there will inevitably be more and more overlap between the two,” said Wang.

“However, a big issue that tech has to solve to appeal to the fashion set is the problem with being able to customize your hardware on a whim. We change our clothes every day, but we can’t yet change the look of our tech.”

Image of models wearing MICA photographed by Collier Schorr.

The post MICA Smart Bracelet Switches on New Fashion, Lifestyle Alerts appeared first on iQ by Intel.

As Moore’s Law continues dictating the pace of technology innovation, it’s driving computer chip engineers into an uncharted world that is exponentially shrinking and extremely complex.

For nearly two decades, the pursuit of perfection has led Nikos Troullinos down minuscular rabbit holes to fix tiny design mistakes that can cause computer processor circuitry to malfunction.

The Intel chip engineer’s calm demeanor masks the magnitude of complexity he manages every day, eliminating imperfections trapped among the billions of interconnected objects that fit on a sliver of silicon, often smaller than a thumbnail.

“It’s like cutting a hole in the sky, plucking out that piece to remove an erratic star, then replacing that piece back into the sky without disrupting the cosmos,” said Troullinos, describing how he and his team repair designs before computers chips are mass manufactured.

The astrophysical analogy is apt when you consider zooming to 14 billionths of a meter, the size of transistors that power the latest 5^th generation Intel Core processors.

“We take a block that has a billion objects on it then focus on one thousand, which is like zeroing in a million times,” he said.

Intel Senior Fellow Mark Bohr illustrated in a recent video what it means to be in a space surrounded by transistors measuring 14 nanometers.

Today, whenever Troullinos goes to work on a future chip design, he operates in an infinitesimal universe where transistors measure 10 and even 7 nanometers. He points out that the diamond lattice distance of silicon is 0.54 nanometers. To put that into perspective, the diameter of a human hair is about 75 microns, which equals 75,000 nanometers.

“We often work on designs that are two generations ahead of what’s being manufactured,” he said.

To find and fix faulty transistors and layers of interlacing connectors requires sophisticated software tools that evolve dramatically in order to keep up with Moore’s Law, which dictates the number of transistors will double on the same size of silicon every two years.

This happens because engineers keep finding ways to make smaller, more efficient transistors and wires to connect them up, but Troullinos, like many others in his field, see that this is getting more difficult to do.

“Engineering is the art and science of solving hard problems and workarounds for exceptionally difficult problems to reach near perfection,” said Troullinos, who joined Intel in 1996.

He studied electrical engineering at Aristoteleion Panepistimion of Thessaloniki in Greece before earning a PhD in computer science at Syracuse. Around Intel, he’s known for helping design software tools that speed the chip design process.

“Software tools are as important as the technology being created,” he said. “Software tools enable our folks to design and make these incredibly complex chips.”

He said the tools aren’t perfect, but they keep evolving and improving, because they have to keep up with Moore’s Law.

While science-gurus-turned-TV-stars Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman satirized Moore’s Law in a 2007 video for Intel, the nano science driving Moore’s Law into the future is increasingly tedious and complicated.

Troullinos said that not only does he have to deal with smaller circuitry every two years, he also has to manage multiple complexities borne from integrating more intricate analogue and digital functions, not to mention the fusing of central processing units (CPU) with graphics or LTE (4^th generation wireless communication) like the Intel Atom x3 system on a chip, codenamed SoFIA.

“The real world is analog and we created digital to simplify or make things repeatable,” he said. “Analog is gradual and continual while digital is limited to specific values like how binary is limited to two: on or off, yes or no.”

Before any chip design moves into mass manufacturing it needs to meet strict quality standards. The “light pen” used to pattern today’s chips is 15 times wider than the slimmest circuitry. This leads to many tradeoffs and is the reason his team made the software tools, which make the repairs faster.

He describes it as trying to fix a problem in a tight, dark place. First the erratic area needs to identified, enlarged and lit before surgical repairs can be made.

“It used to be done by hand, but increasingly we are training computers to do it,” he said.

“After a dozen times of fixing a small portion of a chip, we can program or train machines to do the fixes.”

These images show progress of recent repairs on a piece of an upcoming 10 nanometer chip. This block is about 50 times smaller than the actual chip. Thousands of tiny repairs were done in a day with the help of engineers in the U.S., Costa Rica and Penang working in parallel.

“What used to take several days or weeks to clean up now can be done in a day,” said Troullinos.

Without these software tools, it’d be tough to keep Moore’s Law alive, he said.

At the edge of perfection Troullinos finds the need for variation, something he sees as essential to life and electronics.

“Inside circuitry, aspects of change are what make it function. It’s these variations that bring them to life.”

Editor’s note: This video shows Dave Pivin, an analysis engineer at Intel who looks for defects in chips once they’ve been manufactured on silicon wafers. “My job is like finding a needle in a haystack, and I’m looking in a million haystacks for a single needle,” he said. “These days at 22 nanometer and 14 nanometers, the defects are so small they’re almost invisible.”

Learn more about Moore’s Law and Moore’s Law impact on the world.

The post Microscopic Adventures of a Chip Circuitry Repairman appeared first on iQ by Intel.

San Francisco startup links California residents’ smart meter data to smartphones and internet-connected smart home devices so they can help save energy when it’s needed most.

As people around the world celebrate Earth Day on April 22, there is a growing number of people in California earning money for the energy they’re saving on almost any given day.

San Francisco startup OhmConnect sends text messages to subscribers’ phones alerting them to reduce energy use in their homes during high demand periods. The collective impact can mean that California power companies don’t have to fire up an additional power plant to handle high demands in particular areas.

“It’s like having a power plant remote control in your pocket,” said Curtis Tongue, OhmConnect co-founder and chief marketing officer.

OhmConnect is free to use. Subscribers learn where their power comes from, get alerts when energy prices spike, receive visual analysis of home energy use and get tips for reducing overall energy consumption. Users earn points for lowering energy use during peak periods, and those points can be traded for cash. People can earn even more cash by linking their OhmConnect account to a Wi-Fi thermostat, smart home devices and electric car.

According to Tongue, OhmConnect is paying users $50 to more than $150 a year.

“Many see our platform as a way to subsidize their purchase of a new smart home device while giving a tangible payback to the grid,” said Tongue.

“What’s surprised us was that a group of people began donating their points to their local community.”

In 2013, Tongue and OhmConnect co-founder Matthew Duesterberg took first place at an energy data competition hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy. About six months later, they opened their service to the public and today are serving thousands of Californians.

According to a recent report by the Institute of Local Self Reliance called Beyond Utility 2.0 to Energy Democracy, the combination of smartphones and smart appliances is giving electricity customers unprecedented opportunities to manage their energy use. Key drivers behind starting OhmConnect include California’s evolving demand response regulations, the wholesale electricity market and the accessibility of smart meter data.

About 90 percent of houses in California now have a smart meter, according to Tongue.

“Smart meter data belongs to the users,” said Tongue. “We give people a new way to use it to reduce their energy footprint.”

In a recent study by research firm Forrester, the top reason U.S. smartphone owners opt in to push notification is to be alerted to timely information.

“When an app does this successfully, we found that it changes consumer behavior,” wrote Nicole Dvorak, a data scientist at Forrester, in a January blog post.

Tongue said that of the thousands of OhmConnect users, many are expressing they want more alerts and more opportunities to participate.

“We find that when people receive the alert, they act fast, so we’re figuring out the right ways to increase the number of opportunities for people to participate,” he said.

His team is also exploring game theories to keep people engaged and active. One idea pools a group of participants’ points and a randomly selected participant collects all of the points for a particular week.

Tongue said that some people have even expressed that they should have points taken away for those times when they didn’t reduce energy use during OhmHours. However, OhmConnect tries to keep the experience as positive as possible.

The goal is to get more people involved, which is increasing OhmConnect’s overall impact.

“Today we can save 100s of kilowatts on a daily basis,” said Tongue.

CEO Duesterberg told Green Tech Media recently that he’d like OhmConnect to save megawatts of energy in a day.

According to Tongue, if half of California’s population signed up for OhmConnect, the service could help people save hundreds of gigawatt hours in a year, and save money in the process.

For anyone living outside of California, Tongue recommends asking state legislatures to create energy markets that permit third party participation because this allows residents to sell their reductions back to the grid. He said anyone can visit the OhmConnect site and request the company to support a specific utility in their area.

OhmConnect’s four employees are passionate about smart energy grids. In addition to understanding the energy exchange market, their software skills have turned their service into a hub for people who want to manage internet-connected thermostats and other so-called smart home devices, even electric vehicles.

“There are a lot of personal Internet of Things devices with different interfaces, but we want to help people put them on one interface that works like a universal remote,” said Tongue.

Once all of these items are linked, OhmConnect enables users to automate what happens every time an OhmHour alert arrives, allowing people to reduce energy consumption without lifting a finger.

“It’s immediate and people find it instantly gratifying,” said Tongue.

In fact, OhmConnect has been a bit of a trendspotter, according to Tongue.

“In the past few months, we’ve seen a big jump in the number of Fiat 500E and BMW i3 electric cars being added to OhmConnect,” he said.

Behind the scenes, OhmConnect handles hordes of digital information. The company collects smart grid data from each user every 15 minutes. It balances that data with what’s happening in the energy market and combines it with weather data and zip code information to find the right people to send OhmHour alerts.

“Currently, we process hundreds of gigabytes of data each day and that is growing steadily as the user base grows and more smart devices are connected to us,” said Tongue.

The OhmConnect site also provides data visualizations that show a house’s energy consumption, including a trickle detector called “vampire use”. The site offer tips such as enabling “sleep mode” on computers, unplugging gadgets when they’re done charging and using powerstrips to turn off whole entertainment systems.

To sign up, visit OhmConnect.

The post Smart Home Technology That Pays You for Saving Electricity appeared first on iQ by Intel.

A team of hackers inside Intel uses tricks to fine tune prototypes that lead to thinner, better performing tablets and 2 in 1 devices.

Francios Piednoel’s quest to make the best performing tablet has been a microscopic battle against the laws of physics.

His mission to find the right balance of performance and battery consumption convinced him to recruit a band of crafty young hackers.

When he took on the challenge to build the best performing tablet in 2013, Piednoel said processor speed wasn’t the only thing on the list he needed to optimize.

“We have a lot of expertise in processors and graphics, but we needed experts in audio, touch and other areas,” said Piednoel, a principal engineer and computer systems analyst at Intel.

So he plucked talented people straight out of college and from his own network, assembling them into a tight knit team to work in a lab located behind Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif.

He described the team as a mix of academically trained engineers and self-made tinkerers.

“Michael is the king of hacking electronics and software together. Nathan is good at hacking software and form factor mechanics. Damon taught us about the science and mathematics behind best touch systems. Our audio expert is a professional musician.”

He said he didn’t hire individuals based on their diploma but on what they were capable of doing. They had to be clever and fast.

“We’re counting milliwatts and moving from microseconds to milliseconds to create faster, cooler, smoother experiences. It’s all about getting more speed on lower power.”

They tinkered with existing tablets to understand how they were built, looking for things they’d like to improve.

They created 3D models of tablet skins and components then moved things around virtually looking for potential design improvements that could save materials or lower power consumption.

They even built their own functioning tablets, from casting the casing to fitting all of the components together.

They experimented with metal skins — one with an aluminum chassis, a gold-plated aluminum one and one made of copper — to test heat dissipation.

“We wanted to build the best possible tablet with ideal thermal requirements. We figured out things one by one, then understand the best way to systematize everything together to get right balance of power and performance,” Piednoel said.

