BANGALORE, INDIA: Technology serves its purpose when it aids people who really need it. Incidentally, a major part of the research at Intel Labs is now towards finding new applications for technologies, which can be used to transform people's lives.

Intel Corp.'s senior fellow, vice president, Director - Corporate Technology Group (CTG) and CTO, Justin Rattner says: "CTG works on a variety of advanced computing technologies such as ultra mobility, long battery life, high performance per watt and rich sensing, which will deliver an unprecedented level of mobile computing capability that is well suited to emerging markets. In fact we are now seeing numerous new areas of applications like education, health and entertainment."

Mobile health monitoring is seen as a new area of application for handheld devices. There is a lot of research happening at Intel on handheld devices being used for physiological sensing.

Justin Rattner demonstrated of a mobile health monitoring research prototype co-developed by Intel India and Intel US teams. This research prototype monitors multiple physiological parameters using a wireless body area network.

This information acquired will be used to investigate the challenges associated with wireless mobile health monitoring such as ease of use, mobility, power efficiency and reliability. This research is expected to lead to enhanced mobility solutions, continuity of care and remote monitoring.

"In future, with the help of such devices, we will be able to remotely monitor the health parameters and even the movements of a person on real-time basis. Imagine rescuing a person having heart attack or a stroke with the help of technology," said Vittal Kini, Director, Intel India Research Center.

Intel sees preventive care very relevant to Indian market. The company hopes that new researches in the healthcare segment will help improve access and reduce the overall cost of health care especially for the rural poor.

Mobile health monitoring is expected to bring care to the doorsteps of the underserved population in the coming years.

Rattner also said that the Intel India Research Center, which is part of CTG, is working with the US team to bring out the next-generation tera-scale research chip by later this year.

The group is also focusing on other areas of research including platform infrastructure research, advanced packaging and cooling research, trust and security research and multi-function platforms research.

Rattner said that challenges grow as technologies advance. He added: "Now we are talking about whole computing platforms being integrated into one single chip. Though it opens up tremendous opportunities, it takes efforts to overcome the physical limit.  That's why we come up with new materials. So, innovation needs to be constant."