Intel is showing off “Pine Trail”, its next iteration of the Atom processor that powers the vast majority of netbooks and low-end nettop desktop PCs. Pine Trail chipsets will be slightly faster, as this is the way of all things, but will cram the graphics chip into the CPU, making it cheaper, potentially cooler (fanless variants should be possible), and thinner.
It’s an attempt to make the Atom platform more profitable for Intel, which has (in my opinion) been worried that its high-end, high-margin processor market may be eroded by the popularity of Atom-powered computers. Depending on how much performance they squeeze out of the integrated GPU, it may also be an attempt to stave off Nvidia, whose Ion platform weds an Atom CPU to a gaming-class graphics chip. (Or perhaps more importantly, the Ion graphics chip can handle high-resolution video.)
Intel also is chatting up “Moblin”, its Linux-based desktop interface for Atom-class machines. The latest beta version of Mobile (2.0) is now available for downloads at Moblin.org. Most netbook users will probably be sticking with Ubuntu, Windows 7 (soon, anyway), or OS X, but it always feels a bit mean to bemoan any Linux development from large companies.
Dude, Keith Packard works for Intel. They won the race the minute they hired him, it’s just that the rest of the graphics industry hasn’t figured it out yet. Dude, Keith Packard.