14 DAY TRIAL // Intel has been trying to enter the wearables market for years, but fate did not see fit to make it any easier than the foray into the tablet industry, which hasn't yielded as much success as Chipzilla would have wanted either.
The company is hardly deterred though. Not surprising. When you have as much money as Intel does, you can try again and again and again until you get it right.
It's also a question of need, not just “Intel inside” pride. Conventional PCs have been losing their aura of greatness, and while they'll never go away, they have been selling less and less. That goes for both laptops and desktops.
This is probably a phase when consumers exhaust the novelty of tablets, drones, and most importantly, wearable devices. It is wearables that Intel is now focusing on, having created the Curie computing module.
The Intel Curie module
Based on the Quark SE SoC, the company's first system-on-chip designed for wearable devices, the Curie is as big as a button, or a thumb fingernail.
The low-power, 32-bit Quark microcontroller features 384 kB of flash memory and 80 kB of SRAM, making it suited for always-on applications like social notifications, sports activities, fitness tracking, etc.
Essentially, it is made to record small but steady data streams without actually storing anything, instead sending the info to a handset.
The Quark SE-based Curie uses an accelerometer and gyroscope combo sensor, as well as Bluetooth Low Energy technology to relay the data to whatever handset you have on you.
The plan is for “Intel inside” to be slapped on as many smartwatches, smartbands, smart band-aids and whatever else this year and the years after.
Availability and implementation
The Intel Curie module will become available later this year along with the IQ Software Kit, which will provide device makers with a platform for creating compatible firmware and apps.
Fashion, sports and lifestyle companies are the primary targets here, and Intel thinks the IQ Software Kit can reduce time-to-market while helping to incorporate advanced functions.
Alas, Curie has not been approved by the FCC yet, so “later this year” means the second half of 2015. Still, at least we have a specific time frame now for smart shirts, shoes, pants, caps and accessories.
Maybe the Curie will be reinvented into something small enough to be incorporated into aglets next. Then The Question might finally have a point about their sinister purpose, whatever it is.
