Out of the Box

摘要

Intel chairman andrew grove knows how to make an entrance. Before a crowd of 5,000 at Intel's annual sales meeting in San Francisco in late January, Grove glided up a ramp and onto the stage aboard a Segway, the superhyped, stand-up scooter that some have trumpeted as the greatest invention since the PC. The prototype of the vehicle, Grove told the crowd, used a handful of Intel chips. The final version used none. Grove's message: Get ready for the electronic future―and get scared that Intel won't play a central role in shaping it. The next chip revolution will take place far beyond the beige computing box under your desk, in a plethora of new and strange devices with an entirely different set of needs. The collision of three tech trends―vanishingly small but powerful chips, the Internet and wireless data communications―is creating a new era of engineering, with great potential to reshuffle business models, spheres of influence and profits.