IT & Network Infrastructure : Intel Xeon, Atom-Powered Devices Are Highlights of 2012 IDF Conference

When researching a story, journalists like to come across the terms "first," "only," and "new," because the more those words are used in a news item, the more newsy the item will be. Intel at its annual international developers' forum in San Francisco had a few "firsts," "onlys" and "new" items to talk about. For example, the first Atom-powered smartphones—from makers such as Orange (France), Lenovo (China), Lava (India) and Megafon (Russia)—were on display for developers to check out. Those qualified under all three terms. In addition, the world's largest chip maker showed new Ultrabook laptops and desktop PCs with new, more powerful and power-efficient 22-nanometer chips. A lot of emphasis was put on the ability of these new chips to power ever-more-realistic gaming, high-definition video, touch-screen and business applications to sky-high performance metrics. Here, eWEEK offers a number of different highlights of the Intel Developer Forum 2012, which was held at San Francisco's Moscone Center West.