英特爾的愿景：萬物聯網

????在英特爾看來，這個問題的答案顯然非常廣泛。在六月份的一份公告中，約翰遜和英特爾的其他代表們詳細闡述了隨著承載重要計算能力的芯片尺寸縮小到幾乎可以忽略不計，移動計算能力可以從平板電腦和智能手機發展到其它物品上的可能性。英特爾公司認為，到2020年，全球每年將能夠售出5億部可穿戴設備。其中任何一臺可穿戴設備都具有一定的處理能力，消費、產生數據。【據英特爾公司引用高德納研究公司（Gartner）的數據，這些可穿戴設備產生的數據所具有的價值將高達2萬億美元。）

????英特爾對物聯網領域的賭注主要集中在兩款新產品上，一款產品叫做“伽利略”，另一款叫做“愛迪生”?！百だ浴笔且粔K售價60美元的開發板，可以與深受DIY愛好者們喜愛的Arduino開源電子原型設計平臺兼容。“愛迪生”是一個小巧的系統芯片，雖然只有一張SD卡大小，但卻可以集成到消費產品中，提供數據處理、存儲、Wi-Fi、藍牙功能，還可以與一系列即插式傳感器兼容。

????“伽利略”之所以非常有名，是因為人們可以用它把一臺不能聯網的設備改裝成一臺聯網設備，然后用智能手機對它進行控制。這個功能并不新鮮，市面上的其它控制板也能做到，只不過基礎架構全然不同。“愛迪生”則把這個理念推進得更深了一步，使開發者可以把它用在衣服、智能手表、智能眼鏡、私人機器人和其它能夠聯網的器具和設備上。

????如果“愛迪生”成了產品開發者們采用的主流產品——當然只是“如果”——那么英特爾就將在物聯網的早期發展階段占盡先機，這也正是移動時代以來英特爾一直夢寐以求的局面。此外，物聯網技術的發展還能促進英特爾其它非PC業務的增長。聯網的設備越多，意味著這些設備產生的數據就越多，同時也意味著使用這些設備的人越多。更多的數據意味著需要更強大的數據處理能力。另外，隨著大數據越來越成為各種類型的企業的支柱技術，要帶動大數據所需的高性能計算機硬件，自然也就需要更多的處理器。

????“愛迪生”在今夏的發布，讓英特爾有機會老老實實地檢驗一下，看看那些已經在研發可穿戴設備和嵌入式技術的產品設計師們的愿景是否與英特爾自己的愿景一致。如果設計師們真的與英特爾一拍即合，那么英特爾的芯片不久就會安裝在各種新型聯網設備里，而這些新型設備必將超出計算市場的范疇。約翰遜指出，這正是英特爾想要達到的目標——進入物聯網。

????約翰遜說：“我們并不是一家PC公司，也不是一家平板電腦公司或智能手機公司，我們是一家智能公司。我們可以把智能帶到任何東西上。在我看來，‘愛迪生’和‘伽利略’就是這種愿景的第一次表達?！保ㄘ敻恢形木W）

????譯者：樸成奎

????Intel clearly expects the answers to that question to be vast and diverse. During the June announcement, Johnson and other company representatives drove home the idea that the possibilities for computing applications grow exponentially as the size of meaningful computing power approaches zero, creating opportunities for mobile computing that go far beyond the tablet or smartphone. Intel thinks 500 million pieces of wearable tech will be sold globally each year by 2020. Each will pack some degree of processing power to consume and create data. (According to Gartner research cited by Intel, all of that data will generate some $2 trillion in value.)

????Key to Intel’s bid in the area are two new products, Galileo and Edison. The first is a $60 development board that is compatible with Arduino, the open source electronics prototyping platform popular with “makers” and other do-it-yourself tinkerers. The second is a tiny system-on-a-chip, roughly the size of an SD card, that can be integrated into consumer products to provide processing, memory, storage, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity and compatibility with a range of pluggable sensors.

????Galileo is notable because it allows someone to retrofit a disconnected electronic device to become connected and be controlled from a smartphone. It’s a capability that other controller boards already allow, albeit with different architectures. Edison takes the general concept a step further, Johnson says, by allowing product developers to use it in items such as clothing, smart watches, smart glasses, personal robots, and other Internet-enabled appliances and devices.

????If product developers take to Edison in a major way—”if” being the key word—it could put Intel out in front of its competition in the early days of the Internet of Things, a position the company has deeply coveted in the age of mobility. Better still, growth in Internet of Things technologies will also drive growth in Intel’s other major non-PC segments, a fact not lost on the company. More connected devices mean more data generated by those devices and the consumers that use them. More data means more data crunching, which means more processors needed to drive high-performance computing hardware as big data increasingly becomes a cornerstone technology for all kinds of enterprises.

????This summer’s launch of Edison should provide Intel with an honest measure of whether the product designers already developing the wearable and embedded technologies that will populate the future will align their vision with Intel’s own. If they do, Intel could soon find itself powering any number of newly-connected devices that fall outside of the traditional computing markets. Which, Johnson notes, is exactly where Intel would like to be: inside.

????“We’re not a PC company, we’re not a tablet company, we’re not a smartphone company. We’re an intelligence company,” Johnson says. “We can bring intelligence to anything. To me, Edison and Galileo are the first expression of that vision.”