After missteps in mobile, Intel is betting big on the next big shift in computing: The Internet of Things.
英特尔当初错过了抢占移动市场的先手，被AMD和高通钻了空子。但眼下，英特尔决心豪赌计算领域的下一次大变革：物联网，让英特尔的芯片进入一切有形的物体。
In June, Intel pulled back the veil on a number of significant advancements in processing technology. It introduced its next-generation Xeon Phi processor, a piece of technology that the company predicts will drive 20 percent annual revenue growth in its high-performance computing business in the next few years. It announced new architecture for its versatile Atom chip, found in everything from tablet computers to cars. And it offered an update to the myriad processor projects—Bay Trail! Merrifield! Avaton! Rangely!—in development.
今年六月，英特尔（Intel）披露了一些处理器技术的重大进展。首先是推出了英特尔的下一代至强融核（Xeon Phi）处理器。据英特尔公司自行估计，未来五年，这款处理器将给它的高性能计算业务带来每年20%的收入增长点。同时，英特尔还公布了Atom芯片的新架构。Atom可以说是芯片界的万金油，从平板电脑到汽车，几乎随处都是它大显身手之地。另外，英特尔还对正在研发中的很多处理器项目（如Bay Trail、Merrifield、Avaton和Rangely等等）进行了升级。
Much of this plays into Intel’s vision of the future, one that signals the company’s commitment to developing the so-called Internet of Things—and, perhaps more important, its intense desire not to miss out on another major shift in computing.
英特尔的这番大手笔充分彰显了它对未来的雄心壮志，以及它致力于开发所谓“物联网”的决心。更重要的是，它彰显了英特尔绝不放弃计算行业另一次重大变革的决心。
The world’s largest maker of semiconductors was, without question, a late entrant to the mobile computing space. Though Intel has historically dominated the supercomputing and personal computer markets, its lack of foresight (or timing) for the sudden and rapid growth of the mobile market allowed competitors like AMD and Qualcomm to steal market share in the fastest-growing computing arena. With PC sales declining—Intel derives some 70 percent of its revenues from the PC market—the chipmaker is certainly aware of its own mortality. It doesn’t plan to miss the boat a second time.
虽然英特尔是全球最大的半导体产品制造商，但它在移动计算行业无疑起步较晚。虽然英特尔一直主宰着超级计算机和个人电脑市场，但近年来由于对移动市场的突然崛起缺乏远见（又或许是时机把握得不好），使得AMD和高通（Qualcomm）等竞争对手得以在这个快速崛起的市场上从容地窃取不少市场份额。随着PC销量逐渐下滑（英特尔有70%左右的收入来自PC市场），英特尔显然已经意识到继续墨守成规的命运。它不打算第二次错过这条船。
“We’ve seen the screenification of the world, and now we’re moving to computational power in the environment,” says Brian David Johnson, Intel’s resident futurist and principal engineer, of the transition from smartphone- and tablet-centric computing toward wearable technology and other new types of computing that comprise the Internet of Things. “Before, we had to ask ourselves, ‘Can we take a desktop and make it fit onto somebody’s lap? Can we take a laptop and make it small enough to fit in somebody’s pocket?’ The question was always, ‘Can we do it?’ But now, as the size of meaningful computing power approaches zero, you can turn anything into a computer. So the question now becomes, ‘What do we want to turn into a computer, and why?’”
英特尔公司的未来学家、首席工程师布莱恩o大卫o约翰逊指出：“我们已经见证了世界的屏幕化，我们也在让我们的计算能力顺应这种环境进行转变。”也就是把以智能手机和平板电脑为中心的计算能力，向以可穿戴技术和物联网技术为中心的计算能力转变。“从前我们曾经问过自己：‘我们可以把台式电脑缩小到可以放在人们的膝盖上吗？我们能把笔记本电脑缩小到能放到人们的口袋里吗？’当时问题总是‘我们能做到吗？’但是现在，随着承载重要计算能力的芯片尺寸缩小到几乎可以忽略不计，大家几乎可以把任何东西变成一台电脑。因此现在的问题也就变成了：‘我们想把什么东西变成一台电脑？为什么？’”
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.)
在英特尔看来，这个问题的答案显然非常广泛。在六月份的一份公告中，约翰逊和英特尔的其他代表们详细阐述了随着承载重要计算能力的芯片尺寸缩小到几乎可以忽略不计，移动计算能力可以从平板电脑和智能手机发展到其它物品上的可能性。英特尔公司认为，到2020年，全球每年将能够售出5亿部可穿戴设备。其中任何一台可穿戴设备都具有一定的处理能力，消费、产生数据。【据英特尔公司引用高德纳研究公司（Gartner）的数据，这些可穿戴设备产生的数据所具有的价值将高达2万亿美元。）
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.
英特尔对物联网领域的赌注主要集中在两款新产品上，一款产品叫做“伽利略”，另一款叫做“爱迪生”。“伽利略”是一块售价60美元的开发板，可以与深受DIY爱好者们喜爱的Arduino开源电子原型设计平台兼容。“爱迪生”是一个小巧的系统芯片，虽然只有一张SD卡大小，但却可以集成到消费产品中，提供数据处理、存储、Wi-Fi、蓝牙功能，还可以与一系列即插式传感器兼容。
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.
“伽利略”之所以非常有名，是因为人们可以用它把一台不能联网的设备改装成一台联网设备，然后用智能手机对它进行控制。这个功能并不新鲜，市面上的其它控制板也能做到，只不过基础架构全然不同。“爱迪生”则把这个理念推进得更深了一步，使开发者可以把它用在衣服、智能手表、智能眼镜、私人机器人和其它能够联网的器具和设备上。
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.
如果“爱迪生”成了产品开发者们采用的主流产品——当然只是“如果”——那么英特尔就将在物联网的早期发展阶段占尽先机，这也正是移动时代以来英特尔一直梦寐以求的局面。此外，物联网技术的发展还能促进英特尔其它非PC业务的增长。联网的设备越多，意味着这些设备产生的数据就越多，同时也意味着使用这些设备的人越多。更多的数据意味着需要更强大的数据处理能力。另外，随着大数据越来越成为各种类型的企业的支柱技术，要带动大数据所需的高性能计算机硬件，自然也就需要更多的处理器。
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.
“爱迪生”在今夏的发布，让英特尔有机会老老实实地检验一下，看看那些已经在研发可穿戴设备和嵌入式技术的产品设计师们的愿景是否与英特尔自己的愿景一致。如果设计师们真的与英特尔一拍即合，那么英特尔的芯片不久就会安装在各种新型联网设备里，而这些新型设备必将超出计算市场的范畴。约翰逊指出，这正是英特尔想要达到的目标——进入物联网。
“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.”
约翰逊说：“我们并不是一家PC公司，也不是一家平板电脑公司或智能手机公司，我们是一家智能公司。我们可以把智能带到任何东西上。在我看来，‘爱迪生’和‘伽利略’就是这种愿景的第一次表达。”