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Intel officially offers widgets for mashing, but why?

April 22nd, 2008

by Al Merkrebs, April 22, 2008 @ 3:55 p.m. PDT

This morning chip giant Intel publicly rolled out Mash Maker, a browser plugin that allows users to easily customize any Web page by clicking and inserting widgets onto the page.

The question is why would Intel enter this arena, when similar mash tools, like Yahoo! Pipes and Microsoft Popfly, have been out for a while?

Eariler this month, Intel VP of Research Andrew A. Chien presented a paper entitled, “Live Large; Everyday Sensing and Perception,” which described Intel’s “Carry Small, Live Large” research initiative.

This initiative focuses on Intel’s development of Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) that “will be more aware of their users and context in everyday activities and environments, with sensors and inference,” according to Chien.

At this presentation, Chien highlighted “a mobile-sensing platform, designed to act as a fitness device with a multitude of data-reporting,” which, he said, “fell under the banner of human activity recognition.” (See this article.)

So where does Mash Maker fit into all of this?

Mash Maker may be providing Intel with early data on human activity and environments. We note that Mash Maker cannot run without logging in the first time. It remembers your login after that. So, is Intel collecting our activity data, hoping to use it in its MID development?

The connection may be plausible, since during his MID presentation Chien referenced what became today’s release of Mash Maker.

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