Intel at CES 2014: beautiful smartwatches, tiny PCs, and a headset named Jarvis

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich unveiled the chipmaker's new wearable prototypes at yesterday's keynote address. Among the reference designs was a pair of smart earbuds with biometric capabilities, designed to track the user's run, record burned calories, and read their heart rate. Intel is showing off the design at its booth at CES. The earbuds are lightweight but bulky — presumably to house all those sensors — but won't require a separate power source for a charge. Intel says that developers will also be able to develop especially for the device.

When you think of McAfee, you might think of the Intel-owned antivirus software company, or you might think of the former druggie and part-time fugitive who founded that company over 20 years ago. Or perhaps both. Either way, Intel is attempting to sever that inconvenient association. At CES 2014 in Las Vegas, the company has announced that it will be phasing out the McAfee brand name for its security software in favor of the simpler "Intel Security." According to an Intel representative, the company named McAfee will still stick around as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel, but the software rebranding will begin immediately. The company estimates it may take a year to complete.

Out of all the things that John McAfee has done that may or may not create negative associations with the McAfee brand name, this might have been the most direct: a viral video John McAfee released in June of last year, entitled "How To Uninstall McAfee Antivirus" and filled with drugs, guns, and profanity. You have been warned.

Intel announced today that it will no longer rely on minerals sourced from war-torn regions to produce their processors. During the keynote, CEO Brian Krzanich stepped aside to present a video discussing the minerals needed to produce the chips in everyday technology and how they're obtained. The company paid special attention to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country whose bloody perpetual war, funded by the sale of diamonds and essential metals like tin and tungsten, has claimed millions of lives in the last 15 years. Intel ended the presentation on the difficult question of how to solve this industry-wide problem, and committed itself to trying to change course in a meaningful way.

It barely got a mention at Intel's CES 2014 press conference this evening, but Dual OS is real. The company confirmed that Intel processors will power computers that can switch between Windows and Android with the press of a button, just like the Asus Transformer Book Duet we tried earlier today. Intel demonstrated the technology on a laptop during the company's press conference, right after introducing "Intel Device Protection Technology," an idea that should help Intel-based Android devices meet corporate standards for enterprise security.

Intel isn't the only company pursuing Windows and Android in the same device here at CES, however. Earlier today, AMD announced a partnership with BlueStacks to run fullscreen and windowed Android apps within Windows itself, with the help of an ARM processor core inside new AMD chips that can run some Android code natively. That sounds more like the experience we had with the Samsung Ativ Q's combination of Windows and Android back in June — though that technology was branded "Dual OS" rather than identifying itself as a BlueStacks solution.

Intel built a processor for wearable computing, and now it has a tiny computer where that processor can live. At CES 2014, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced Edison, "a full Pentium-class PC" that's the size and shape of the SD card you might otherwise put in your camera. It's powered by a dual-core Quark SOC, runs Linux, and has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, according to the company. Intel even has a specific app store designed for Edison, and a special version of Wolfram that will come to the tiny computer.

To demonstrate the potential for Edison, Intel showed a concept for a "Nursery 2.0." In the concept, a baby was wearing a Mimo onesie outfitted with sensors tracking things like temperature, and Edison was used to display that information on, of all things, a coffee mug. When the baby was comfortable, blinking lights on the mug show a happy green smiling face, but when something is wrong that face turns red. A much more useful application, however, involved using Edison to switch on a bottle warmer when your baby starts to stir, that way it's ready come feeding time.

Intel just announced that in the coming year, it's partnering with fashion industry leaders like Barneys, The Council of Fashion Designers of America (the CFDA), and global fashion retailer Opening Ceremony to develop smart wristwear. The first product of the collaboration will be a smart bracelet concept powered by Intel technology and designed by Opening Ceremony. Barneys will carry the smart bracelet, Intel says, but there's no word on exactly what the bracelet will do. Will it bear Bluetooth and LEDs that flash when you get a text, perhaps, or NFC Swarovski crystals? We'll have to wait and see.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has announced that Intel is developing its own Smart Watch, looking to compete with the likes of Pebble and Samsung in the wearable space. Unlike its competitors, the device needn't be tethered to a smartphone to function since it has its own connectivity. It also features geofencing, allowing it to give the wearer notifications based on location.

Intel is paying greater attention to smaller devices this year, unveiling a range of wearable reference devices at the keynote. "Wearables are not everywhere today because they aren't yet solving real problems and they aren't yet integrated with our lifestyles," said Krzanich in a statement. "We're focused on addressing this engineering innovation challenge." Intel has also developed what it calls Intel Edison, a chip the size of an SD card and powered by Quark SOC that promises to turn devices like the smart watch prototype into wireless computers.