Intel's CEO wants to sell 'hundreds of millions' of silicon devices

Want to know how fast you are skiing? Or get a sense of what it’s like to be on the court with LeBron James when he dunks? .

Intel says its various technologies--its tiny Curie silicon, RealSense cameras, Skylake processors--will help make that happen.

During CES, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich sat down with USA TODAY to discuss the sports tech trend, and Intel's role in making it happen.

Comments and questions have been edited for space and clarity.

USA TODAY:  How does the Curie chip play into this?

Krzanich: We originally built Curie and designed it for creative wearables. We designed it to have a variety of sensors around motion, a little artificial intelligence engine that could take those motions and build them into patterns.

(Our) engineers put it on a skateboard first. They realized they can capture all this information on their skateboard tricks (and) digitize all this information. And as we gave it to athletes--they never knew how fast they were going.

Now we have all this data. If you’re a water skier, you can start to get information on how you’re edging, how you’re making turns, how fast you get up and all that.

We can help you be better on even the simplest most amateur level.

USA TODAY: Where does machine learning come in?

Krzanich: That’s the unique thing about this piece of silicon. On a BMX (off-road sports) bike, it calculates rotation, speed, landing force, and also what trick (a rider is doing.)

You could collect all that information and take 100 rides and start to see,` gosh, every time I go less than 22 miles-an-hour I land really hard.’ We can look for long-term patterns. We can do all that in real time. And then transmit it out in real time.

USA TODAY: How does this filter down to you and me?

Krzanich: If you take a look at the broad digitization of sports—I call it the middle level of runners and bikers and athletes that are just trying to get better in a 5K, now all of this information will help them. For example, we can put that same Curie chip inside your running shoes. Now I can give you real time information about your stride: exactly how hard your feet are hitting, and you can start to see, `look I’m getting tired, my stride is shortening, and you can improve your time. You don’t have to be this Olympic athlete.

USA TODAY: How does this impact Intel’s business?

Krzanich: It’ll take time to grow. But we think this an emerging sector that can sells hundreds of millions of these devices---the pieces of silicon. If every kid under the age of 30 as a snowboarder wants that information, over time that’s a lot of devices when you look across the world.

We’re starting to talk to almost every major sport that is looking into using these for training or for the user experience. The X Games, basketball, football--are looking for ways to engage you more. The guys I know who watch NASCAR, watch TV and their PC at the same time, getting all this data about the driver. We can do that right now for every single sport.

If you’re watching a football game or a basketball game or a cricket game in India, you’re going to get information about your athlete. What’s that person’s swing speed? What’s that person’s heart rate doing? You’ll get all that information in real time and engage in the sport much deeper.

FreeD video tech

USA TODAY: You’ve talked about how Replay Technology’s freeD video technology can change the way we watch sports.

Krzanich: That’s really interesting technology. You take more than 30 cameras and mount them around a stadium. You use a massive server and basically build a three-dimensional model of everything going on in real time. The trick is the large computing power in the server built by us, and the software (we help optimize) that stitches all these images together.

You’re seeing it installed in stadiums already. I think you’ll see it in sports in the second half of this year. This is the only system that literally takes the whole playing field—a football field or basketball court. It allows you to be anywhere on that court and stand right next to LeBron James and watch him dunk. It changes the viewing experience.

I think it’ll play out in a couple of ways. At home it will come onto your PC. With Skylake there’s enough computing power. It’ll be awhile before you can do it in the stands (at a stadium) with your phone or tablet. They’ll put it on the Jumbotron.

We’re also talking to Replay about judging or refereeing. There’s an (NBA) replay center now. I’ve seen so many questionable calls where (replay officials are) trying to get a good view of who touched the ball last before it went out of bounds. Those guys (with such technology could) pick almost any position on the court. We think the quality of refereeing as the leagues accept this technology will greatly enhance.

Intel CEO's glitzy keynote emphasizes computers as an extension of you

USA TODAY: You’ve said all these experiences will start to happen in 2016. What do you see five years out?

Krzanich: I think you’ll see Curie get smaller and lighter. We want it to be able to run months at a time on a little tiny battery or maybe just use your own motion to power itself. Over time we’ll get those devices that just the motion of the skateboard or snowboard powers it, and there’s no batteries, no charging, it just runs.

The other place that you’ll start to see—if I look five years out is augmented reality. We’re starting to kind of show that. Imagine here at CES you talk to smart Oakley glasses and say, `hey where’s the Intel booth?’ And it just guides you. And with RealSense we can help you avoid objects. Connect to a Yelp app and ask, “where is an Italian restaurant?’ and it will just show you the street and point to an Italian restaurant.

USA TODAY: Sounds like what Google Glass was trying to do.

Krzanich: It used the technology that was available at the time and was all driven by how much compute you could get into glass. And the kind of optics that were available. But the concept is there.

Here’s another example: Most cars have a lot of cameras on the outside now, backup camera and cameras on the side. We can tie you in so when you sit in the car and look around you have basically X-ray vision and can see right through the car. So when you parallel park you can see the curb.

There’s so many uses for augmented reality and we’re a couple of years away from the optics technology really getting great. Once we get that, and it is really immersive, I think it will transform how we think about computing. Computing will be something that’s just always out in front of you. You can customize (glasses).  Say `I only want you to tell me the stuff I ask for.’ Or you can come to an event like this and say `any contacts you see, make sure you call them out.’ I think we’re three-to-five years away from that.

USA TODAY: What does the PC business look to you right now?

Krzanich: We projected last year would be mid single-digit declines in PCs. It looks like the year will roll out about that.

For me, what I’m really excited about—the reviews on Skylake have just been phenomenal. Better battery life, graphics performance, performance over all.  And then Windows 10—it’s a good piece of operating system.

We’re moving from an environment when there were head-winds. People were waiting for Skylake, waiting for Windows 10. They knew something good was coming. Now all of those products are out there and ramping. We saw a lot of announcements (at CES) of really nice machines. So we look at 2016 as a year of good opportunity for the PC.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter.