Core functionality
The core-blimey chip was cobbled together by Intel Labs teams in Bangalore (India), Braunschweig (Germany) and Hillsboro, Ore. (US), but it was the Braunschweig team which actually designed the processor core, and the specialised hardware which allows the cores to communicate with reduced latency.
The European team also made the streamlined, energy efficient memory controller, made especially for a many-core design.
Justin Rattner, Head of Intel Labs and Intel's Chief Technology Officer explained that "With a chip like this, you could imagine a cloud datacenter of the future which will be an order of magnitude more energy efficient than what exists today."
The chip is already giving Intel a big imagination in terms of opportunities for usage. The firm's press release touted the potential for using it in future laptops which could have "vision in the same way a human can see objects and motion as it happens and with high accuracy."
This could allow for all sorts of usages, like virtual dance lessons, or online clothes shopping which could use the laptop's camera to show the user a "mirror" of him/herself wearing the clothes they're interested in.
It could even go "minority report" style and do away with pesky keyboards, remote controls and joysticks - although those are already fairly obsolete as it is.
Getting even more cerebral, Intel even reckons its wonder chip might be able to let computers read brain waves, enabling users to simply think about a command, and see it performed.