Building these prototypes also led them to create software code and recommendations for fine-tuning new devices built with the Intel Core M processor, a system on a chip designed for tablets and 2 in 1 computers.

The Intel Core M processor runs at 4.5 watts, which is more than half the watts required to power the previous generation of Intel Core processors.

Piednoel said this allowed designers to make devices without a processor cooling fan.

“Five watts is easily fanless,” he said. “With our various proof-of-concept tablets, made with different materials, we showed that a tablet could be built using a processor that runs at 7.5 watts without requiring a fan.”

Piednoel has built a reputation based on his keen determination and unconventional approach to pushing PC performance to their limits. In 2010, he moved from focusing on desktop PCs to tablets, and became a sort of pied piper in the fledgling tablet industry.

His mastery of math and computer code, along with his team’s Oculus device-testing robot, helped speed up performance of first- and second-generation Intel Atom processor-powered tablets so they responded smoothly at 60 frames per second.

Piednoel points out that tablets — as well as smartphones and phablets — operate different than laptop or desktop computers. These differences create challenges for designers of new 2 in 1 devices that switch between operating as a tablet and a laptop.

“The Core M was designed to adapt to both modes seamlessly. It has two very capable cores that handle spikes in demand without cutting operations into many pieces to get it done quickly.”

When Intel President Renee James introduced the Intel Core M processor at Computex in July 2014, she called it “the most energy-efficient processor in Intel’s history.” She showed a 7.2 millimeters thin prototype tablet codenamed Llama Mountain that weighed 672 grams and docks to a keyboard to become a laptop.

About six months later, Asus released the razor thin Transformer Book t300 Chi based on the Llama Mountain design. Piednoel calls it one of the most innovative 2 in 1 devices to date.

He said his hacker team’s work on tablets has speed up innovation in mobile devices, and their work is leading to new explorations.

“We can look at almost any form factor and determine the right balance of performance and power consumption,” he said.

In many ways, Piednoel takes the fruits of Moore’s Law and pushes them to the edge to find tiny improvements that collectively result in better mobile computing experiences. While the doubling transistors every couple of years isn’t directly resulting in a doubling of processor clock speeds, it is helping engineers tackle economics of power requirements for all kinds of computing devices.

“I like imagining what we will do four years from now, when smartphones and smaller mobile devices with Core M-level processors are powered by only quarter of the energy needed today.”

The post Tablet Design Hackers Hunt for Microseconds and Milliwatts appeared first on iQ by Intel.

Two innovative photographers talk about technology and their Sky Glow quest to capture the majestic movement of stars in the night sky.

After dark, spotting Orion, the Big Dipper and other constellations twinkling overhead can be delightful, but it’s nothing compared to the explosive, spinning and cascading light show that time-lapse photography captures when it tracks the night sky.

Before the night sky is severely blighted by increasing light pollution, photographers Gavin Heffernan and Harun Mehmedinović want show the world what it will miss.

Not unlike Carl Sagan or Stephen Hawking, who used science to help bring understanding of the cosmos, Heffernan and Mehmedinović use time-lapse photography to bring new desire for stargazing.

Using particular settings on their cameras, a collection of portable gear and computer technology at home to process their massive numbers of images, the photographers make videos that manipulate time. They create a spiraling Milky Way interrupted only by speeding flashes from shooting stars and trailing meteor streams.

“Ten or fifteen years ago, people like Harun and I could never have achieved this level of output simply because of prohibitive costs and technological limitations,” said Heffernan. “Now, for the most part, the only limitations are the ones we put on ourselves. I think this is a huge reason why you see time-lapse and astrophotography work exploding on the internet right now.”

The two were classmates at the American Film Institute. Capturing mind-bending movements of the night sky has won them spots on National Geographic, weather channels and Daily Planet, but their Sky Glow Project Kickstarter campaign brought their work to new heights.

“Harun and I have built up a great following for our night sky photography and videos,” said Heffernan, pointing to their websites SunchaserPictures.com and Bloodhoney.com. “But we’ve never put our astrophotography into print until now.”

The duo is creating a book of astrophotography accompanied by a timelapse video series exploring North America’s starscapes. In collaboration with the International Dark-Sky Association, the Skyglow Project aims to raise public awareness about the growing threat of light pollution and importance of preserving dark skies.

“Much of what we are photographing may not be around in 50 years, because the dark skies are being impacted by a 6 percent increase of light pollution each year,” explained Mehmedinović in an email.

To create their imagination-stretching videos, the two rely on instinct, strategic planning and the right gear.

“We use five or six cameras at a time, split evenly between Canon 5D Mark IIIs & 6Ds,” said Mehmedinović.

They rely on fast lenses with aperture f2.8 or faster and use remote control intervalometers — which count intervals of time — for each camera.

“We use very sturdy tripods to avoid camera shake and occasionally use Alpine Labs Michron and Radian, which allow for 360-degree turn of the camera while shooting,” he said. They also use time-lapse devices and a motorized dolly for some more advanced moving shots.

“For night astrophotography shots, we set the exposure to 25 seconds and ISO usually around 1600 to about 6400 and always shoot in RAW mode, to maximize quality and keep the color noise down to minimum,” he said.

They spend about four hours shooting a night sky, snapping some 120 images per hour.

“For time-lapses, it’s important not to touch the camera once it’s set up to avoid camera shake, so we just set it all up and walk away, come back three hours later and re-set.”

The next step is taking the images and editing them into video.

A 20-second video clip running at 24 frames per second (FPS) requires 480 still pictures, according to Heffernan. Each photo is captured as a large RAW file, which can play in full resolution on 5K display, which is the equivalent of seven times the number of pixels used to create 1080p HD video. Each photo file is enormous, taking up 27 MB of memory. Multiply 27 MB times 480 photos and total amount of data for a 20-second video is 12.96 GB.

The amount of data for any given project can get tough to track. “I’m not sure what it all adds up to but it’s a lot,” said Heffernan.

To manage these huge files and speed up workflow, Heffernan uses fast Thunderbolt G-RAID 4 TB hard drives to store files and renders them on an Apple Mac Pro powered by a 2.7 GHz twelve-core Intel Xeon E5 processor.

“We’ll do color correction in LightRoom and export another set of 480 JPGs equaling about 10 GB,” said Heffernan. “Those JPGs are turned into 5K, 24 FPS video files using QuickTime. From that 4 GB 5K file, we’ll use keyframes in Final Cut to create 1080p shots with motion.”

He said the trails of light in the video are the moving trajectory of the stars, rendered via a program called Starstax.

“If it’s a big circle with the ‘eye in the sky,’ that means the camera is pointed directly at the North Star. If you see straight lines, that means you’re looking in a different direction.”

The two use their filmmaker backgrounds to infuse storytelling into their time-lapse creations.

“We strive to make each short film cinematic and engaging so our audience can truly appreciate the amazing night sky,” said Heffernan.

Mehmedinović spent his early childhood in Tuzla, Bosnia, where dark skies and nature were pristine.

“I fell in love with the Milky Way and was very fond of fireflies as a small child, which were extremely common there. I have always likened them to stars,” he said. “When I came to the U.S. and kicked around from city to city, it took me a while to realize I couldn’t see the stars at all. It wasn’t until I started doing road trips across the country that I saw them and had a flashback to early childhood.”

His passion for stargazing and photography collided, and soon he was drawn to the Colorado Plateau area, where he met people from the Navajo-Dine and Hopi tribes who taught him about mythology and archeoastronomy.

“Stars are among the strongest natural catalyst for imagination and wonder about the mysteries of life,” he said. “Stars make us feel like we’re part of a much larger universe.”

He’s concerned that light pollution will hide the sky for future generations, and he worries about the harm this will cause to the collective human spirit. The Skyglow Project could kindle a sense of wonder in people who have never seen the majesty of a truly dark sky.

“If more people can experience dark skies, they will fall in love with the sky just as I did as a kid,” said Mehmedinović. “I hope we can get humanity to reverse the light pollution trend.”

The post Time-Lapse Photographers Take Stargazing to the Edge of Imagination appeared first on iQ by Intel.

One in five farmers in the U.S. are using real-time data analysis to turn agriculture into a more precise science.

Farmers in America are plowing into the future using computer technology to better meet the world’s growing demand for food, which is expected to double by the year 2050, according to Jesse Vollmar, a 26-year-old Michigan farmer turned big data entrepreneur.

“We’ll have to do this without getting any more farmland,” he said. “In fact, we actually lose farm ground every single year.”

Growing up on a farm run by his family for five generations, Vollmar knows first-hand the many variables and risks that rankle farmers year after year. Unpredictable weather and variable soil conditions are among the plethora of challenges that make farming more a game of chance than a sure bet.

“[My family farming experience] really shaped my view…for how we can go create things that build new value in the world,” said Vollmar.

At an early age, he became fascinated with information technology and saw it as an essential tool for farmers. In 2012, he co-founded FarmLogs, a data analytics firm used by more than 60,000 farmers. In just three years, more than 20% of U.S. farms are using FarmLogs.

“Farming has really changed forever,” Vollmar said. “The next big wave of transformation in this industry will come from data science, in applying the new information that we have in the world into agriculture and helping farmers use that to get the most out of every acre they farm.”

Vollmar said that today’s data center technologies are allowing him to do things that just a few short years ago would have never been possible without access to supercomputing resources. Farmers can now look at every single acre of a field and figure out how to manage it specifically for the soil and crop health that exists at any particular location.

Like in financial services, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing and other industries, the ability to bring the right data into the decision making process is also essential for managing agriculture operations, according to Jason Waxman, vice president of Intel’s Data Center Group.

“Moore’s Law has brought dramatic advances in computing and memory technologies, increasing capability and affordability,” said Waxman. “As a result, the ability to store and analyze large amounts of information in real time is leading to breakthroughs in analytics across industries.”

Insights from data analytics help people make informed decisions that keep companies agile, inventive, efficient and attuned to customer needs, said Waxman. He gave the example of how retailers are using real-time data analytics to make sure they have the right products in stock at the right time in a world where more people are using the internet and mobile devices to manage their lives.

Waxman pointed out that today almost half of businesses are either already pursuing or planning to pursue advanced analytics initiatives, according to a 2014 IDG Enterprise Big Data Research report.

“These technologies are helping people bring big ideas to life that are benefiting businesses and society,” he said.

FarmLogs uses software algorithms powered by high-end computing technology that analyzes information from publicly available data and from sensors placed on farm equipment, which send real-time field data to the Internet.

Seeing soil conditions, precipitation levels and other field measurements, along with analysis of that data, on a computer, tablet or smartphone screen can help farmers adjust resources on any given day or moment.

“This enables farmers to get a real-time look at their field performance, something they never would have had that in the past,” said Vollmar. “They can see everything happening across their farm, such as harvest data, growing conditions and vegetative health, all in real-time.”

The agriculture industry calls this approach “precision farming,” which is expected to create $1.77 billion in the software and services market by 2020, according to a report published by MarketsandMarkets. That’s a compound annual growth rate of 15.1 percent from 2014 and 2020.

Vollmar said technology can help farmers grow more using less, which is critical for places like California, a state threatened by several consecutive years of severe drought.

“Water is a huge factor in growing crops,” Vollmar told Fox Business News in April. “We have a particular feature that helps farmers all over the country monitor precipitation at the field and get better, higher-resolution data about what’s happening in their fields. Having better technology that assists you in making more informed decisions about when to irrigate and when to hold back [helps farmers].”

Without having to drive out to check a rain gauge, a farmer can see how much rain each field has accumulated.

“They can control their operations and logistics more efficiently, and they can even evaluate new farms and how productive that farm would be based on 10 years of rainfall history,” said Vollmar.

He said FarmLogs has analyzed very high-resolution, multi-spectral imagery over nearly the entire U.S., allowing them to measure on a 5×5-meter basis how healthy a farmers’ plants were throughout the last five growing seasons. This creates a baseline that help farmers understand and quantify the variability and make decisions based on FarmLog’s recommendations.

“With that data, we’re not only able to help them get the most out of every acre by diverting resources into areas where the farm demands it, but we’re also able to monitor in-season how the changes that we’re seeing in the field balance against the baseline,” he said. “That helps farmers eliminate yield loss by reacting to problems much faster than ever before.”

In addition to providing decision-making recommendations based on data analytics, Vollmar said FarmLogs can help automate mundane tasks while farmers are harvesting.

“We’re able to program a tractor and tell it how to adjust the seeds based on the soil that it’s driving over at that moment,” he said. “This helps farmers react instantly to what’s happening in their fields.”

For Vollmar, everything starts with data. Now more than ever, farmers must rely less on gut instinct and more on data to make informed decisions on the farm.

“I see us constantly challenging the status quo and thinking about how technology can enable greater productivity and efficiency on the farm,” said Vollmar.

“We’re able to solve some of the really big challenges that our planet is facing.”

Editor’s note: Learn more about big data and high-powered computing technologies like in-memory analytics and Intel Xeon processors by visiting www.intel.com/centerofpossibility or intel.com/ITcenter.

In this collection, iQ explores new ways we use information to empower ourselves, the environment and people around us. We look at how data collected by everything from smartwatches to smart cities is leading to better living through big data.

The post Data Science Technology Seeds Smarter Farming appeared first on iQ by Intel.

Study shows that 2 in 1 computer owners spend one-third of their time doing something they couldn’t do with traditional laptops.

Crazy desire for tablets brought a wave of new personal computing devices that look and function differently than computers from the past. These devices brought new designs and capabilities that are changing how people interact with personal computers.

Now people are tapping, twisting, flipping and detaching their computers to fit their needs and pleasures.

The traditional tower and monitor desktop PC evolved rapidly into an All-in-One computer that has all of the computing components built into the back of the screen, eliminating wires and saving space. Sleek, portable models on the market today look more like giant tablets. They are changing the way people are using home PCs, allowing family members to use them all around the house or bringing together friends to play touchscreen tabletop board games.

New 2 in 1 computers also hit the market for the first time in 2013. These laptops fold, twist or detach from the keyboard to become a tablet. They fuse a laptop and tablet into one device.

“2 in 1 computers are really designed for versatility,” said Ben Young, senior manager of Intel’s 2 in 1 Program Office.

These 2 in 1 devices can be used in laptop, tablet, reverse tablet and tent mode. Clamshell laptops have been around for decades, but these new 2 in 1 devices offer new ways to interact with a computer that are more comfortable and engaging, especially when using for reading, entertainment or gaming.

Curious to see how people were actually using 2 in 1s, Intel conducted a field study with new device purchasers in the U.S. Findings from the 2014 study revealed that laptop mode was used more than two-thirds of the time.

The study looked at a variety of 2 in 1 models from small to larger screened devices, as well as different types, including ones that detached from the keyboard and ones that folded to convert into a tablet.

Results showed that laptop mode was used 67 to 73 percent of the time. Tablet mode was used between 11 and 31 percent. Reverse-laptop mode, where the keyboard becomes the base and the screen can be set at different viewing angles, was used 2 to 9 percent. Tent or easel mode was used the least, only 1 to 7 percent.

“We thought that people with detachable models would use laptop mode much less than people with convertible models,” said Young. “Yet the data showed laptop mode was used by detachable and convertible 2 in 1 owners almost the same­ amount of time. It was surprising to see that the difference was only 3 to 4 percent.”

Young said the fact that laptop mode took up an average of 70 percent of the time across all models proved people find clamshell designs optimal for most needs.

“When thinking about convertible and detachable 2 in 1 devices with smaller screens, which range from 10 to 12 inches, I’d expect to see these smaller detachable models used more as tablets, which they were.”

This study showed that 2 in 1 computer owner spent one-third of their time doing something they couldn’t do with a traditional laptop.

“The study tells me that people rely on laptop mode most of the time but are spending a significant amount of time using their computer in new ways,” said Young.

Tent mode, which was used only 1 to 3 percent of the time, is something that really only one manufacture highlights, according to Jason Busta, a consumer insights manager at Intel. And that’s Lenovo with their Yoga line of 2 in 1 computers.

“Yoga’s are used 7 percent of the time in tent mode,” said Busta. “Where we talked to people that used Yogas, our research showed this was a ‘surprise and delight’ feature.” People liked to watch video in tent mode.

Young said that when he travels, he sees people using tent mode on airplanes to watch movies. It’s also good for reading recipes in the kitchen or playing a creative game like Minecraft.

In February, Young said that 54 percent of actual 2 in 1 buyers were considering getting a tablet.

“This showed that 2 in 1s are winning over people who initially intended to buy a new tablet,” he said.

Even if there is a desire for tablet experiences, the 2 in 1 field research shows that people spend much more of their computing time in laptop mode.

“Maybe this will change over time as new interfaces like voice and gesture give people another way to control their device beyond touch, keyboard, trackpad and mouse,” said Young.

Today, there are more than 70 different 2 in 1 computer designs, and Young sees a design trend shaping up.

“About 18 months ago, there were many different designs, from sliders, pivoting screen and the Ferris Wheel flipping Dell Inspiron Duo,” he said. “They were all experimenting with different ways of switching from laptop to tablet mode. Now most are designed with 360-degree hinges.”

The Lenovo Yoga line and the HP Spectre lines are a few of the more popular 2 in 1 designs that use a 360-degree hinge.

“Early on we thought choice was good, but the hinge seems to be the most appealing,” said Young.

Fanless design is another new trend Young is watching. Since the release of Intel Core M processors late last year, 2 in 1 computer makers are releasing detachable devices with larger screens.

Young pointed out that newer 2 in 1 devices can provide more than 8 hours of battery life, which can be twice the battery life of a 4-year old PC.

Many consider the razor-thin Asus Transformer Book t300 Chi to be one of the most innovative 2 in 1 devices to date.

“It is the best for flexibility and affordability,” said analyst Helena Stone, editor-in-chief of Chip Chick, adding that it’s a much less expensive alternative to the MacBook Pro.

Stone said other 2 in 1s she would recommend include the HP Spectre x360 and the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro.

New 2 in 1 computers with Intel Core M processors are thinner, better performing and have longer battery life than earlier designs.

The post How Do You Use Your 2 in 1 Computer? appeared first on iQ by Intel.

Intel RealSense 3D Camera technology in laptop, 2 in 1 and All-in-One computers is making live video chatting more immersive, interactive.

For many, video chatting on Skype, FaceTime or other apps is a natural, visual and emotional way to stay connected with loved ones and coworkers. It’s also helping doctors make house calls and students team up to get homework done.

Face-to-face video chatting is rapidly evolving with mobile apps like WeChat, Facebook Messenger and even via facial tracking animations like Pocket Avatar, but new digital camera technology being built into laptop, 2 in 1 and All-in-One computers is bringing this capability into the third dimension.

When computers can sense their owners distinctly from background elements, chat becomes more engaging, immersive and entertaining, according to Scott Dwyer, Intel RealSense technology marketing manager.

Imagine watching a movie online or playing with friends in different locations and being able to see their faces overlaid, not trapped in a box but just their figure, placed anywhere on the screen. By giving computers the ability to sense depth, Intel RealSense 3D Camera technology lets new applications like Personify do that and more.

“It’s new and novel and almost seems magical,” said Dwyer. “I like it because the tech makes you fully focus on your friend and things you’re interacting with.”

Using Personify, people appear to share virtual spaces, where they can work on projects, share documents or presentations, watch movies or sporting events and play games together.

The effect is similar to how green screen technology is used to make movies, TV shows and videos. For video chatting on a device with Intel RealSense technology, Dwyer said it’s really about depth not color.

“Green screen is often used because the emphasis is on the person not the background or because the person is filmed in one place but the scene is supposed to be in another location,” said Dwyer. “What Intel RealSense technology does is locks into the person, using real-time depth-of-field calculations that ignore data past a certain depth.”

In her review of Personify, Scarlet Paolicchi of Family Focus Blog wrote, “you can even get the green screen effect for yourself while you share other content like Prezi, PowerPoint slides, web pages and more. So you can record yourself ‘Personified’ on top of any content you’d like to interact with.”

Campus Technology recently reported on how instructors can use depth camera technology to record lectures that incorporate videos, PowerPoint presentations and online materials, and do them from almost anywhere.

“The instructor records himself with the depth camera, and Personify automatically filters out the background so the instructor appears in front of the presentation material in the video, just as if he had filmed himself in front of a green screen.”

Dwyer points out that the green screen effect is widely used by YouTube stars to create newscasts or talk shows, and services like Google Hangouts or Twitch have made it common to see several faces at the bottom or side of a screen, talking to one another while a presentation or live event is filling out the screen. But new apps that utilize the Intel RealSense 3D Camera are opening up new possibilities for video chatting, particularly around immersive collaboration.

“My personal favorite is the ability to pull in a friend and interact together with funny links we find on Reddit,” he said. “We can also play video games or watch a movie trailer, and it feels like we’re in the same room together. It’s just fun looking at same content together and laughing.”

He thinks it could come in handy whenever someone needs directions.

“We can pull up Google Maps and together point at places and routes,” said Dwyer. “In real life, we’re in different location but seeing the same map and able to reference it while having a conversation.”

11 Tricks Making Video Chats With Friends More Fun and Immersive by MentalFloss describes a video chat scenario where a team is working on interior design project. “You can bring up models and blueprints to better communicate your ideas. With Intel RealSense technology, you can interact with 3D models with the sweep of your hand.”

Computer manufacturers ASUS, HP, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, NEC and Fujitsu are each offering a range of laptops and All-in-Ones fitted with Intel RealSense 3D Cameras.

Dwyer said that just because he may have a computer with Intel RealSense technology doesn’t mean that his friend needs to have RealSense to see the experience.

“My friend who doesn’t have the new camera technology can still see an overlay of me with a custom background that I’m controlling with my Intel RealSense equipped computer.”

Personify is currently available in Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish languages.

The post Video Chat Hits Third Dimension appeared first on iQ by Intel.

The experimental designer takes wearables into the future by fusing fashion with robotics and computer technologies, drawing inspiration from pioneering inventors while encouraging young girls to chase their curiosities through art and sciences.

Anouk Wipprecht is pushing the edge of what’s possible in the world of wearable technology, and nothing is out of the question.

Putting on one of her computer-infused smart dresses, which are mostly 3D printed, is like stepping into a time and space warp where science and art collide. The past, present and future of fashion intertwine with human-machine interaction — something that can only be explained by a deeper look into Wipprecht’s soul and the pioneering scientists who influence her.

Her education in design and engineer, fascination with fashion, human behavior sciences, gaming and social interactions all come together in her work.

“Fashion for me is about expression and communication,” she told iQ.

“When I was younger, I noticed how people expressed their moods by the things that they wore. I want to bring this notion of ‘expression’ into the digital world.”

Her dresses communicate with the wearer and the world around them.

“With my Smoke Dress, as soon as you approach the wearer, the system encloses her in in a thick layer of fog as if she’s vanishing before your eyes,” Wipprecht said. “It’s a very poetic sensation for the wearer, just as it is for the person approaching.”

