Intel's platforms underpin high tech applications in region's newly developed homes

As the property market booms in the Middle East, and with developers focusing on state of the art services to add to the quality of life of their residents, Intel unveiled a combination of hardware and software technologies that will allow consumers to enjoy more digital content simultaneously. The new PC 'platform' also delivers key features to enrich and improve the home entertainment experience supporting surround-sound audio, high-definition video and enhanced graphics capabilities - helping consumers to create a cinema like experience right inside the home. The new platform was showcased in the ultra modern setting of "Le Reve" penthouse apartment in Dubai, where a combination of Intel's key fellow travellers, channel members and a select audience were invited to a demonstration showcasing the latest in digital home usage models.

"With consumers increasingly appreciating the combination of high speed broadband Internet access and the growing availability of rich Internet content, the hardware and software technologies we are announcing today will help home PC users to get more out of their home entertainment experience" said Ferhad Patel, Intel's marketing development manager in the Middle East Turkey and Africa.

The new technology delivers key features to enrich and improve the home entertainment experience supporting surround-sound audio, high-definition video and enhanced graphics capabilities - helping consumers to create a cinema like experience right inside the home.
"As property developers, our primary concern is the experience our customers have at Le Reve," said Andrew Lemon, Le Reve Tower's Marketing Director, "Today, technology is a key lifestyle element, which is why we are focused on making the smartest devices available in our apartments, to take our residents' quality of life to unprecedented levels.'

The Intel® Pentium® D processor is the foundation of the new PC platform from Intel. It has two processing cores - or "brains" - to process more tasks simultaneously, which is also called "multitasking".

The Intel® 945 Express Chipset family is the second component of the new platform. These chipsets are the 'glue' between the microprocessor and the rest of the PC. PCs based on the new platform are equipped with impressive multimedia functions.

Sharper pictures and smoother graphics - With the new Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950 3D graphics performance increases nearly two times over previous generations. Moreover, it enables delivery of vivid colors and enriched picture quality on the PC and support for a number of wide screen displays, including the latest high-definition TV formats like 1080i.
TV on the Home PC - The Intel® GMA 950 provides support for an optional Media Expansion Card to bring TV shows right to the home PC including capabilities for picture-in-picture to view two TV channels at once, and personal video recorder features to watch, record or pause live TV.

Theatre like surround sound audio quality - Consumers can enjoy incredible audio quality on their PC with Intel® High Definition Audio that supports up to 7.1 surround sound and the ability to send multiple audio streams to multiple rooms or devices in the home simultaneously through the PC's output jacks.

Protecting precious digital memories - With the growing number of people storing irreplaceable digital pictures and video on their PCs, the optional Intel® Matrix Storage Technology provides quicker access to data and digital content, including photos, video and music, as well faster PC boot time. It also provides protection against data loss of consumers' valuable digital memories from hard disk failure.

Sharing entertainment around the home - As consumers increasingly look to enjoy their digital media and entertainment around the house on a range of different devices, with the installation of a home network and a digital media adapter, a PC based on the Intel® Pentium® D processor and the Intel® 945 Express Chipset enable people to enjoy music, video or games simultaneously in different rooms of the house.
For example, a child could play a 3D game on a PC, while the parents in the living room use a wireless network to watch a video on TV that is stored on the same PC. Or the parents may watch a high-definition movie with 7.1 surround sound, while the teenage daughter in her bedroom streams music from a PC playlist to a connected stereo system.

Research proves that Home PCs are increasingly used for entertainment and communication. A recent survey of market research company GMI shows that for many people around the world the PC is an indispensable part of their daily life.1 The vast majority of the 20,000 questioned persons from 20 countries declared to no more want to abandon their home PCs. With the exception of the USA the GMI poll found that 75 percent of consumers ranked the PC as their must-have technology, compared to 67 percent for TV.
With the introduction of the new PC platform Intel is enabling this trend further and has made a large step to fulfill the vision of the digital home.