The multiplying effects of computers, the Internet and education can double the reach of technology’s benefits worldwide in the next five years, Intel Corporation President and Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said last week in a speech at the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT).
“We’re close to achieving Andy Grove’s vision of a billion connected PCs — and the economic, social and personal gains that come with them,” said Otellini, referring to the Intel co-founder and former CEO. “Our job now is to harness the combined potential of full-featured technology, high-speed connectivity and effective education to speed the gains for the next billion people — and the next billion after that.”
At WCIT in Austin, Otellini also gave the first public demonstration of a low-cost notebook PC for students in developing nations.
In his speech, Otellini said that the predictions by Grove and of another co-founder of Intel, Gordon Moore, form a backdrop for the new World Ahead Program from Intel. The program’s five-year goals are to extend wireless broadband PC access to the world’s next billion users while training 10 million more teachers on the effective use of technology in education, with the possibility of reaching another one billion students.
“Moore’s Law and volume economics made PC technology broadly accessible, and Andy understood the tremendous additive force of the Internet,” said Otellini. “But this power is still out of reach for most of the world’s people. The World Ahead Program, which integrates Intel’s efforts in accessibility, connectivity and education, seeks a multiplier effect to accelerate the next wave of gains.”
Otellini demonstrated one of the PCs developed from Intel’s extensive ethnographic research in developing countries, a small notebook PC for students codenamed “Eduwise.” Eduwise is specifically designed to provide affordable, collaborative learning environments for teachers and young students.
With students using the Eduwise notebook in class, a teacher can make presentations, control what a student has access to, and interact individually with each student in giving tests or providing feedback. The Intel-developed education application integrates with other non-computing learning tasks such as note-taking and handwriting with wireless pen attachments. Because it is a fully featured PC, the Eduwise design can accommodate other standard software and tools for additional needs and uses.
James Fergason Wins Lemelson-MIT Prize
James Fergason just wanted to know if his thermal sensor was actually working. In 1958, the young researcher at Westinghouse Research Laboratories began experimenting with liquid crystals and ended up paving the way for innovations ranging from forehead thermometers to mood rings, digital watches to computer monitors, and 3D video systems to flat-panel televisions.
Fergason, who holds more than 130 US patents and more than 500 foreign patents, has been honored with the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the largest cash prize given in the United States for invention.
“James Fergason’s inventions are directly responsible for the creation of a multibillion-dollar liquid crystal display industry that employs millions of people around the world,” said Merton Flemings, director of the Lemelson-MIT Program, which gives the annual award. “But those are not his only contributions to society. He is also a staunch advocate for independent inventors and has dedicated countless hours to this cause.”
Fergason did not discover liquid crystals, nor was he the first to experiment with them. However, he said he was “the first guy who saw what they were really good for.” As a young researcher, Fergason needed a way to measure the accuracy of a temperature-measuring device and he thought liquid crystals may be useful because of their sensitivity to temperature fluctuations and their ability to reflect colors. At that time, liquid crystals were a little-known academic curiosity with no clear, useful purpose.
Fergason noticed other interesting properties of the materials as his experiments progressed. “When I started looking at liquid crystals, their optical activity caught my eye. They were intriguing as I got more and more into them. I found all kinds of things people hadn’t thought about. They were the opposite of a mirror in terms of polarized light. It was great fun.”
He was issued his first patent in December 1963 for his use of cholesteric liquid crystals in temperature sensing applications. This technique is still used today in products ranging from forehead thermometers to mood rings.
A few years later, in 1966, Fergason was recruited to join the Liquid Crystal Institute at Kent State University. There he discovered the twisted nematic field effect of liquid crystals — the key discovery that led to the creation of today’s liquid crystal displays (LCDs). In 1970, Fergason published a paper that broadly defined approaches for manufacturing nematic liquid crystal displays. He left the Liquid Crystal Institute and founded the International Liquid Crystal Company (Ilixco) to pursue his research and commercialize LCDs.
Fergason’s article struck a chord almost immediately in the electronics community. “I got 1,200 reprint requests, which is highly unusual for someone in my business,” he said. Companies from medical devices manufacturers to photocopier manufacturers were interested in the possibilities afforded by a low-power, low-voltage display that was compatible with integrated circuit drivers and produced a good contrast.
Calculators and watches were the first products to benefit from Fergason’s LCDs. Until then, products with digital displays lost their battery life quickly, making them undesirable to most consumers. LCDs were ideal for these low-voltage applications. But despite the popularity of early LCD devices, their mass-market penetration in other applications still took another decade.
“When I was getting started, I would go on airplanes and count the number of products with liquid crystal displays in the Sharper Image catalogs,” Fergason said. “Twenty, 30, 40 products would have liquid crystal displays. Now you go to the store and all the games, all the telephones... there are hundreds of millions of products made with them.”