Her 2015 Spider Dress, created in collaboration with Intel, is crowned at the collar with robotic spider legs that react when someone is invading the wearer’s personal space. The legs are driven by Intel Edison compute and communication technologies plus sensors that autonomously adapt to assist to the owner’s emotions and desires.

Whenever someone steps close to the wearer, the mechanic limbs on the Spider Dress’ shoulders move into attack mode.

“Fashion can be thought provoking, something that pushes people to think and share their feelings, and the technology allows me to test social norms,” said Wipprecht. “All my designs challenge the ways we interact with one another.”

The Smoke and Spider dresses are only a few in Wipprecht’s portfolio.

The Dutch designer, who was profiled in a 2013 Red Bull TVs documentary “Hardware Couture,” is also known for the brainwave-monitoring Synapse dress, Intimacy 2.0, 3D-printed outfits for Cirque du Soleil and the dress Fergie wore during the Black Eyed Peas live performance at Super Bowl 2011.

HARDWARE COUTURE from Anouk Wipprecht on Vimeo.

Before taking an assignment at Microsoft in May, she worked as a “Designer in Residence” at Intel for nine months. Her job involved exploring innovative ways to use Intel Edison technology, designed for adding computer and communications capabilities to almost anything that can be connected to the Internet.

She calls the Spider Dress her most complicated human-system design so far because it required her to plumb the depths of her education and curiosities. Being curious is something she celebrates every day.

“There’s nothing like being a young girl with your eyes wide open, mind filled with questions and the desire to find answers,” she said.

Educating girls about the fun that can come from engineering endeavors is important to her.

“As a woman in a still male-driven world of technology, I would like to see more female role-models who can inspire young girls to explore electronics in fashion, robotics, programming or any other field.”

She said that Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), the woman many consider the world’s first computer programmer, is a big inspiration for her and anyone curious about engineering.

Wipprecht points out that Lovelace, the daughter of English Poet Lord Byron, was driven by her mother who believed that a strong education would eradicate any traits of insanity that ran in the family. That education included mathematics and science from top scholars, which allowed her to write an algorithm for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers with Charles Babbage’s analytical engine in 1842.

“Ada was keen never to take ‘no’ for an answer, even in her time when woman were kept from any ‘male-mind’ kind of work,” said Wipprecht.

“She took a path that no woman had taken before by questioning two theories and entities then combining them. This led to groundbreaking formulas that are used in many of the machines we work with today.”

For her own work, Wipprecht said she always questions the current state of things.

“Don’t take things for what they are, but what they might be or what they can be if you playfully twist them around,” she said.

Imagine how differently our clothes would be today if many years ago sensors and tiny computers were built into the things we wear.

“Not taking ‘no’ for an answer raises questions and sparks discussions, and this drives innovation.”

Wipprecht said she also relates to Grace Hopper (1906-1992). Hopper is known for many things, including the invention of the compiler, creating a program that translates English language instructions into the language of the target computer and for coining the term “debugging,” which is widely used by computer scientists and engineers to describe the pursuit of fixing problems in software and hardware.

“Grace Hopper was curious and daring,” said Wipprecht. “She knew that sometimes you have to break the rules to find the answer. Many of my design ideas and the challenges I’ve overcome in design phases come from chasing my curiosity into new places and trying things that go against the grain.”

She said her understanding of physical and human sciences comes in handy whenever she’s exploring how a garment should fit, feel and react to the emotions of the person wearing it.

Wipprecht also named the women of ENIAC, which included Kathleen McNulty, Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Synder Holber, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, as strong-minded influencers from the past.

In 1946, these women teamed up to program the ENIAC, the first all-electric programmable computer. It was built using 18,000 vacuum tubes and forty black 8-foot panels.

The secret project was intended for measuring missile trajectories during World War II, but by the war ended before the ENIAC was completed.

To program ENIAC, Wipprecht said these women had to maneuver 3,000 switches built inside 80 tons of hardware by hand.

“Programming languages and tools didn’t exist, so they had to rely on logical diagrams,” she said. “They had math skills that allowed them to convert math analysis into a process that the electronic circuitry could understand and calculate.”

That’s the kind of hands-on, tinkering is a big part of Wipprecht’s world. Along the way, her use of technology has evolved rapidly.

“Today I’m working with technologies that weren’t around two years ago,” she said. “Things like Intel Edison bring more integration and power computing abilities to smaller components, which is essential for wearables.”

To inspire young people, Wipprecht created a DYI blueprint for what she calls “badass  mechatronic wings,” using LEGO MindStorms EV3 and assorted Technic elements.

Pioneering women of the past and present show extraordinary courage, she said. Their efforts create new possibilities.

“Instead of getting stuck with ‘I cannot do this’ or ‘things are too difficult,’ just explore and question everything. Don’t give up.”

At a recent Salesforce gathering, she told the crowd to act on their impulses and have a strong belief in what the world should look like. Then, go make it happen.

Photos by Anouk Wipprecht and Red Bull TV.

Grace Murray Hopper photo by Unknown (Smithsonian Institution).

The post Wearables Designer Anouk Wipprecht: Invent with Abandon appeared first on iQ by Intel.

Biometric-controlled clothing revealed at New York Fashion Week brought the future of wearable technology to life.

This fall, the fashion world sashayed deeper into the digital realm, and it may never turn back.

Models strutted down catwalks during Spring-Summer 2016 New York Fashion Week (NYFW) wearing new clothing lines from well-known and up-and-coming designers, but some designers showed how future garments will be brought to life using computer technology.

The Adrenaline Dress and Areo Sports Bra by Chromat’s Becca McCharen were two mesmerizing creations that intertwined style with functionality. They broke new ground for clothing that reacts to biometrics.

These two animated garments were designed with the Intel Curie Module — a button-sized computer hardware that can power wearables — and sensors that detect body heat, perspiration and respiration, all things indicative of adrenaline.

Changes in these human biometrics trigger shape-shifting movements, bringing extra comfort or flare to the wearer.

Once considered strange bedfellows, the fashion and tech industries have been forging new partnerships at a quickening pace.

The NYFW events in September brought many new fruits from these cross-industry collaborations, but none as progressive as the autonomously reactive dress and sports bra.

Watch how @intel technology powered the runway at @CHROMAT_PARTY #MADEfw see the full video at http://t.co/HdK1JvoLLb pic.twitter.com/P2fcUcrB9X

— MADE (@made) September 14, 2015

Ayse Ildeniz, vice president of Intel’s New Devices Group who has established partnerships with fashion leaders like Opening Ceremony, Fossil Group, Luxottica Group, TAG Heuer, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), told Wareable that new technologies are “empowering and inspiring the fashion industry by elevating the utility of clothing and accessories with intelligent capabilities.” Biomimicry Dress By partnering with Milk Studios, MADE Fashion Week, WMG-IMG and other innovators in the fashion world, Ildeniz was able to help make all the right connections that led to McCharen’s latest wearable tech designs.  

.@CHROMAT_PARTY stole the show with the reveal of the first wearable tech dress powered by @intel #MADEfw #SS16 pic.twitter.com/1pscnjwzf2 — MADE (@made) September 12, 2015

“It’s been this amazing journey figuring out what’s possible now and what will be possible in the future… where we want to go and in what direction,” McCharen said in a Fortune video interview after revealing the Adrenaline Dress and Aero Sports Bra at the Chromat Fashion Show on September 11.

McCharen has designed stage costumes for pop stars Beyoncé, Madonna and Nicki Minaj.

“Garments should be able to know how your body is feeling and adapt and respond accordingly,” she said, describing her approach to Mashable.

McCharen is an architect inspired by the notion that since we can control climate in a building, we should also have the same controls over to our garments. That’s where new materials, sensing and computing technologies come into play.

The Intel Curie digital hardware module connected to sensors allows the Adrenaline Dress to sense the wearer’s respiration, perspiration and body temperature. It recognizes physiological markers that tie to emotions where adrenaline might be experienced.

It’s what Intel Innovation Engineer Karli (Karolina) Cengija describes as biomimicry.

Tying biosensing to shape memory alloy, Cengija helped find a way to bring natural, silent movement without the use of mechanical servos. This led to a sleek design that looked and moved as if it was a biological extension of the wearer.

“It was designed to respond autonomously and move like living things do in our natural world,” said Todd Harple, an experience engineer and new projects director at Intel’s New Devices Group.

He categorized the Adrenaline Dress as a next step beyond the Intel Edison-powered Spider Dress designed by Anouk Wipprecht nearly a year ago, moving tech-infused clothing even closer to what people might actually wear someday.

Harple and others see the Adrenaline Dress as a giant step beyond advancements in decorative blinking dresses.

“We can’t actually track epinephrine, the chemical in our bodies which we often call adrenaline, but we can measure body temp, perspiration and respiration to approximate the conditions of a rise in adrenaline.”

This is enough data for the hardware module to initiate changes to the garment that reflect a need or mood of the wearer.

Like the Synapse Dress, an earlier designed by Anouk Wipprecht done in collaboration with Cengija and other Intel Innovation Engineers, Harple sees the Adrenalin Dress has implications for how biological sensing in our clothing can improve our lives.

He said it’s possible that we might one day be able to help understand conditions of anxiety in a discreet way to help those who have difficulty communicating.

Francis Bitonti, who did 3D design work on the Adrenalin Dress, told Wired UK that 3D printing is becoming critical to creating new fashion wear. To stay innovative, the fashion world requires deeper thinking about tools, materials and manufacturing.

Bitonti is known in the fashion world for co-designing a body contouring 3D printed dress for burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese. He described the explorative Adrenalin Dress as the result of “having a handful of engineers working alongside a designer to create something completely new.”

The expanding and contracting apparatus at the back of the dress was made from carbon fiber, and movement is generated by an innovative use of shape memory alloy.

Smart Athletic Bra

The Aeros Sports Bra, also revealed at Chromat event, is made of neoprene, mesh and Lycra.

.@CHROMAT_PARTY‘s responsive sports bra opens up when things get hot and sweaty > http://t.co/Lkv8mjgXDZ pic.twitter.com/QWKvg097C6

— MADE (@made) September 15, 2015

“At first glance this looks like any other fitness top, but innovative 3D printed frames [with opening vents] work hard to keep you cool while you get your sweat on,” wrote Noelle Sciacca in Mashable.

“When the wearer begins to perspire and her body temperature rises, the technology in the bra responds by opening and closing built in vents.”

Like the Adrenaline Dress, the smart sports bra uses an Intel Curie module, perspiration sensors and shape memory alloy that allows it to silently open and close vents that cool an overheated wearer.

What’s Next in Fashion Tech?

Harple described the Adrenalin Dress as an editorial statement about the future, while the Aeros bra is more about the nearer future.

“Becca (McCharen) showed them as extensions of her current line,” he said. “They were alpha for her. She will sell both but without electronics as part of her line, showing that even from a design perspective that this is her and where she’s going. Working together, we can help extend her vision to create something she otherwise couldn’t do without tech.”

Fashion Week New York demonstrated how the fashion world is pushing the limits, but it also exposed challenges of breaking new ground for wearable tech.

“Today’s tools and machines will need to be retrofitted to meet the needs of technology-infused fashions,” 3D designer Bitonti told Wired.

“Getting things into production is really the largest problem we’re having. The tools to bring products to market aren’t there. We know we can do amazing things with materials, we know it enables a completely new aesthetic … [but] it’s getting it into the hand of the consumer, and that’s a manufacturing and distribution problem.”

