What Moorehead is describing is a world where the only computer you'll ever need, is a mobile one. Call it a phone, call it a tablet, or just call it a computer. The next generation of computers are poised to enable truly personal computing experiences. These devices will be tuned to the specific needs of its owner with an un-thinkable amount of computing resources at its disposal. Computational resources will be harnessed locally through powerful 48 core CPUs combined with a near limitless supply of remotely accessible cloud computing capacity.
Moorhead goes on to paint a picture where powerful multi-core mobile PCs play a central role in both our personal and professional computing lives. "My one compute device is in my hand and when I walk into my office, it automatically and wireless connects to my 30-inch display," he explained. "I have touch, a keybord, a mouse and voice to interact with it... It changes the whole concept of what it is and what it can do."
Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with ZK Research, suspects that "in 10 years, the devices we carry will be continually using any information available to them to make better decisions," said Kerravala. "So a continuous stream of location, identity, ad-driven information and presence status will all continually be calculated to help us do the stuff we do better and faster. And I would think you'll need multi-core to do that in 10 years."
To help achieve this vision, Intel researchers have been working on new 48 core processors specifically designed for low power mobile devices. Justin Rattner, Intel's CTO, told Computer World that a 48-core chip for small mobile devices could hit the market "much sooner" than the researchers' 10-year prediction.
Enric Herrero, a research scientist at Intel Labs in Barcelona, said the lab is working on finding new ways to use and manage many cores in mobile devices. He explained that with many cores, someone could, for instance, be encrypting an email while also working on other power-intensive apps at the same time. It could be done today, but the operations might drag because they'd have to share resources.
Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group adds to the Computer World discussion pointing to the core problem with multi-core processors. "There aren't many apps now to light up eight cores, let alone lighting up 48," he said. "Even on the PC now, it's really unusual in an 8-core machine to light up more than six cores. Writing for massive multi-core... Well, we haven't even really started to do that yet."
Tanausu Ramirez, another Intel research scientist working on the 48-core chip said that instead of one core working at near top capacity and using a lot of energy, many cores could run in parallel on different projects and use less energy. "The chip also can take the energy and split it up and distribute it between different applications," he added.
Moorhead, though, has faith that by the time the hardware is ready, the software will be, too. "Five to 10 years is somewhat of an eternity in technology time," he said. "If we're going to have this technology in five to 10 years, [the smartphone] won't have just one camera. It would have two to three cameras that are always on. It could build a three-dimensional map of what it's looking at and do object recognition. You could finally do things that take way too much processing power today."
Update: My friends at Intel sent me a quirky video they just released.
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