- We started this whole video series
that you're watching out by asking
a seemingly simple question, what's a computer.
And, I'm kind of obsessed with that question or,
more specifically, with how PCs are changing.
We know that Microsoft has a Surface
and Apple has the iPad, and the Mac,
and Google has Chromebooks, but that leaves out
one really important company, Intel.
So, here's a question.
What does Intel think the future of PCs looks like?
To answer that question, I went to Intel's headquarters
in Santa Clara, California.
We went inside the room that Intel calls
The Client Experience Center, which is a boring name
for actually not a very boring place.
It's where Intel works on prototypes
for entirely new kinds of computers.
This is Murali Veeramoney, a Senior Director
here at Intel.
Veeramoney is one of the people in charge
of making stuff like what you see spread out on this table.
So at this table we're looking at the,
looks like almost a whole development process,
microcosm for Tiger Rapids?
This is the Tiger Rapids prototype.
You might have seen it before, Intel's actually
been showing it off for a few months now.
It has an LCD screen on one side
and an e-paper display on the other
where a keyboard would usually go.
You've got the idea, and then you start
moving on to actually like 3D printing stuff
and building boards?
- Exactly, so then comes the electronics of it,
which is, you know, how does all of these fit
into the form factor that we have,
so we do different kinds of motherboards
and here's an example of another Motherboard we did.
It's a whole computer, the whole laptop is this size.
- So, yeah, Intel makes computers,
sort of.
Intel has to do more than just come up with the idea,
it actually has to build it to prove out
that it's even possible.
Intel goes 90% of the way
towards creating a finished product.
It builds the boards, checks the thermals,
and even develops a little bit of the software on Windows.
But, you can't go into a store and buy an Intel computer,
they don't sell stuff.
What you will be able to do is go into a store
later this year and buy the Lenovo Yoga Book C930,
which is sort of like a bigger version
of this prototype device.
You can see that the two things here
are basically the same idea, one side's an LCD panel
and the other side is an e-paper display.
- We work very closely with Lenovo
to get their product to market using our learnings
and our engineering collaterals to the things they want,
and then they say, okay, that's pretty good,
let us now do it our way.
- You kind of give them like a blueprint
and then they modify it to their own needs.
- We just have to work with them
and realize it's their product.
- Right. Correct.
And make sure that we can satisfy our eventual requirements,
which is all silicon.
- You have done a huge amount of work
to even get to this point.
How does it feel?
Like as to basically be making nearly consumer-ready
products and then not finishing that last mile?
What's that like for you?
- It's a tough thing, and I tell my team,
the analogy I give is like, bringing up your kids.
You want them to grow, want them to have
a successful life, but we don't get to live their life.
- Right.
- So it's the same thing like us,
we don't get to put our product
because that's not our business goal.
- So, hang on, we got to stop here
because there's a thing that we haven't
really talked about yet.
Intel has had a
garbage year.
It started with Spectre and Meltdown
which were two huge security vulnerabilities
that required everybody to slow down their chips,
and then, ah, Intel CEO resigned in July
after disclosing an improper relationship with an employee
and as of right now, it still only has an interim CEO,
and the other thing to say is that
for a long while now, Intel has been facing
kind of a downturn in its core business.
So it's spent the past couple of years
trying some really weird stuff.
We went behind the scenes at CES is here
and we saw drones, and voxels, and self-driving cars,
and back in January, we also went to Intel's office
to see some normal-looking AR glasses
that they called Vont, and that project got canceled
because Intel couldn't figure out
how to get it from prototype to product.
So, you know, yeah,
garbage year, not great.
All of which means that, right now,
I think Intel is trying to refocus
on the PC, and specifically on what the PC
is turning into.
- My grand theory of Intel is
PCs are great, smartphones came along and argh,
but then you hit Ultrabooks and that
was a really big moment, and then
there was a bunch of weird stuff that you made,
glasses, and balls that charge things and,
you're making drones, and all that stuff,
but it feels like it's time for the next generation
of PCs to happen again.
- It's fair to say we do experiment with things.
But I would say the magic that we have
in our engineering capability
when married to our customer's engineering capability,
is we bring practical innovations
that can change or allow people to use
computers in new ways, but also can scale into the market.
- Now, Intel's real goal with making all these prototypes
is to create something that's actually possible
for an OEM to make and it'll
actually get sold on the market.
Now, Tiger Rapids was one thing, but the next thing is this.
A dual-screen device called Copper Harbor.
It's a cool prototype, but it's also really prototypy.
The software is more proof of concept
than actually usable thing.
- In Copper Harbor the whole idea is to have two
symmetrical screens of similar capabilities coming together
and that opens up a completely new landscape.
- Okay, two screens, but if I want to use it
as one big screen, like it's just like a,
I don't know, a tablet, I could open up Excel here,
Excel pops up and voila, we've got 46 rows.
One other demos you showed me was PowerPoint.
- You have the speaker notes on one side
and you're presenting on the other side,
so you could be presenting this to me,
so this is showing the use case of having
a Tiger Rapids like, but much more powerful
because this whole side is color.
- Why is this better than just having
a big old tablet with two windows open?
- The whole idea is that it can fold,
it can be a portable device,
- Right, okay,
sure - multiple modes
like for example, you couldn't do the temp mode
on a tablet.
Of course, the tablet has its own capability that,
until we get screens which kind of span across,
you know, there are benefits of the tablet, as well.
- Right.
And I guess the other thing, not only does it fold up
smaller to carry it, but it could also fold this way
so that you've got a nicer reading experience or something.
- [Murali] Yeah, yeah.
- Whether we actually see this dual-screen thing
turn into an actual product, is still an open question,
but if you want to know what Intel thinks
the future of PCs looks like,
it looks a little bit like this.
- We have driven the thickness of PCs
to single millimeter thicknesses, I mean, super thin.
What's gonna happen is as you carry your thin machine
around, you're gonna be able to use it
more, and more, and more, to do the things you want.
You'll have the different surfaces,
you'll have amazing screen technology to do,
not only screens and keyboards,
but you can imagine other things you can do
on a second screen.
- After everything that I saw at Intel,
here's what I think its idea of what's next
for the PC actually is.
That they're gonna look and act
a little bit more like phones.
That you're gonna be more willing to carry them around
with you wherever you go.
Intel, it missed out on the first 10 years of smartphones,
so now it has to be hyper-focused
on what it's good at, to make sure
that it doesn't miss out on the next interesting thing.
And you know what that might be?
Computers.
Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching
and let me know, would you use a device
that has a screen here, another screen here,
and then it folds and folds the other way?
Let me know on the comments, and if you want to know
how to actually use all of the weird technology
we keep talking about, we've got a great
tip series called Workflow, you should check that out, too.