While these garments are major leaps for fashion-first wearable technologies, McCharen admits that her creative goals are currently bound by physical limitations.

“Right now there are a lot of barriers to fashion technology,” she told Mashable.

“Wires and batteries are not soft and flexible. I told Intel’s CEO that flexible joints are a must in the future. It’s all about wearability so it has to stretch and bend with the body.”

She told Fortune that what she showed on the runway during NYFW this month really represents the beginning.

“It only represents what we’ve been able to come up with in six months,” she said.

“But as the collaboration grows in the future, everything we learn from this project can push us forward because there’s so much work to be identified.”

When asked how she felt wearing the Adrenaline Dress on stage at a press event, model Alek Wek said it was neat and that she felt computerized.

“After two decades on the runway it’s a really nice moment,” said Wek. “I felt connected with my body.”

Editor’s note: Fashion fitting rooms could soon be getting a makeover thanks to new technology innovation. The MemoryMirror was shown at New York Fashion Week’s Spring and Summer 2016 show. 

The post Future Tech Fashion Styles Hit NYFW Runway appeared first on iQ by Intel.

New Arduino 101 electronics development board, powered by the tiny Intel Curie compute module, and easy-to-follow guide offer today’s students hands-on experiences that develop 21st century skills.

It comes in a box — all the parts and a series of experiments teachers can use to help students learn how to build electronics.

That’s how Massimo Banzi simply describes the kit and instructional program his company has developed that will soon include the new Arduino 101 development board (called Genuino 101 outside the United States) he co-created with Intel. “

We designed it in a way so that it’s approachable for a beginner, but then it gives you a lot of things you can work on down the line,” said Banzi.

For teachers, this is a recipe and ingredients for blowing open new possibilities for today’s youth who are facing a future fueled by digital innovation.

Arduino 101 will be incorporated into the Creative Technologies in the Classroom (CTC) physical computing course developed and tested by Arduino. Banzi’s team calls it the world’s first physical computing course for elementary and secondary classrooms, and it’s currently used by more than 300 schools around the world.

The Arduino 101 development board, featuring the tiny Intel Curie compute module, was introduced in October at Maker Faire Rome. It will be available with the full classroom kit or independently, for around $30 in early 2016.

With the kit, anyone can turn their ideas into new realities using digital technologies. It’s happening today with things like robots and drones, many of which are powered by the family of Arduino microcontrollers Banzi co-invented in Italy a decade ago. “

With this kit, essentially you can learn the basics of Arduino, but then you can go further,” said Banzi in an interview, standing atop the Hall of Science during MakerCon New York.

Teaching kids science and technology theory is essential, but these new kits help teachers put theory into practice with hands-on electronics making experiments, according to John Galvin, vice president and the general manager of the Intel Education team.

For him, innovation in education requires more than having access to laptops and tablets in class to foster 21st century learning skills. He sees the Arduino 101 kits addressing a major challenge as education is transformed by technology.

“It’s about getting tools that educators can implement cost effectively so all of their students have a similar hands-on experience that develops critical thinking and collaboration skills, but most importantly their problem solving skills,” explained Galvin.

He said school is the only place where many students can try the latest technology. They get to 3D print objects for the first time and even create their own electronics using circuit boards and computer code. “

We know that when students have hands-on experience, when they can really touch something, take it apart and rebuild it, this reinforces the overall learning experience,” said Galvin.

The Intel Curie module that powers the Arduino 101 board is a tiny collection of computer capabilities integrated into the size of a small button. The Curie technology was first introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2015, and Arduino 101 is the first widely available development board powered by it. “

The Intel Curie compute module adds advanced features and a level of performance to the standard entry-level microcontroller that opens new possibilities for smart, connected creations,” said Josh Walden, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s New Technology Group.

Advanced features include a Bluetooth low-energy radio for connectivity, 6-axis gyroscopic and accelerometer sensors and a power management unit.

Wireless connectivity allows the board to be remotely controlled by mobile phones, tablets or interact with other electronics.

Banzi is a progenitor of the Maker Movement, which is driven by people with ideas for building new things. He said more than ever the necessary tools are available so that anyone at any age can prototype, manufacture and bring ideas to market. “

There’s never been a better time to be a maker.”

Editor’s note: Click these links to learn more about Intel Education efforts around the world and the Intel Curie module, which is a low-power collection of computing technologies designed for always-on, Internet connected devices. Prototype devices built with the Intel Curie module will be featured on America’s Greatest Makers, a reality TV show being produce by United Artists CEO Mark Burnett with Intel.

The post Classroom Tech Plugs Kids Into Maker Movement appeared first on iQ by Intel.

Millennials and younger generations expect to use their own technologies and biological data to help doctors deliver more personal care.

Caring for a rapidly aging population is challenging. Experts working to revitalize healthcare for the 21st century are tackling this challenge by shifting from a one-size-fits-all to a more personalized healthcare approach, one that is heavily influenced by how young people use technology.

To combat skyrocketing healthcare costs for an American population of 326 million people spanning six generations, experts are turning to bioscience and new technologies as well as to young, tech-savvy digital natives who are already nudging healthcare into the Internet age.

“We’re already seeing that millennials and younger generations won’t be the same kinds of patients as their parents,” said Eric Dishman, an Intel Fellow and general manager of Intel’s Health and Life Sciences. “

These 18-to-34 year-olds already expect to have data and tools to help them manage their health just like they do for everything else in their lives.”

Propelled by everything from supercomputers and cloud technologies to smartphones and wearables, this personalized approach to healthcare could make the 75.4 million people born between 1982 and 2003 the first generation to see the threat of cancer decline, according to Dishman. “

Healthcare reform, information technologies and building out a 21st century healthcare infrastructure…is the space race of the 21st century,” said Dishman, who was diagnosed with two rare kidney diseases at age 19.

After 23 years of trying a variety of treatments that didn’t work, Dishman had his DNA sequenced. His personal genome data along with results from computing analysis done by Intel colleagues helped his caregivers create a treatment plan that got him cancer free, and healthy enough to receive a kidney transplant in late 2012.

“There’s no doubt that without sequencing, I’d be dead,” he said.

His team’s “All in One Day by 2020” aims to shorten the time it takes for cancer patients to have their genome sequenced, identify what’s causing the cancer and find a treatment plan all within 24 hours. “

It’s about precision and making knowledge go faster,” he said. “It’s going to take all of us working together to deliver this kind of miraculous medical technology sooner.”

Dishman means everyone, particularly the younger generations who use technology to proactively manage their health.

In the recent “State of the Connected Patient” report by Saleseforce, 71 percent of millennials expressed interest in receiving a mobile app from a doctor or health provider so they could actively manage their well-being for preventative care, review health records and schedule appointments.

Millennials get credit for creating the so-called “quantified self” biometric and activity tracking trend, which has led to a sharp rise in use of health technologies, according to Deloitte. The research firm’s recent healthcare consumer report shows that the number of millennials who were using technology to monitor or manage their health nearly doubled in the past two years.

Preventative care is especially critical to the future of healthcare, and many millennials are using technology to practice it routinely. “

They will insist on having a different financial reality for how insurance works,” said Dishman, referring to a shift from today’s fee-for-service paying systems to a “value over volume” or “paying for performance” approach.

The smorgasbord medicine system that waits until people are sick before they access an all-you-can-eat healthcare cafeteria, where patients get MRIs whether or not one is clinically valuable or affordable, is inefficient, he said.

Medicare is the one of the largest payers in the world in terms of healthcare costs for people, said Dishman. Healthcare in the U.S. needs to improve the access and quality of care while reducing the cost of care for an increasing number of people. “

Over time, financial incentives will encourage younger people to collect their own health data,” he said, so professionals can analyze the personal data collected by a smartphone or wearable device.

If people collect personal health data knowing it can be analyzed to find new drugs or prevention strategies, this could bring benefits faster to others diagnosed with a disease, said Dishman. “

The discoveries and the knowledge from big data analytics could lead to people living a longer, higher-quality life,” he said, compared with today’s life expectancy of 77 years for males and nearly 82 for women in the U.S.

In 2015, there will be an estimated 1,658,370 new cancer cases diagnosed and 589,430 cancer deaths in the US, according to the American Cancer Society. Dishman said that the youngest employees at Intel today could forget that cancer was once a big deal in 2015, if “All in One Day by 2020” efforts transform healthcare.

Last month, Dishman addressed the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where he explained how genome-sequencing time could shrink down to one day by 2020. He also noted that a variety of trials could push America’s health system into a more promising, interoperable digital age.

“Sometimes you do these things and afterward crickets chirp then tumbleweeds roll by, but this was quite different,” Dishman said of the hearing, which was attended by twelve Senators and a packed room of observers.

Dishman focused his Senate presentation on two new data types that most in the healthcare industry don’t know how to deal with yet. “

Consumer-generated data from things like wearables or smartphone apps or their tablets or their PCs,” he said. “And the other type of data that comes from having your whole genome sequence done.”

He described how Intel’s Connected Care Program for employees is creating a blueprint for making health data secure and sharable between providers and patients; how a collaboration with the Michael J. Fox Foundation is advancing research and treatment for Parkinson’s disease by capturing data from wearable technologies; and how the Collaborative Cancer Cloud with Oregon Health & Science University is enabling large amounts of genomic, imaging and clinical data from sites all around the world to be analyzed in a fast and distributed way, while preserving the privacy and security of that patient data. “

Consumer generated health data is going to be a game changer, but we need new, interoperable technologies to handle it,” said Dishman. “We’ll need Moore’s Law to continue at an inexorable pace in order to be able to process everything for everyone.”

The post Digital Natives Push for Personalized Healthcare Technology appeared first on iQ by Intel.

A French short film of love, death and dance told from a soaring bird’s-eye perspective wins Best of Show at the first Flying Robot International Film Festival.

Flying drones are lifting human imagination by opening new perspectives, understanding and possibilities.

This is evident in each of the 20 innovative videos selected for the first Flying Robot International Film Festival (FRiFF).

It drew makers, artists and thrill-seekers to fill the legendary Roxie Theater in San Francisco’s Mission District on November 19.

All Way by Colin Solal Cardo of France won Best in Show.

Festival host Justin Hall set the stage by reminding the audience that the word drone still makes most people think of a technology the government uses for military purposes. “

But remember that the government also built the Internet for military needs and look how we’re all using it today.”

In January, festival founder and director Eddie Codel pointed out that in the past two years, cheap, easy, ready-to-fly quadcopters and drones have proliferated because of new innovation and the fact that most components are now commodities. “

While two years is not very long, it is a lifetime in the development of consumer drone technology,” he said.

As the drone economy expands, Codel is seeing first-hand how these flying robots are sparking creativity across generations and around the world. Drones fuse his life-long passions for videography and tinkering. The idea to create FRiFF sparked from his desire to build a community for drone video makers.

“With the proliferation of drones today, there’s just a ton of people making great content,” he told iQ. “I felt like there needed to be a place to celebrate that.”

Codel amassed more than 150 drone-shot video submissions from 35 different countries to find the best films in seven categories: Cinematic Postcard, Drones for Good, Student Film, I Made That!, WTF LOL, Aerial Sport and Cinematic Narrative.

Videos struck deep emotions in the audience. They laughed at humorous taxidermy drones, gaped at death-defying surfing in Tahiti and smiled as a runner discovered the wonders of flying.

Codel plans to make FRiFFest an annual event. “

This time next year, robots might be entering themselves into the festival,” Codal wrote in the program. “Well, let’s hope not. They’ll still need us to watch the magic they create.”

