PITTSBURGH — On university campuses in three states, teams funded by Intel Corp. are exploring the future of computing — and of the market for Intel’s industry-driving microprocessors.
Research teams at universities in Pennsylvania, California and Washington state have for six years sought ways to further integrate computers into daily life. With about 70 projects under way, the teams at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University are doing their part to advance the boundaries of the industry.
“We’re really the exploratory, far-out dreamers,” David O’Hallaron, the facility’s director, said before an annual open house Wednesday.
Among the projects: a “robotic bartender,” a small, wheeled table that carries cups to another device that grasps them and places them in a dishwasher using cameras and lasers as guides.
“The goal of this project is to free robots from the factory floor and bring them to your homes,” said Siddhartha Srinivasa, a scientist working on the project.
The technology, which currently uses 20 microprocessors, could eventually help people at assisted-living facilities or hospitals, O’Hallaron said.
Another project processes vast amounts of data to create maps showing the density of the Earth’s crust at various depths, models that could be used for earthquake simulations and hazard estimates. The technology in development could generate such models in just eight hours, compared to the current 15 days to a month.
Rahul Sukthankar, a researcher with Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel and an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon, said computers could sort through thousands of mammogram images to help doctors identify similar cases and decide whether to recommend biopsies.
“So really what you’ve done is enriched the doctor’s decision-making potential at that moment by giving them access to all this data which otherwise would have taken a lot of effort to search through,” Sukthankar said.
Another project compares images of skin lesions to help doctors detect skin cancer. And other researchers are examining ways of using clusters of household wireless networks to perform tasks such as uploading files faster than broadband connections now allow.
The small facility on the Carnegie Mellon campus has a staff of 22. The other two are at the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Washington in Seattle. Intel and the universities have joint ownership agreements for the research they carry out.
But Intel derives a significant short-term benefit from the arrangement.
“When you have working relationships with these smart people, with these professors, you get the first shot at their students,” O’Halloran said. “So Intel gets the opportunity to hire these brilliant people.”
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