Tag: intel

Fashion is playing a role in people’s interest in wearable devices

Acclaimed technology firm Intel has claimed that wearable devices are as much about fashion as they are about technology. Wearable technology is beginning to see a great deal of exposure and new devices that offer a wide range of features are finally becoming commercially available. It may be years before these devices become as popular as smartphones and tablets, and their popularity may be intrinsically tied to their appeal as fashion accessories.

Many people are concerned about their fashion choices

Fashion happens to be a serious matter for many people. A large portion of the population spends a great deal of time thinking about what to wear and how their clothing and accessory choices will affect how they are seen. This has been something of a concern for many people for centuries and fashion has often directed the course of technology, especially when it comes to using technology publically. Cell phones initially won favor among consumers because they were both convenient and fashionable to use at the time. Smartphones quickly won popularity because of their more discreet nature and the fact that they served as a sort of status symbol when they were first introduced.

Wearable devices are too cumbersome for most people

Intel notes that many people currently see wearable devices as “geeky” or ugly. People are unwilling to use these devices because many of them are cumbersome in design and do not lend themselves well to people’s fashion tastes. While some of these devices may be very attractive from a technology standpoint, they are not so from a fashion perspective, and that may be the reason why people are not as excited for these devices as tech firms want them to be.

Intel contest aims to reward developers that take fashion into account

Intel has launched its own competition hoping to encourage tech developers to take fashion into more consideration. The company is offering a $500,000 grand prize for those participating in its Build It Development Track. The contest is meant to promote wearable devices that are both environmentally friendly and attractive from a fashion perspective.

The chipmaker made a powerful call to app development companies to underscore its intentions in the market.

Recently in Boston, at the AnDevCon, Intel reached out to Android developers, placing a greater focus on its own determination to expand the role that it currently plays within the mobile technology marketplace.

During the keynote speech from Jeff McVeigh, the company admitted mistakes in its early mobile strategy.

Jeff McVeigh, the developer products division at Intel’s general manager of performance, client, and visual computing, gave a keynote address in which he acknowledged that Intel had not taken the ideal path when it came to the creation of its initial mobile technology strategy. This included his own assumption that the majority of Android development would go on within the Dalvik virtual machine. The Dalvik is essentially an intermediary layer occurring between the Android system and applications, which converts apps into Dalvik executables, which are a format that mobile and other less powerful computing devices can run more easily.

The Android Native development kit’s mobile technology has since been used for many of the best performing apps.

This, despite the fact that Dalvik is still the Android development vehicle of choice. That said, when using the Android Native development kit (NDK), the intermediary is eliminated, making it quite appealing to developers.

McVeigh explained that “If you look at the top 2,000 apps on the Google Play Store today, only one-third of them are using Dalvik only.” He also pointed out that “The other two-thirds have some level of NDK; some level of optimized code that’s been polished to a specific architecture.”

Furthermore, he also pointed out that even though Android has quickly overtaken all of the other mobile operating systems and has established itself in a considerable lead of that market around the world, developers could still do themselves a disservice if they don’t make certain that they are accessible to those using other platforms, such as iOS and Windows Phone.

He explained that in order to truly reach the broadest base over mobile technology, Android cannot be the exclusive focus. “I need to be looking across platforms, across operating systems, and developing my applications to span that experience.”