Here are the winners and runners up:

Cinematic Postcard

Running into the Air – Sebastian Wöber

Runner up: Teahupo’o, Du Ciel – Eric Sterman

Cinematic Narrative

All Away – Colin Solal Cardo (video at top)

Runner up: My forest – Sébastien Pins

Drones For Good

Mark Jacobsen – The Syria Airlift Project

Runner up: Mapeando las Invasiones de la Comarca Embera-Wounaan – James Cameron Ellis

WTF LOL

Hello World – PRENAV

Runner up: Targeted Advertising – Mitchell Rose

Student Film

Quinn Muller – Electric Africa

Runner up: Butterfly – Ryan Rizzo

Aerial Sports

Office Space FPV – Jonathon Davis aka Skitzo

Runner up: Tommy Tibajia aka Ummagawd – FPV Paradise Hawaii

I Made That!

Compilation Bart Jansen – Bart Jansen (more from the dead animal drone series)

Runner up: Chocolate Copter – Michael Niedermayr

Photo credit: Eddie Codel on San Francisco rooftop by Doctor Popular. 

The post Surreal Love Story Wins Drone Film Festival appeared first on iQ by Intel.

Smart, internet-connected kitchen gadget powered by Intel Edison technology transforms the tradition of tea making into an elegant, sensory experience.

In the same way connoisseurs move beyond basic table wines to develop a taste for the finer flavors of merlot, zinfandel or cabernet, Allen Han and Kris Efland want every tea drinker to embark on a journey to enjoy the perfect cup of tea…each and every time.

“We want to make the coffee drinker jealous of what the tea drinker has,” said Han, CEO and founder of Teforia.

Rather than dip green, black or English Breakfast teabags into hot water – something people have done for thousands of years – the two seasoned Silicon Valley inventors have redefined the tea technology and drink experience with their smart, internet-connected Teforia Infuser.

“There are 3 billion people worldwide and 148 million Americans drinking tea every day,” said Han. “We want to provide them with a way to elevate their tea experience, a way that allows them to delve deeper into tea.”

Making everyday objects smarter and more connected is quickly bringing the internet of things trend into homes, often led by tenacious startup companies and individual makers.

Connected cooking gadgets help chefs make the perfect steak. Nest created a series of smart thermostats, smoke detectors and security systems. One Oregon kid is even developing a smart microwave that heats food to the perfect temperature.

A recent Business Insider Intelligence report showed that over the next five years sales of connected-home devices such as washers, dryers, refrigerators and other internet-connected appliances will grow faster than sales of smartphones or tablets, reaching 1.8 billion units shipped annually by 2019.

Bringing computer intelligence to tea making was just a matter of time. By combining style with cloud computing and a mobile application, Teforia founders crafted a device that brings an ancient tradition into the digital age.

“Our tea maker gives people the ability to experiment and make sure good results are repeatable,” said Efland, CTO and co-founder of Teforia. “This gives you the ability to get picture perfect results every time, and it’s a much more visceral experience.”

Han said that for 5,000 years, it’s been the same. “You boil hot water, put it in a vessel, put tea in and leave it there until you like the taste,” he said, noting that this arbitrary method leaves so much open to interpretation and chances for failure.

He thought if simple temperature and timing metrics could be controlled, people could find other adjustments like dialing up or down the caffeine or floral flavor to suite their particular tastes.

Tea is very complex, consisting of more than 200 major chemical compounds, including caffeine and antioxidants.

“Around 4 o’clock, you might use an extraction that has 65 percent less caffeine than the regular cup you make in the morning,” said Han.

Tea Technology

Inside the sleek counter-top device are pumps, mechanical valves and supporting electronics, but it’s the Intel Edison compute module that controls everything. With built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless capabilities, the processor connects the tea maker to the cloud so it has the latest recipes from Teforia’s database.

“If I scan the RFID (radio-frequency identification) of a new tea I just purchased into the machine, the background information about that green tea will show up on my mobile app. All that orchestration behind how the device, app and cloud work is predicated by my interaction with Edison.”

Edison allows the device to learn and dynamically adapt to its owners’ fine-tuned or changing tastes. It also enables the machine to wirelessly update software.

“Most kitchen-top appliances have a lifecycle of around seven to eight years, but Edison helps us future-proof our machine,” said Han.

The Design

Making and drinking tea is ritual of peace and serenity, all of which is at the heart the Infuser’s design.

“We present the tea making process in this nice glass globe,” said Han. “You see the tea leaves tumble and dance. You see the transformation from clear liquid to this nice golden, green or another color depending on the tea. You see the dry, humble leaf expand to full leaf. A lot of these magical moments that are a story.”

Teforia’s eco-friendly, single serving packages are filled with tea from all over the world, including private estates in Taiwan.

The RFID tag on each package tracks everything from the tea name, origin, date and other information. This get stored and accessed by the Infuser and app every time a new tea is made. New recipes can be found and created.

“When you tear open the tea package and see loose leaf tea,” said Han. “You can touch it and smell it, then pour it into the machine. That whole process is very engaging. At the same time, we buried the technology in there so it’s very simple and something people don’t have to worry about.”

The Teforia website helps people learn more about tea and the infuser mobile app allow owners to find new recipes and save their own particular recipe so their tea maker can make a perfect tea every time.

The first batch of Teforia infusers sold out, but new orders are slated to ship in late spring.

Han see Teforia creating a new chapter for tea tradition and unlocking flavors that very few people have experienced from tea drinking.

“What other thing in your home can help you manage caffeine intake or boost antioxidants in the thing you love to drink every day?” asked Han.

Editor’s note: At the 2016 International Consumer Electronics show, meet with the Teforia team at the Intel Booth # 7252, Central Hall South, LVCC.

The post Technology That Makes a Perfect Pot of Tea appeared first on iQ by Intel.

As 360-degree video goes mainstream, this DYI tinkerer offers tips as he finds ways to use the immersive technology for live events like CES 2016.

In just five months, Khoi Nguyen took his curiosity to the cutting edge of 360-degree video making, a fledgling trend poised to become pervasive in 2016. Rather a digital video camera or smartphone, he’s using new technology that allows him to synchronize many cameras to capture everything in front, back, up, down and all sides of the camera.

Nguyen is already moving beyond making 360-degree “spherical” videos to forging a path for others interested in using this immersive technique to cover live events like debates or sports matches.

It requires as many as a dozen — or more — interlocking cameras, a powerful laptop computer, extremely fast data transfer technology, an internet server and lots of trial an error.

“My dream is that one day the capability can fit in the palm of your hand, so people can use their phone to live video chat while the other person controls the 360-degree camera perspective,” said Nguyen, a technical marketing engineer at Intel.

He admits it remains a far-fetched dream today, but nonetheless he’s pushing the limits of technology to make it happen. He believes 2016 will bring a proliferation of ideas, tips, and tools that will attract more filmmakers into this technically challenging medium.

Nguyen was on site to help Intel with video needs at CES 2016, where a team demonstrated how 360 video could be captured and shared live. He connected a camera rig to a laptop powered by 6th Generation Intel Core i7 quad core processor, which captured and fed video to a VR headset and a variety of mobile devices. The VideoStitch Vahana VR app took live 1080p 30fps raw footage via HDMI cables from six GoPro cameras, stitched the live footage into 360 degrees and delivered a 4K quality live video stream. The aim was to show how the technology is evolving and becoming more accessible.

Many 360-degree video makers today, like Nguyen and the tightrope walking Flying Frenchies, rely on ingenuity, existing tech and sheer willpower, but they also seek help from the growing online community that constantly shares new knowledge.

Dive in

Nguyen, an amateur video maker, wanted to find innovative ways to push new PC technologies to their limits. After learning about stitching together 4K quality footage captured simultaneously from several to a dozen or more cameras, he knew he wanted to take 360-degree video making for a spin.

Since then, he has fallen deep into the details of 360-degree video creation, with a growing passion for the art and technology. He pays it forward by sharing tips for creating 360-degree videos with others.

“I geek out on this stuff,” said Nguyen. “When I explain how it works, people don’t really get it until I pull out my Google Cardboard, put in my smartphone and show them the video I made of my daughter at the playground.”

What makes these video unique is their ability to be controlled by viewers, who can change perspective by touching the left or right side of a tablet or computer screen, moving a handheld or Google Cardboard mounted smartphone left, right, up or down or just by moving their heads while wearing a VR headset. It makes viewers feel like they’re standing in the location of the camera, with the ability to look all around.

Unlike true virtual reality experiences, these 360-degree videos can be enjoyed without VR headsets.

Popping up everywhere

Major media players like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal took subscribers into the 360-degree video world this year with behind-the-scenes looks at a street artist and a ballerina at Lincoln Center.

More than 30,000 of these videos by professional and amateur videos are available on YouTube already, and now people can see them on Facebook.

For CCS Insight technology analyst Ben Wood, 360-degree video experiences seemed to come out of nowhere this year and now are everywhere.

“I see 2016 as a watershed year in terms of awareness of these virtual reality experiences,” said Wood.

He expects to see it used extensively by the media and entertainment industries, but also by travel, real estate and other businesses that want to emotionally entice customers with immersive experiences.

“It’s the first technology that I’ve ever seen that’s had such dramatic impact on people after they see it for the first time,” said Wood. “It absolutely blows people’s minds and now it’s utterly accessible.”

Wood expects to see lots of new high-end, professional and prosumer 360-degree video gear, as well as lower cost, simple-to-use gear for consumers at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show.

Tips for comrades with 360-degree cameras

For the new wave of creators making these videos, there’s a growing collection of software, production knowledge and tricks.

Nguyen has become “the guy writing the book on 360 video” inside Intel.

To get started, Nguyen used six GoPro Hero 3+ cameras and rig from 360Heros in order to capture the Intel Developer Forum event in San Francisco last September.

“We showed how to create these type of 360-degree videos using the stitching software called Kolor AutoPano,” said Nguyen. At that time, Intel was working with Kolor to optimize the software to run on Intel Iris Pro integrated graphics on 5th Generation Intel Core processors.

In November, Nguyen updated his equipment so he could capture footage of the Intel Extreme Masters gaming competition in San Jose. He upgraded to six GoPro Hero4 cameras and a rig from Freedom360.

“I had more experience this time,” said Nguyen “I knew how to configure each of the GoPro cameras, and how to do Motion Synchronization instead of Audio Synchronization. I learned how the cameras capture everything, so this helped me place the camera rig in the right spots to get the best shots. I also used better tripods.”

To prepare for the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2016, Nguyen made his own 360-degree camera rig using a free, open-source 3D-printable design.

“It’s something anyone can do,” he said. “They just have to find the right design they like and a 3D printer.”

While he’s moving into the next frontier of live 360-degree video, Nguyen make time to share insights along the way. He recently met with Christopher Coppola’s students at San Francisco State University, as they prepared for a 360-degree video they were creating to compete in the PAH Fest 2015.

The PAH Fest is among several film festivals and competitions closely followed by Nguyen’s teammate, Mike Gendimenico, a technical marketing manager and seasoned photographer. Gendimenico’s friendship with Coppola over the years led to the idea of getting young film students to take a turn at making 360 videos.  The two teamed up with Intel’s Jerry Elkins, Kurt De Buck and Mike Rivet and devised a challenge for students to create a new music video for singer Noa Neal, who worked with Intel last spring to create a 360-degree video for her hit song , Graffiti.

On the day Gendimenico and Elkins equipped Coppola’s students with camera gear, laptops and software, Nguyen talked to students about things he learned in the past six months.

