Intel WiDi Wireless Display Technology - HOT

by Dave Altavilla 

From: http://hothardware.com/

At this year's CES show in Vegas there have been more than a couple of relatively exciting announcements and of course Intel was intent on joining the party.  Today we got to spend some quality time behind closed doors with the folks in Intel's Mobile group learning a bit about some of the new features that will be coming to their Core i5 and Core i3 Mobile platforms in the weeks ahead.  We heard some fairly inspiring things about the technology back in the November time frame at a cozy bistro in New York city but today we were able to see it in action and it was impressive to say the least.

Intel's new WiDi (Wireless Display Interface) technology will start to be bundled with various Core i5 and Core i3 notebooks later this month and it promises to address the Home Theater and Multimedia PC markets with a solution that will enable wireless connectivity of your notebook over HDMI to an HDTV. Using standard 802.11n wireless technologies for transmission of data, Intel describes the product as "a solution that requires a laptop PC based on select 2010 Intel Core processors, Intel HD Graphics, and Intel Centrino wireless with Intel MyWiFi Technology enabled. The laptop needs to have Intel Wireless Display software installed and also an adapter featuring Intel Wireless Display is required to receive the signals from the PC that display them on the TV. This adapter is connected to the TV via either HDMI or standard AV cables."

Netgear has stepped out early with a receiver product dubbed Push2TV and their block diagram below lays out the solution for you here...

Netgear partnered with Intel to develop the Push2TV WiDi Receiver

What was rather refreshing about this announcement was how close the product was to retail roll-out.  It's in fact shipping in a matter of weeks, bundled with select Sony, Toshiba and Dell laptops.  Here we have Intel's Josh Newman demonstrating Intel WiDi technology for us.  Take a look, it's definitely worth a few extra bits of your bandwidth...

Here are a few close-ups of the Sony and Toshiba notebooks we saw today demonstrating Intel WiDi.  Both machines strike a stylish balance of portability and performance; Sony's machine taking ultra-thin design cues while Toshiba's machines was bit with a little more glitz perhaps, depending on your perspective.

Sony's Sleek VAIO Notebook Based On Core i5 Technology with WiDi On Board


Toshiba's New Core i5, Backlit and Cool with Core i5 and On-Board Intel WiDi Tech

We've seen more than a few sites at this year's 2010 CES but often times we're left flat with all of the pre-announcements before the show, leaving not as many new things to see live at the show and stealing some thunder from what otherwise would perhaps pique our collective geek interest.  We'd have to say that Intel's Wireless Display Technology demo definitely impressed us more than just about anything we've seen thus far, though we're not quite done yet, if you can believe that. 

Regardless, we're looking forward to the day that we can test Intel's new Wireless Display Technology on our own.  We'll be sure to keep you posted as we get product in hand.  In the mean time, we'd like to thank Intel for making the trip to Vegas a little more worth while.