“One of the first things you have to do as a 360-degree camera operator is to get yourself out of the shot,” he said. “Everything is in the shot, including the mess in the background, the gaffer tape and the lighting equipment.”

He said the camera doesn’t pan, it actually captures everything, so strategic placement and stabilization is essential.

“You have to avoid ‘micromovements’ or it’s difficult to stitch together footage from multiple synchronized cameras,” he said.

He also advised students to keep their distance.

“Shoot at least four or five feet away from subjects or else there will be distortion,” he said. “Also, film at an average height of a human to give best viewing experience.”

Since there are multiple cameras, directors and producers need to keep actors away from stitch lines, where the camera views overlap, or else the actors will get cut.

“In the future this problem may disappear as software improves,” he said.

He advised to pre-plan everything and meticulously label captured footage.

“Post production relies on sorting through footage from multiple cameras,” said Nguyen. “Place a premium on your organization early on for success through the stitching and editing process.”

He explained that the standard projection of 360-degree videos is “equirectangular,” and output should be 2:1 ratio. Rather than seeing a flat map of the earth, the earth gets mapped into a sphere using orthogonal coordinates.

“Because of the 2:1 ratio aspect, a 4K quality 360 video has a resolution of 3840 x 1920,” said Nguyen. “By contrast, a 16:9 ratio, which is standard HDTV, 4K quality 360 video resolution is 3840 x 2160.”

To give a sense for what the final file size is like for a 360-degree video, Nguyen pointed to the 43-second video of his daughter playing in the park, which was created with 4K quality cameras. That compressed mp4 file is 157MB. This equirectangular video needs to be played back using a 360 video player app like Kolor Eyes, VideoStitch player, YouTube or on Facebook.

Six weeks after getting equipment and training, the student videos were complete.  “San Francisco in 360 Degrees” by Max Serwitz, Jacob Phillips and Diego Murga went on to win a PAH Fest award.

The student filmmakers also won a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada to attend CES 2016, where they helped Intel create a 360 video of Neal performing her new song, Wildheart, live at the Intel booth.

While it’s exciting to watch these videos, Nguyen is getting an even bigger thrill out of making them.

“I get more fascinated the deeper I get into the emotional wonders and technical challenges of the medium,” he said.

The post Amateur to Expert: Tips for Creating 360-Degree Videos appeared first on iQ by Intel.

From open-source coding to building biomimicry-inspired cocktail dresses, innovation engineer Karolina Cengija shows how a new generation of women are blending traditional training with self-taught skills to break new ground with wearable fashion. Her creations have been hits on New York Fashion Week runways and the international Consumer Electronics Show.

Some people start down a career path at an early age, but at 12 years old Karolina (Karli) Cengija wasn’t interested in finding her dream job. She was fascinated by computers and open-source software coding, but never imagined that chasing those interests back in the mid-90s would lead her to the forefront of responsive wearable technology.

Today, the Intel innovation engineer helps fashion designers make adaptive clothing that shifts shape, changes color or communicates the wearer’s changing emotional or physical state.

Cengija brings a biomimicry approach to innovation. She tinkers with technologies and materials to bring new capabilities to clothes, but the critical part is making these technologies fit and function naturally.

“I want to help designers step away from mechanical, very jittery movement to more smoothed out, organic movements like something we would see in nature,” said Cengija.

Cengija recently helped cutting edge fashion designer Becca McCharen of Chromat create a winged Adrenaline Dress and reactive Areo Sports Bra for the 2016 Spring-Summer New York Fashion Week. Equipped with computing technology and sensors, the garments autonomously adjust to the wearer’s heartrate and perspiration levels.

The Adrenaline Dress responds by spreading or contracting its backside wings to express emotion, while the bra opens slightly to provide cooling comfort.

The sports bra was designed with a special material that reacts to computer commands to open vents when it senses changes in perspiration, respiration and body temperature.

“We used shape memory alloys with the goal to give it a more organic transition,” said Cengija, who said a class in origami paper folding inspired her work.

She emphasized these are not yet garments for sale, but that the experimentation is uncovering what’s possible for wearable technology.

“We took a lot influence from the animal kingdom,” she said. “We took into account things like plants, trees and things in nature that we interact with.”

Models wearing the Adrenaline Dress and Areo Sports Bra joined McCharen on stage during Intel CEO Brian Krzanich’s keynote at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show.

#Fashion designer @becamccharen debuts her new Intel Curie collection at #CES2016 cc:@CHROMAT_PARTY pic.twitter.com/DmEU7CUS4j

— Intel @ #CES2016 (@intel) January 6, 2016

Cengija was in the audience as her Intel teammate Todd Harple joined McCharen on stage at a wearable tech panel during CES 2016.

For Cengija, building biomimicry into prototyping women’s garments started in 2013 when she teamed up with avant garde designer Anouk Wipprecht to create the mood-sensing Synapse Dress.

With the ability to read bio-signals such as heartbeat, brain activity and distraction levels, Wipprecht described the Synapse as a dress that “sometimes knows you better than you know yourself.”

“I’m a software person,” said Cengija, but her work on these garments is evidence this coder is more a modern-day maker and innovator.

Before arriving at Intel in 2010, she built computers but never worked with micro-controllers and servos, the computing and motion mechanism used to make moving toys and robots. Since then, she has integrated a head-mounted EEG biosensor with an iRobot and wireless technology to create a mind-controlled robot, which later allowed the Synapse Dress to react to the wearer’s emotional state. Whenever the wearer was excited, the technology flicked on lights and embedded camera, which recorded precious moments. The wearer didn’t have to move a finger.

Born in Bosnia, Cengija’s early knack for coding with the Linux open-source software community and her linguistic and philosophy studies led her down a circuitous path that today intertwines computer science, the Internet of Things, web design, robotics, biology and fashion.

“Being able to come into something new and have the curiosity and the confidence that you can investigate, or learn about it, or somehow tie it to something that you are already doing, that’s what innovation is all about,” said Cengija.

Easily accessible and programmable electronics help bring her collaborative ideas to life. Intel Edison and Intel Curie compute modules, for example, connect to body sensors that can measure a person’s respiration, perspiration and body temperature. These compute modules process algorithms that make microcontrollers or reactive materials move.

“Adrenalin Dress nods toward a future built around intelligent clothing that adjusts based on human whim,” said Cenginja, about her most recent dress project with Chromat.

What’s Next?

Looking ahead, Cengija wants to evolve her biomimicry work.

“I am interested in responsive clothing, but also responsive objects in our houses,” she said. “Things that change based on our internal state or other things in the environment.”

She is fascinated by bioluminescence, the way living organisms use light to communicate.

“Imagine being able to choose what you wear based on where you are going and how that environment will make you feel, or what you want to communicate in that environment,” she said.

For a loud sports event, a person could choose something that illuminates with every fist pump or yell. Cengija also describes how a cocktail dress could shimmer or change shape to communicate presence at the party then change back to a simple black dress. Or a person going to a doctor’s appointment might wear an undershirt that hugs or sooths its wearer, using haptics to remind the person to keep calm. She imagines people wearing responsive clothes, like a blouse or vest that grows longer sleeves when weather cools.

She said people communicate via clothing every day, whether consciously or not. Technology, she said, just adds another dimension.

She correlates responsive garments to responsive websites that adapt to whatever device is viewing it.

Influences

At Intel, Cengija works on a diverse team that includes a mathematician, hardware and software engineers, scientists and anthropologists. Their backgrounds are mechanical engineering, computer science, computational and neural systems, nanotechnology, electrical engineering and astrophysics.

Crossing traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought is something Cengija sees as essential to innovation.

“My coworkers all have strengths in different areas, and I lean on them a lot,” said Cengija.

Cengija is also influenced by singers Eliane Radigue and Imogen Heap, fashion designers Iris Van Harpen and Hussein Chalayan, architect Phillip Beesley, two-time Nobel Prize winning scientist Marie Curie, and Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds.

Cengija is also influenced by the singer Bjork. The Icelandic artist’s diverse, holistic approach is something she wants to apply to her own work whether it is fashion tech, software development, IoT or any systems-related work.

“Her curious, investigating, wondering childlike nature combined with the serious work ethic is inspiring,” Cengija said.

Cengija also wants to inspire young innovators to always follow their interests. “Personal projects you do for fun in your house can change the world,” she said.

Cengija said that the work she does, the tools and technologies she uses are accessible to everyone.

“Anyone can be innovator or a visionary because everyone encounters problems they need to solve,” she said. “Innovation happens. It is a creative process, and it is a process of discovery, but you need to have a problem that you are looking to solve.”

She said that the process for solving a problem often changes because of new discoveries or a desire to experiment. People hit roadblocks at different places, but increasingly there’s a community of people who can influence the process and lead to an outcome.

“I like going through the process by myself and building core skills, but where it really seems to take off is when you can connect with others,” she said. “Now that we have communities of people writing libraries of code and creating kits that people can use, it’s easier than ever for people to be inventive.”

At the 2016 Consumer Electronics

The post She Makes the Mechanical Natural for Wearables appeared first on iQ by Intel.

Computer vision brings collision avoidance, new level of autonomous capabilities to Yuneec’s Typhoon H, the first personal unmanned aerial vehicle powered by Intel RealSense camera technology

Last year’s drone prototypes showed what has become this year’s must-have feature in drones: human-like vision.

At CES 2015, Ascending Technologies showed how unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) equipped with computer vision could play ping-pong or game of drones without colliding or crashing into objects at rest or in motion. One year later, drone fans can get their hands one of the first Intel RealSense camera-equipped UAVs to hit the market, the Typhoon H by Yuneec.

During his 2016 CES keynote, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich demonstrated how the UAV uses Intel RealSense and Intel Atom technologies to take drone experiences to new heights.

“It’s the world’s most advanced collision-avoidance system for consumer drones,” said Krzanich. The first Typhoon H with Intel RealSense Technology will be available to consumers in the first half of 2016 for less than $2,000.

“It truly understands its environments and can react to real time obstacles.”

Just off the keynote stage, the Typhoon H with Intel RealSense Technology followed a mountain bike rider through an obstacle course, while sensing and avoiding obstacles, intelligently adjusting in real-time whenever something fell into its flight path.

No #drone pilot needed with Intel RealSense @YuneecAviation Typhoon H. Obstacle detection comes standard #M… https://t.co/yviYNaoqxT

— Intel (@intel) January 6, 2016

“There are endless uses in sports and beyond,” Krzanich said. “We’re on the verge of a digital revolution and this tech will fuel new experiences.”

Sales of drones are up 170 percent year over year, according to trend watcher Mary Meeker, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. This phenomenal growth is giving rise to a substantial drone economy as more businesses and consumers use them.

While regulations and privacy concerns vary in different parts of the world, a new generation of farmers, hobbyist, artists, filmmakers and social change makers are discovering new ways of using UAVs.

“Our Typhoon series drones were designed with the first-time pilot in mind, giving them confidence to become expert pilots and capture great video or photo intuitively,” said Shan Phillips, CEO of Yuneec USA.

The lightweight Typhoon H is equipped with six folding rotors and detachable props, a 360-degree gimbal, 4K video and 12 megapixel still camera and retractable landing gear, which fits a custom-designed hardcase/backpack.

Phillips said the addition of Intel RealSense camera technology brings new features and a new level of safety to the Typhoon H. A drone with RealSense removes the stress of avoiding obstacles and gives people new ways of capturing amazing moments.

“Imagine riding through the forest and not having to worry about your drone hitting trees or people, but focusing on the task at hand — getting the coolest video,” said Phillips.

In his article for The Verge, Ben Popper wrote, “If this tech works well, that would be a very compelling reason for any pilot, beginner or professional, to pick this drone over the current competition, none of which offer anything like robust sense and avoid.”

Phillips said the Typhoon H is a true, all-in-one unit.

“It will come with new task modes such as Orbit, Journey, Point of Interest and Curve Cable Cam that operators can use without external equipment,” he said.

His team meticulously tested and tweaked the camera sensor and software to get everything to respond just right.

“Nothing groundbreaking happens overnight,” said Phillips.

He said that Intel’s recent $60 million investment and close relationship has validated Yuneec as one of the leading companies of drone manufacturers.

A deeper dive into the sense-and-avoid capabilities of RealSense technology reveals auto-pilot software and algorithms from Ascending Technologies, a Germany-based company recently acquired by Intel.

“RealSense is a game changer because it solves a fundamental problem of 3D stereo in a very small module while minimizing the load on the main processor,” said Jan Stumpf, CEO of Ascending Technologies.

“This enables us to use multiple sensors that require relatively little processing power, leaving a lot of computational power for the obstacle avoidance,” he said.

For many years, Ascending Technologies has shared their Research Line UAVs with makers, universities and research institutes, resulting in valuable discoveries.

“By constantly adding different sensors and payloads we will enable even more possibilities,” said Stumpf.

The @YuneecAviation drone with Intel #RealSense obstacle detection takes flight at #CES2016 pic.twitter.com/DeHA8t3V38

— Intel (@intel) January 6, 2016

He said that UAVs are great tools with unlimited capabilities, but success will be determined by their ease of use. Automatic capabilities like obstacle avoidance will make them more accessible and even more useful as new applications take advantage of computer vision.

“The ultimate goal is to fly safely out of the line of sight, control multiple drones by a single operator and give them higher level tasks which they execute with higher autonomy,” said Stumpf.

.@Engadget's Best Drone of #CES2016 goes to… @YuneecAviation's Typhoon H! #RealSense https://t.co/4HVXuXB61K https://t.co/ADqaTPErRC

— Intel (@intel) January 9, 2016

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If 2015 was the year consumer drones took off then 2016 is poised to be the year when curious and creative people use these unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to push the limits of human imagination.

That’s what happened when Intel CEO Brian Krzanich asked marketing director of perceptual computing Anil Nanduri what he would do with 100 flying drones. He wanted Nanduri to find a way to push the bounderies and show people an exciting new way to experience the wonders of drone technology.

Nanduri put that challenge to a small group of artists and technology researchers at Ars Electronica Futurelab in Linz, Austria.

The team quickly created an outdoor flying drone light show syncopated to a live orchestra.

When all 100 light-equipped drones danced and painted 3D shapes and messages in sky above Flugplatz Ahrenlohe, Tornesch, near Hamburg, Germany in early November, a new record was born.

Dubbed Drone 100, the spectacle set a Guinness World Record for most UAVs airborne simultaneously. Official Guinness World Records adjudicator Pravin Patel was on hand to verify record and congratulate the technology company.

When video of Drone 100 was first shown during Krzanich’s CES 2016 keynote two months later, he said it redefined the fireworks experience without the inherent risks of traditional pyrotechnics.

“The past can be replaced by new creativity powered by drones,” he told the CES audience. “This is what it means to reinvent experiences using new technology.”

To transform the idea into reality, Horst Hoertner, senior director of Futurelab, said he focused on the future.

“It’s the only thing that can be created,” he said. “Everything else is already created. Hope and curiosity is the drive that helps you get things done that have never been done before,” he said.

Hoertner and his team of 15 people called the drones, “spaxels,” a hybrid of “space pixels.” He said he wanted to show how drones, known to many as weapons, can be used to create beauty and socially meaningful experiences.

The four pilots were led by Martin Morth, and each pilot controlled 25 drones as they lifted off from a soccer field in Hamburg.

But before the drones could launch from the field, engineers created software that allowed the drones to follow flight paths, turn on and off lights and move succinctly with one another to dramatic orchestra music.

“We developed our own ground-controls software,” said Futurelab’s Andreas Jalsovec, who led the choreography and show design for Drone 100.

He described it as animation software that requires powerful computing performance.

He translated his hand drawing into the 3D software to choreograph the precise flying positions of each drone. “We just took technology and made art out of it,” he said.

The goal for Intel was to combine curiosity with innovation to show what’s possible for UAVs, said Nanduri’s Intel teammate Natalie Cheung.

“We’re working with aviation entities to understand what the policies are, the rules and regulations, and make sure that drones are safe so we can have light shows like this,” said Cheung. “We can work together on different goals to make sure that it’s safe.”

In November, Nanduri led the first drone demonstration inside the U.S. Capitol during a visit to influence progressive safety policies for UAVs.

“Regulatory bodies have real issues and concerns, but how do we ensure that we as an industry help solve these problems by working with agencies like FAA and NASA,” Nanduri said, who ultimately wants standard, worldwide regulations.

Nanduri said the Drone 100 project was done in a private, secure site. The audience viewed it at a safe distance.

“That was the framework in which regulators saw it as a safe, risk-based approach, and they gave approval to do a night time flight,” he said.

He said that the FAA takes safety very seriously, so it’s up to leaders like Intel to demonstrate that these new technologies bring new opportunities and economic value.

“We want the US to be the leader in defining these frameworks under which we can integrate these new technologies,” he said.

Privacy is a common concern, but the Futurelab team wanted to show that it isn’t always about drones looking at people. Instead, people could be looking at drones as a form of art, communication, or research.

Hoertner sees people as naturally curious and filled with hope, and his team poured both into the Drone 100 project.

“That driving force is in all of us,” he said. “That makes us do things that some would say are crazy and others would say astonishing.”

He said Drone 100 is an example of combing art, technology and society to reveal new possibilities.

Nanduri said this the dawn of a new era for UAVs.

“Now they are getting new human-like senses, so they can see and react intelligently, in real-time to obstacles in their environment. This will open up new, creative ways for using UAVs.”

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Noa Neal performed a new hit single live at CES 2016 and San Francisco State University film students captured the experience in a 360 music video and quickly shared it with fans on Facebook and YouTube.

A trio of San Francisco State University film students, led by acclaimed director Christopher Coppola, made a big splash at CES 2016 with their 360-degree video of Noa Neal in her first worldwide performance of the pop singer’s new single, Wildheart.

The three students, Max Serwitz, Jacob Phillips and Diego Murga, recently won a PAH Fest award for their “San Francisco in 360 Degrees” video based on Neal’s new hit.

That video won them a trip to CES 2016 in Las Vegas and a new assignment: create a 360 video of Neal performing Wildheart live at the Intel booth.

The idea for it all came after Coppola talked with long-time acquaintance, Mike Gendimenico, a technical marketing manager at Intel and seasoned photographer, and Intel’s Jerry Elkins, Kurt De Buck and Mike Rivet, who worked with Neal to create the innovative 360 video for Graffiti.

A few hours after Neal’s live performance at CES, the student’s video was posted to Facebook and YouTube.

Most people are getting their first look at this new video format on YouTube, Facebook or mainstream media news sites. What makes it so unique is that the perspective can be controlled by viewers. By touching the left or right side of a tablet, smartphone or computer screen, viewers feel like they’re standing in the location of the camera with the ability to look around.

Viewers can have the same interaction by moving a handheld or Google Cardboard mounted smartphone left, right, up or down or by moving their heads while wearing a VR headset. Unlike true virtual reality experiences, these 360-degree videos can be enjoyed without VR headsets.

“It’s a fantastic technical and artistic achievement that can be watched over and over and you still discover a new element each time you watch,” said Neal, describing her first 360 video for Graffiti.

While the new format is becoming popular, Coppola said narrative 360 film making will take a little while before going mainstream because the format takes a while to learn. But, he believes, the technology will inspire new creativity.

Students need to learn how to configure a rig fitted with six GoPro cameras. They have to learn the difference between Motion Synchronization and Audio Synchronization. Since the cameras capture everything all around, students need to learn how to place the camera rig in the right spots to get the best shots.

Capturing footage on the move is another challenge. Then there’s the stitching, editing, final output and uploading.

“It’s constantly changing and moving around,” said Coppola. “You might have an actor in the front doing something then you might feel something behind you. You have to steer your audience and figure that out and make it fun.”

Coppola said students have to see everything around them before they decide their shot. It reminds him of a technique the great American film director John Ford used decades ago.

“Look at the horizon, then look at the entire area,” he said, recalling Ford’s advice for filmmakers. “When you give students a 360 camera, this advice helps.”

Equipped with technology and tips from Intel, the Coppola’s students were given six days to make something incredible.

Having little, if any, experience with 360 video made it hard at first, but they took inspiration from Noa’s first 360 music video and developed a new storyline.

“It’s so new that it really demanded our brainpower,” said SFSU student Max Serwitz, describing how difficult it was to get “San Francisco in 360 Degrees” started. They started in 2D then quickly moved into 360 mode.

Serwitz’s teammate Jacob Phillips said using the cameras, editing and executing all the required prep work was challenging.

“The GoPro mount had six different cameras that are all individual, so each one has to be accounted for and organized then synchronized, which created a lot of redundancies to make sure everything was recording,” said Phillips.

Diego Murga, another teammate, said that as a director it was difficult to move past traditional shooting experience and get his mind into a panoramic perspective.

“I’m so used to looking at stuff from behind the lens,” Murga said. “There were sleepless nights where I couldn’t comprehend the idea of not being behind the camera. That was the biggest struggle.”

Serwitz agreed it was hard to think beyond the 2D, behind-the-camera view, a cinematic view. It required the team to conceptualize their story flowing in a panoramic world rather than from a stationary perspective.

“The whole gimmick of 360 is that you can look around, and someone’s always doing something,” Serwitz said. He wanted the story to move, something like a “Where’s Waldo?” story.

With 360 video technology advancing and more accessible to anyone, experts inside Intel like Khoi Nguyen believed CES 2016 would be the ideal place to show how it works, and offer a peak into the future. The SFSU film students were invited to share what they learned making the new music video for Neal.

Looking around CES 2016, Phillips said technology allows people do so many things, especially in a world where people can market themselves and show off their talents.

“Access to technology makes things more competitive,” said Phillips. “It allows us to spread our wings and find our niche.”

He said that ideas are the most important part, but technology is a close second in helping filmmakers advance. The technology pushes him to work harder, think more and step outside of his comfort zone to create new, impactful films.

Amatures are using it to create family videos while more advanced 360 video makers are capture skiing and snowboarding. Murga said he saw people at CES get excited about using 360 video to cover sports events, allowing fans to view the action from all kinds of angles.

“This technology is no longer just for entertainment,” said Murga. “It’s still primitive, but it’s the future and being used now.”

Coppola, who has been in the movie making business for over three decades and oversaw most of the filming, said technology innovation constantly impacts his craft tremendously.

“My uncle, [legendary academy-award winning film director] Francis Ford Coppola, believed it was all going digital, electronic cinema,” he said. “I’m carrying that mantle.”

Seeing how technology gave everyday people (and not just Hollywood regulars) the ability to make movies, he turned his attention to teaching future filmmakers. As his students and film students everywhere hone their 360 video skills, movie audiences may find themselves more immersed in stories than ever before.

“With 360 video, the audience’s emotions become a big part of it,” he said. “It’s a journey of emotions as the audience participates by changing the perspectives.”

Kurt De Buck contributed to this story.

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